Using the "Pillar" farming guide, how do I catch up in Fleet Battles?

"Kai_Mulai;c-1474230" wrote:
A mistake I made was farming Jedi Consular’s starfighter, Clone Sergeant’s ARC-170, and Resistance pilot’s X-Wing to 4* just because I had them. Instead, I should have focused on the ships I want in endgame and what’s needed to get them. Also, keep in mind that your fleet power can jump by 20,000 points when you unlock a good ship.

JC's ship is great for pushing through to the zeta challenge (which requires 8 non—capital ships at 5* minimum). If you only farm end—game ships you will delay yourself due to slow farms like Tie Reaper, Scimitar and Tie Advanced. IMO you will need to farm a few of the mid—game ships as well, to gain access to zetas earlier.

Hi! I'm F2P and I finish my arena fleet as #2 at the time of my payout each day. I like Warrior's videos and his pillar system, with some caveats. I saw it as maybe good for someone planning to rank 25-100 in fleets arena for a long time, and eventually climb to upper brackets. There is nothing wrong with that, some people get their crystals from Squad Arena or simply don't like the ship battles too much.

However, if your plan as F2P or low spender is to crack top 5 soon after unlocking ships and never get pushed out of it (which means access to more resources and establishing a power gap with respect to 10th and below), the guide falls a bit short in that aspect. I am not invalidating the guide, it's very coherent, logical and systematic. I give it a 10/10 in terms of planning for legendary events and to do well in Squad Arena.

For ships, I would simply move things around some of the pillars, which is precisely what adaptation is.

My 2 cents:

1. Ackbar and Tarkin are the best starting capital ships. I used Windu for a time (first 2 weeks) and I'm happy I didn't put too many resources into it. The 2 most important resources acquired with ships (ship ability mats+Zetas and ship building materials) require Home one and Executrix. Home One also will be needed for the Chimera.

Mace Windu can be difficult to handle in the beginning if your damage output isn't high enough or if you lack a dispeller like Ahsoka/Vader's Tie Advanced. I got Ahsoka as my 3rd ship from the stores (first got Biggs Xwing and FO Tie Fighter). My fleet shard soon removed all mace windu's fleets from top 10 after 2-3 weeks. Mace Windu isn't used very well on defense by the AI.

2. Vader's Tie and Slave 1 are incredible ships, it's like night and day when you unlock one or both of them before your shard oppnents. It took me from finishing 8th-5th to straight up finishing 3rd and 2nd every night. They're long farms, you should keep fleet cureency available and snatch those shards whenever they show up. It'll take time, but these really valuable ships should require time and effort, it makes sense.

3. KRU and his Tie Silencer weren't in Cantina when I unlocked ships, it's an amazing deal for anyone unlocking ships right now. It's fast and powerful like the other 2 Ties, and it's easier to farm both pilot and ship to 7 stars thanks that cantina node. Since I'm collecting 350-375 crystals from fleets daily (as F2P, this is amazing for me), I can do cantina refills and farm him and Ezra/Hera all thanks to my success in fleets. EDIT: I farmed the Imperial Tie Fighter pilot to 7 stars first, but you don't have to do it this way.

If you're ever told that you have to choose between being competitive in fleets and building strong Rebel/Empire squads, it's not true. Phoenix characters also have 2 very competent ships. Ghost and Phantom are excellent with Ackbar and one or two additional rebel ships. They can be included in a Tarkin fleet as well. My fleet payouts allow me to do lots of refills everyday and get my Phoenix characters :)

4. Hard Node pilot farming. I'm limiting myself to hard nodes because you're the best judge as to how to manage your currencies in the different stores. These hard nodes I'm going to suggest are the ones I farmed daily to maintain my top 5 rank in fleets from the first few weeks. These characters can potentially be useful in other areas of the game, like arena and galactic war.

-Farm the First Order Tie Pilot from his 2 hard nodes daily. It's usually the first hard node farming I do every morning. Good character, and good ship.

-Biggs Darklighter has 1 Hard Node that can supplement his farming in other sections of the game.

-Sabine has 1 Hard Node, you have Phoenix and you want to use their ships. A stronger Sabine will make her ship much better.

- Personal decisions that may differ with other players' fleet compositions or playing style: Ahsoka Tano (two hard nodes available) and Jedi Consular (three hard nodes available). If you're planning to use JC's ship for a long time, farm his pilot casually from the hard nodes. I doubt this will interfere with your other farms. Ahsoka, only if you really want to have her ship as main dispeller. None of these 2 toons are regarded as OP, but I use them in GW and I use their ships, so I decided to casually and slowly farm them. No regrets.

5. Any 6 dark side starfighters will help you to get Zetas and to tier the Executrix later on. In order to tier Home One you need LS ships, in order to unlock Chimera, you need Rebel ships. You see a pattern here, when deciding to go after new LS ships, consider that Rebel ships work towards several goals while Republic ships (many of which are excellent, don't get me wrong) help as LS ships but don't help with Chimera in the long term.

6. I've summarized a few thoughts here, I mostly help my guildmates who recently unlocked fleets, And I can't be too misguided, since they are all ranking at the top of their fleet shards. Just by following a few suggestions and being disciplined (based primarily on their actual roster compositions), and knowing their ship abilities extremely well.

We are recruiting in my guild, by the way. Send me a PM if you'd like to join!

You can't do it all - I don't even understand how players manage it starting up now....

But if you have Phoenix and Scoundrels you're in a good spot.

Obviously Fett is going to be your main DS ship and you'll build around him to and aim to unlock the Zeta Challenge - probably focus on his slave 1 in the arena store whenever you see it. Better to focus on DS ships for the Challenge then maybe do a little better in Fleet Arena (but yeah, as above, Biggs is necessary for Arena). The Geonosian's and the two tie fighters can all be farmed out of the GW store, so it's slow, but probably your go to spot to star them up.

I didn't read the guide, but you would have benefitted from farming pilots on hard nodes. Farming them would not have interferred with farming Phoenix.

Biggs, Boba Fett and FOTP all have hard nodes.
JC and Ahsoka do as well, but their ships are not among the best for fleet arena — but they are not bad at all.

"catharsis478;c-1473998" wrote:
Use your fleet arena tokens to buy Phoenix ships; you'll probably want to grab Biggs and his ship; and you'll need 5 dark side ships at 5 or more stars (and another three) for the zeta ability materials challenge that opens once you hit level 78. Use GW and Fleet tokens for the fastest farm.

You will have to invest unlock and invest in your pilots, but Biggs + Phoenix + more should be plenty to get you going in fleet arena. Pick up TIE Advanced and Slave I (they'll help Biggs get his taunt up) then whichever dark side ships are easiest for you to get.

Oh awesome, I didn't realize that ship parts were from GW, that must have been added in after I hit 60. I'm leveling Biggs but don't have his ship yet, of course. Hoping that farming his ship and the Phoenix ships won't be too lengthy, so that I can stay in the 200-500 bracket.

"Waqui;c-1474025" wrote:
I didn't read the guide, but you would have benefitted from farming pilots on hard nodes. Farming them would not have interferred with farming Phoenix.

Biggs, Boba Fett and FOTP all have hard nodes.
JC and Ahsoka do as well, but their ships are not among the best for fleet arena — but they are not bad at all.

I have Boba and Biggs open, and I've done a little FOTP, but I still need their ships.

Hello friend. I am top 10 in my fleet shard, also went with phoenixes. Do as I did and I am sure you will do great: 0. You dont need to buy anything, but if you wish to, I believe out of all the starteres, the kylo ship is by far the best
1. Everyone starts with the same starter ships. So no worries about somebody seriously outgunning you. Untill ship shards start coming in, you can probably win every fight by just outplaying the AI.
2. buy phoenix ships as soon as they appear in the shop. Galactic tokens should be focused on getting biggs, and after that you can alternate between biggs/FOTIE/TIE. Keep in mind TIE and FOTIE appear a lot less often as biggs (you will get at least 4 biggs shards every day, while TIE and FOTIE appear once every 2-3 days)
3. Mace is by far the best STARTER commander. The reason is that his taunt/frequent turns give you a big edge while your ships are low in power. Also his invincibility counters Moff ultimate. Ackbar is a very good midgame leader, while moff/chimaera hold the late game meta (Ackbar can still compete but he just doesn't have a wrecker ultimate like Moff).
4. You should farm KRU in Cantina (stage 3). His ship is very good early and midgame, and will probably be your first 7* ship. He can oneshot a lot of ships or cripple them very hard, and the droprate is one of the best ingame at the moment.
5. Always save 400 fleet arena tokens. The reason is that you NEED Vader TIE and Slave. Vader TIE is quite rare, and Vader shards are the rarest. So buy them in this order: Vader TIE >Vader>Slave>phoenixes. Slave is good but he is not Vader good.
6. Decide whether you want Ashoka/fives ship. The reason for that is that those 2 are the only early game dispells. Ashoka is more reliable, while fives has a better ship (Fives needs target lock to dispel). A lot of people lose fleet battles because biggs taunted at the wrong time or Mace keeps taunting you off those 10% ships. This is not as important as the rest for early, but it will eventually start to matter more and more. You should put Ashoka into your Galactic rotation (NOT FLEET SHARD) When you unlock biggs. Her ship is very common there, I've had 2 of her shards at once in my shop. Fives is also quite frequent, but not as much.
7. Farm FO tie fighter from hard nodes. You have 2 of them total, you will get at least 3-4 shards per day. I would also advise to farm Sabine, but that is entirely up to you. As soon as you unlock her, you can use her ship. FOTIE is one of the best damage ships in the game, his TM gains are insane as soon as you target lock someone and he has a double basic attack.

A mistake I made was farming Jedi Consular’s starfighter, Clone Sergeant’s ARC-170, and Resistance pilot’s X-Wing to 4* just because I had them. Instead, I should have focused on the ships I want in endgame and what’s needed to get them. Also, keep in mind that your fleet power can jump by 20,000 points when you unlock a good ship.

"LaksonVell;c-1474150" wrote:
Hello friend. I am top 10 in my fleet shard, also went with phoenixes. Do as I did and I am sure you will do great: 0. You dont need to buy anything, but if you wish to, I believe out of all the starteres, the kylo ship is by far the best -snip-

Thanks!

1.) I understand, and maybe I'm just really bad, but I find that the starting ships struggle a lot against the AI. I just need to "git gud" for now.
2.) Working on it, Zeb is 7 stars so I'm splitting my tokens between Biggs and whatever ship I can get.
3.) Thanks! I was using Ackbar because I have him at two stars (events just fell that way I guess.) I noticed that Mace AI was wrecking me. Speaking of Admirals, how much does their "level" matter? My Mace Windu is really garbage (level 36, green gear, ship is level 1.) I'm trying to conserve my limited fleet resources as much as possible.
4.) Is it worth stopping my Phoenix farm? They're all 5 star (except for Zeb, who is 7 star, and Sabine, who is 2 star.) I've been primarily using Cantina for Ezra.
5 & 6.) Sold.
7.) I checked and I have FO Tie Fighter unlocked at starting stars plus a few extra shards. Same with Sabine. I'll try to get more of their shards. I just wish their nodes had ship shards as well.

"Kai_Mulai;c-1474230" wrote:
A mistake I made was farming Jedi Consular’s starfighter, Clone Sergeant’s ARC-170, and Resistance pilot’s X-Wing to 4* just because I had them. Instead, I should have focused on the ships I want in endgame and what’s needed to get them. Also, keep in mind that your fleet power can jump by 20,000 points when you unlock a good ship.

It's something I struggle with mainly because your fleet token income is tied to your arena performance. Same why I focus so hard on my arena team. But I suppose even falling past 500 just means I get 800 per day instead of 1000 (which definitely adds up, but it's not like I get nothing.)