Purple Matts

They're in challenges. You can buy them from arena, I believe. Quickly? My advice is don't work on 20 characters at a time. Work on 5-10. You will reach a point where you have hundreds of purples, and will be able to level up abilities on new toons right away.

Yeah that has been my mistake I have a ton of 7*, level 70, gear 8 characters (like 45) and then a Sith arena team that's just about maxed out. My issue is I want to have a team for any sort of even that comes up so I try to have at least 5 for each sub-category (Jawa, Ewok, Rebel, etc). I find with the baseline I use I am able to attempt any event the dev's throw our way but without purple mats they hit like wet noodles. I'm sure in a few months I'll be caught up and hording Purples just like blue and greens (over 1,000 in each). However right now there are characters i really want to buff (R2, Chirrut, etc.)

Resource management is the key. I level up abilities of characters i actually use. No point in spearing your resources on tons of characters. Thanks to resource management, I was able to get r2 abilities to max level right away (no zeta though)
Have some unlocked characters but with enough shards to get them 7* right away. No point on getting them 7* and leveling them if I don't plan on using them.


edit: trying to attack a picture

I have been flip flopping back and forth between teams since I started to prepare for this event or that event. or this raid, or ships since I started. Not one of the teams was something that wasn't on my list to begin with. I think I have done an excellent job of determining which needed the most attention at the time and farming appropriately.

All that being said, I still have many abilities I need to level on many toons, but I am finally at the point where I have no teams I absolutely "need" to farm up outside of a few more characters for offense and speed mod challenges, but I am most of the way that I need to be for those as well.

Don't be afraid to switch back and forth between your different teams as things unlock and priorities shift. Just try to be strategic about when you shift, and it will all work out.