Hi, Letareus! Really long posts, but I read them and I'm happy to see how much progress you have made. You probably have the same GP that I have, and you get more crystals per day than me :D (Congrats!).
-I 7-starred Death Trooper in 1 month and a few days (late March through April). Excellent toon, useful for many different things.
- Farming Shoretrooper and Tie Reaper once that node is available and you have mastered it os an excellent plan. I farm it every day without exception.
-Your transition to a Palpatine team in Squad Arena was very foreseeable. Some people switch to Wiggs+CLS, others use Sith, Empire, Nightsisters... but eventually, PX become a secondary team in your roster. They are still great.
-Bounty Hunters - I mostly use Boba. Bounty hunters are so so in squad arena, but they work great in many other areas. My problem with them is the farming conflict they have with other stuff: CLS characters from the squad arena store (IG-88 vs StHan or Princess Leia), Dengar and Zam compete with the gear I buy with guild currency, Zam is available in fleet shipments, but I prioritize some pilots and ships from there over Zam. Cada Bane is very easy to farm, but he is very bad in his current state. Bossk isnt available as F2P yet, it will be months until he is farmable.
In my opinion, prioritize CLS toons over having 5 maxed bounty hunters. CLS helps with all raids. In the meantime, Boba Fett fits into many other teams.
-Nightsisters: I made the following decision, I had to either farm NS from scratch (I only had Talia, the Zombie and Ghost), or have some teams that kill them. I opted to build Imperial troopers as a side project. Fun thing, my arena squad with Tarkin (XII), Vader, Palpatine (gear X), TFP and Boba Fett (gear X) usually win vs. Nightisisters. The key? I got Vader and Tie Fighter pilot, 2 of my best pilots, to full gear 12.5 (gear 12 plus the 3 additional pieces that make their combat stats soar). How well geared my enemy's NS are also need to be taken into account. Debuffs, AoE's, ability blocks, being able to use huge damage abilities like culling blade or execute really destroy NS. Talia is their cleanser, so if she is part of the enemy squad, I ability block her ASAP and then kill Old Daka + Mother Talzin fast. The glorious Empire has different formulas to deal with NS.
For roster comparison:
https://swgoh.gg/u/imperialcommandershepard/collection/
Our assets are quite similar, we have invested on the same toons for the mostpart. However, since February, I have exclusively farmed gear with guild currency, not characters. I also have a shard shop strategy to buy stuff from the shard shop at the expense of expanding my roster (temporary hoold on farming newer characters from 2 stores), and I'm getting really valuable gear from the shard shop.
This would require careful analysis, you may need to farm something from cantina battrle store or from Galactic war shipments... in my case, I decided to stop farming characters and ships after I had 7starred the main things I needed, and I just get tons of shard fodder every day. This strategy is helpful when you are at a certain stage and have very specific plans. I will eventually go back to farming characters from those 2 shops. The main things I'm 100% farming whenevert they show up: Mark VII Merr Sonn shield generators, Mark V stun Guns and Mark X Tagge Holo lenses.
At some point, you have to make sacrifices to get your best toons to gear XI and XII.It will help you a lot, but it will also help your guild in TW and TB.
P.S: Switching to a stronger guild affiliated with my previous one has helped tons. A stronger guild will get you access to more Han and General Kenobi shards, plus more guild currency to buy gear.
