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!
