Phoenix > Empire

One of the most efficient starts in the game

Why is this always recommended ?

Phoenix (Phx) is farmable day-1, whether you’re Free-to-Play (F2P) or not. They have amazing synergy for a day-1 farm. They unlock two legendaries (Thrawn and Palpatine) and two of them (Ezra and Kanan) are Jedi, which means they count toward your 5 Jedi to unlock Grand Master Yoda (GMY).

As unlocks go, the requirements in terms of gear, this is not a massive commitment either. And the further down the rabbit hole you go, the harder it will be to force yourself to go back and farm these. They basically go on the shelf as soon as you get Thrawn to 7* (and therefore Palp, because that’s easier). Mine are still gear 8 (g8) after unlocking Thrawn not long after I started playing.

Phx is the first step towards bigger and better things. It’s not punishment.

The Phx Part

There are 6 of them, but Sabine only needs to be unlocked. No more. She’s not useful at this stage. You only need her unlocked so you can use her ship (Phantom II).

The ones you want are :
Hera (Cantina 1-F),
Ezra (Cantina 2-B),
Chopper (Cantina Store)
Kanan (Squad Arena Store), and
Zeb (Galactic War Store).

They only need to get to 7* g8. Which isn’t much in the game anymore. You’ll want their unique abilities maxed (that includes the omegas). Maxing out a few strong basic abilities will give them a bit more punch. Maybe Ezra’s basic to add to his damage, or Chopper’s basic to lower cooldowns (CDs) more often, etc.. There’s absolutely no need to put Zetas on them.

Their mods will make a difference in their performance.
Hera, Ezra and Chopper want speed. That means more Hera revives, more dispells, more assists from Zeb, more chances to reduce cooldowns, etc.. (You can mod Ezra back to damage after the Thrawn & Palp events.)
Kanan just wants to be tanky. For the Thrawn event, it helps a little if he’s at high turn meter when entering the final phase.
Zeb wants maximum potency. He needs to land his stuns. He is the real MVP here. He is your control piece. He’s the one you always call to assist with Hera and Ezra.

The Palp event is easier than the Thrawn event, but stick with it. Keep going till he’s 7*. At this gear level, it might take a whole bunch of tries. Make sure you get those buffs off those Death Troopers and get rid of them as soon as possible. Sticking in the time to try RNG will be better than sacrificing more gear on your Phx squad.

Once Thrawn (and therefore Palp) are both 7*, Phx can go on the shelf. I haven’t upgraded them ever since, aside from some mod upgrades over time.

The Empire (Emp) Part

So now you have Palp and Thrawn. You’re getting Vader shards automatically. This is a fantastic combo, even at endgame. Vader gains speed through his kit (Palp & Vader count double because they have both an Empire and a Sith tag), so he can get the Palp Train going. All the debuffs he lands will add tonnes of turn meter ™ to the team. And between the three of them, they have loads of crowd control to take out the enemy. You shouldn’t really need a tank.

As for the other two to fill up the squad, you have loads of options. Palp’s lead works with Empire as well as Sith, so there is a choice there. If you want to get R2-D2 (R2) after, you’ll need five Empire characters (Emp chars). If not, you might as well consider Sith too.

Tarkin is common. You will need him for his Capital Ship (cap.ship) (Executrix) anyway, because that gets you zeta materials (mats). Tarkin adds to the debuffs and his area of effect (AoE) ability reduces enemy turn meter, giving you an even bigger advantage.
TIE Fighter Pilot (TFP) is common because he’s a quick farm. He’s got a ship (which does lose viability after a while). And it’s a very fast char with AoE Buff Immunity, which is an incredibly powerful debuff.

Let’s go crazy here. Let’s talk Bastila Shan Fallen (BSF). She makes every Sith lead squad better and she’s needed for Darth Revan (DR) later, if that’s something you’re after.

But aside from the above examples, there are many that will work on this squad. It’s best to look ahead and consider what you need on the route you want to take and pick something that has overlap. Just make sure it’s not something that takes half a year. Because if Phx is all you have aside from this, you want to get this squad up and running first.

Route Recommendation

This is basically step one. So pick any route to follow this up. You can do the R2-D2 (R2) event with an Emp squad. You can do the GMY event with 5 Jedi, of which you have two already. GMY’s event is easy, basically any 5 will do.

I will say that it might be a bit early to start a Galactic Legend (GL) farm now. Then again, Sith Eternal Emperor (SEE) and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (JML) can be considered. Just be sure to read up on things before you commit to something like that. Consider this route done.