Quick question, how is your fleet arena going?
Reason I ask is because your best bet on a young shard is zMaul if you can put a zeta on him in the next month or so.
Your squad will look like:
zMaul, Sith Assassin, Savage Opress, Sith Trooper, and DN
Sith Assassin should be at least +90 speed (a speed set is the easiest way to achieve this). The rest should be about +70 to +80 average.
This team will hold you in the top 5 easily if you can farm the mods and put the zeta on Maul within about a month. Most of the people on your leaderboard won't even have zetas for another couple months, and many won't have the mods to make their team unbeatable for a long time. By then you will have plenty of options from the crystals you are taking at payout.
Your other options are DN lead, which isn't bad on offense, but tends to drop more on defense. zVader lead, which is about the same as DN lead. Problem with these leads is that you need really great speed mods to keep up, since they are slow and don't get much in the way of TM manipulation.
You could also go for a triple cleanse squad if you are close to unlocking GK. Otherwise, I'd stick with Sith. You can throw GK in for Sith trooper as well in a zMaul team.
These are all just things to consider. Having a zeta as fast as possible, and farming better mod sets will keep you competitive. You need to average like +10 to +12 speed secondaries on a team like DN or zVader lead, even on an early shard, to stay competitive. Sith Assassin can help with speed on a zVader team, but performs much better under zMaul.
Good luck on your journey!
