On what ships to focus in the beginning

Slave 1, TIE Advanced, Scimitar, TIE Reaper
First Order TIE, Imperial TIE, Biggs X-Wing, Gauntlet Starfighter, Executrix (Chimaera better)

For zeta challenge: make any 5 dark side ship to 4star and 4star executrix (for making executrix to 5star)
and make any 8 ship (light or dark) to 5 star (for zeta challenge)

For chimaera: Home One, Ghost, Phantom II, +3 REBEL ships.
All 5 stars for a 5star Chimaera, All 6 for 6, All 7 for 7, just like any other legendary events (CLS is exception)

I mostly agree with @Ravens1113, but I would go for a few different ships. No matter what, you need 5 DS ships to start farming zetas, they are crucial. Imo the easiest/best 5 ships early and easy to get are the Slave 1, both TP’s, the tieadvanced, and either saxons or GS’ ship. Get 5 of them up enough and you’ll be rolling in extra zeta mats.

Now for arena, biggs, both TP’s, tie advanced, and I like Slavefor the fifth. That should allow you to hold top 20 daily. Reinforcements should be scimitar for the first, and kinda whoever for the others. I believe that a good enough can beat any team, this team though should give you a chance depending on the enemies RNG. (JC, Poe, Rex, both Phoenix ships, tie reaper, the millennium falcon, and kylos ship are all good choices, but some are tough farms.

Just remember, if fleet makes you more gems than arena, work harder on your fleet. 300 gems a day from fleet sure beats 100 from keeping up in the top 100 in arena.

Early Tarkin is not much better as a Flag ship then Ackbar.
I started with Wedge+Biggs+JC+Ashoka+FOTP - bench TFP, CloneSrg, GS
Now i run Wedge+Biggs+Boba+Vader+FOTP - bench Ashoka, TFP, JC

When i'll develop TFP more i will switch him for Wedge in the starting lineup.

Good ideas are also Scimitar and Umbaran. Would like to have them now :(
They would be both on my bench instead of Ashoka and JC.

Focus on wedge and tfp, then any ships that can proc target lock. Go for tarkin capital ship then chimera or chimera first if that's possible. Abandon PS ships and just use them until they can be replaced by ones with target lock. Scimitar is also a game changer as your first reinforcement.
A great strategy is to lose a ship, bring in scimitar, stealth all except tfp and then hope he dodges enough to get your tarkin ship TM going so you can use the special tie attack to win. That's the easiest way to win.

"Anakin_Skywalker;c-1375811" wrote:
TIE Reaper

Good luck focusing on that one at Level 60.

The tarkin meta fleet is quite good, easy to set up, useful for other parts of the game and zetas.

Biggs, tfp, fotp, vader, boba
Maul reibforcement is amazing early on

I would set those six ships and pilots as my priority, since they are great later as well.
Umbaran is good since he removes buffs from target locked enemies, and ahsoka removes buffs as well.

Later in the game, you might go for tie reaper or something.

However, since you mentioned phoenix ships for chimera, you should know that when maxed, they can make a great fleet as well later in the game with for example akbar, biggs, bistan and maul to reinforce. This may be something you want to play with later on.

The tarkin meta fleet is still what i would start with. You need alot of those characters elsewhere in the game, it can handle anything, and its a fleet that will dominate your shard at some point, and if you dont set ot up early, it will be harder to catch up.

Ds ships are important for zeta challenge but also the only legendary ship event is thrawn and you need akbar and 5 rebel ships at 7*

@Mobewan , how do you rank Ghost/Phantom II ships as a starting lineup and who to not use for an 8-ship fleet? Ghost, Biggs, X1, TFP, P II, Umbaran, Boba, Ahsoka,? or who would you prefer to replace with Scimitar? I've had trouble with Scimitar so rather keep him on bench. I have seen Scimitar work really well with Home One.

"GulSkiVader;c-1376245" wrote:
@Mobewan , how do you rank Ghost/Phantom II ships as a starting lineup and who to not use for an 8-ship fleet? Ghost, Biggs, X1, TFP, P II, Umbaran, Boba, Ahsoka,? or who would you prefer to replace with Scimitar? I've had trouble with Scimitar so rather keep him on bench. I have seen Scimitar work really well with Home One.

I'm not the one you're asking to, but I dare say phoenix ships are not as good as biggs + TIEs +boba +maul+(5s) AS a starting lineup (for beginners especially)
I've tried both, with tarkin lead. The latter put me to 1st everyday, the former put me to 29th or sth. I might be wrong but that's my personal experience.
Besides ships that have copilots take longer to grind up

"GulSkiVader;c-1376245" wrote:
@Mobewan , how do you rank Ghost/Phantom II ships as a starting lineup and who to not use for an 8-ship fleet? Ghost, Biggs, X1, TFP, P II, Umbaran, Boba, Ahsoka,? or who would you prefer to replace with Scimitar? I've had trouble with Scimitar so rather keep him on bench. I have seen Scimitar work really well with Home One.

A month ago i wouldn't have recommended ghost and phantom. You just ignore them and then go for sabines ship first

But one guy in my arena uses them fully maxed and now he has become difficult to beat. He uses akbar, bistan, biggs, ghost, phantom and a fifth ship (he uses wedge, i wouldnt) with maul as backup. So many cloaks going on, and if i kill his biggs, maul gives retribution to hera and she cant be target locked to dispel with my fives. Ahsoka would deal with her easily, but few have ahsoka on their starting lineup.

If you have them, try them with biggs and two target lockers (bistan if you have him) to give as much protection to biggs as possible. And keep maul as reinforcement. If the other side doesnt have a dispeller or daze, bring him out.