Short term, you have a few options. Vader with the new rework can beat most teams but won't hold on defense. Without wat tambor, it won't beat the gl unless you have god mods.
You could also use jkr for now. Reliving them isn't much of a waste since they are still pretty good. Relicing cls and co is also an option. Most will be needed for jedi Luke anyway at r3.
Long-term, I'd go for padme then gas. That should get you more competitive and give you another good team to use in the meantime.
Jedi Luke is another option as well though the requirements are steep. If you go that route I would relic jkr and co since you can plug jkl in that team later.
Or you could go with Darth revan/malak. I quit for 8 months too and my Darth revan with a 6 star malak only fell to about 200 in that time. I can stay in the top 50 or so with that team. But eventually that won't be the case.
But I would do all of those before going hard on Galactic Legends. Just because the requirements are so high.
Though you can do about 5 or 6 hard modes at a time with 3 refreshes a day so if you have the energy, I would farm shards fof that before paying to refresh nodes.
I also quit for 8 months but I already had dr and Pamela. My plan is to gear for gas and jedi Luke since I have the stars for everyone but Wampa and farm thg he characters for Galactic Legends.