A Youngling's Illustrated Primer
How to know what to farm and when.
Hello.
My name is Kahzgul. You may know me from my shockingly above average conquest guide, the incredible seething hatred I hold for the Inquisitorus faction, or that one time I opened up photoshop just to shit on CG's art team underpaid and overworked intern.
But I'm not here to talk to you about that today.
No, I'm here to speak to all of the young men, women, and bith of the SWGoH community, and to help you help yourself when it comes to determining what to farm, when to farm it, and whether blue or green milk tastes better (it's green; I'll explain why later).
You see, every day, a little boy or girl posts something that asks the question, "should I farm this (endgame content)?" And I have been moved by their plight. There is no greater good than that of a good soldier following orders, and second to that, love of the empire, but third - a distant third - is raising the younglings to become powerful sand people, in their prime, ready to take on the OH GOD IT'S ANAKIN AND WHAT IS HE DOI---
I'm sorry about that. The previous writer has been sacked. Or, rather, diced into tiny barbecue squares by a bloodthirsty jedi master, who - despite his great acumen - was not granted a seat on the council. Quite unfair. If something like that were to happen to me, well, I'm quite sure I'd team up with the wrinkliest old fart I could find and straight murder everyone in one of those school lightsaberings you read about in the news. Can you believe we're up to nearly 2 lightsaberings per day? It's absurd. This entire republic is rotten to the core and you can just feel the need for a strong leader to step in, impose a military dictatorship, and start blowing up entire planets. Did you know my sister lives on Alderaan? I think that's where we should st---
Sorry about that. That writer has also been sacked. And the person responsible for the first sacking was also sacked. What we were trying to do was to answer the question: Should i farm this very expensive shiny new endgame content with my brand new account that doesn't even have CLS unlocked yet?
The answer to this question is, as you probably expect, a long winded parable about some nonsense or other that has nothing to do with anything and serves no purpose at all excepting to remind you that the author has recently been watching an awful lot of Monty Python and that this is, in fact, an ex-parrot.
Actually, the answer is another question:
Should you, who earns only $36,000 per year, buy your 15 year old with their learner's permit a ferrari as their first car?
Of course you should! N't. You shouldn't.
That joke works better if you say it out loud. Like that joke where the guy goes to the doctor and says he's got a penis stuck in his throat and the doctor says how do you know and the guy says well look and then you rub your adam's apple a bunch and spit on your friend to whom you're telling the joke. Text just doesn't do it justice.
So, and now we've finally arrived at the helpful guide portion of this ramble, how is one to determine for themselves whether or not they should farm something? The self-determination part is really important. I like to live by this age-old adage: If you give a man a fire, he's warm for a night, but if you set him on fire he's warm for the rest of his life.
The answer is that, much like an elderly politician of your choosing's undergarments, it depends.
CG has, over the years, released three type of shiny and new things:
One is what I'll call the "Jedi Knight Revan" style of new thing. 5 brand new characters come out who are required to get a 6th brand new and powerful character. Darth Revan, Starkiller, Dr. Aphra, Jedi Cal Kestis, and Baylon Skoll are all good examples of this sort of release. You can go after these right away if you like. There's no real barrier to entry and you can get something shiny and new out of the investment.
The second is the "The Solo Movie" style of thing. Sometimes CG just adds some shit and it sucks ass for a really long time. Rogue One (okay now thanks to AdRad but that was several years later), Young Han Solo and friends (nest was cool), the Inks when they first came out and really even still if you're not at the point where you can get GI or Reva... stuff like that.
And the third is the "Jedi Master Luke" style of thing. MOST of the shiny and new things CG adds build off of other things that were, at one time, shiny and new all on their own. These things are pretty easy for older players to go after because they already have all of the earlier requirements completed, but new players are going to find that earning this sort of thing is nigh impossible. I mean you need JKL which means you need the Wampa... Sometimes the chains of requirements are quite long.
For example, Leviathan needs you to have the Fury-Class Interceptor, which needs Malgus to pilot it, both of which need you to have been near max-crating conquest for a long time, which means you're well over 4M GP and don't need this guide anyway (but if you read this far, please know that I appreciate you more than padme appreciated Keira Knightley).
What I'm saying is, the journey guide isn't particularly good at telling you whether a farm is reasonable or not. Some farms require r8 and r9 characters, and those are hard to get for people who are in 300M GP guilds, let alone people who aren't sure if a 20M GP guild will take them (sorry, Egnards; we're really looking for someone with a 7 star lobot for DS Hoth platoons).
This game is a game about patience, first and foremost. It's also a game about space lasers and butchering amazing music by changing the song every time a button is pressed (which de facto makes it a game about turning off the sound of the game entirely). And it's a game about investment.
Where do you get the best return on investment for your limited resources?
Almost never farm new and shiny things. I don't care how candy-like the red button looks, Ren and Stimpy absolutely will not - oh. He pressed it. Well, if you have the impulse control of an anthropomorphic cartoon cat drawn by an army of lunatics balls deep in LSD, you should call 1-800-GAMBLER and seek help. I've heard 1 in 10 people who calls that number wins a prize! Also I can sing the entire "Log™" song from memory, which probably tells you a lot about the sort of person I am.
Your best return is going to be going for things that were new and shiny about a year ago, and it will remain your best return right up until you start running out of things to farm that fit that description (several years from now). Now, even that description leaves a - w i d e - array of things you could be going after. So which to choose? Well, with an eye towards the distant future, I recommend going after characters and ships first, and gear second. A roster with every character at 7 stars and G1 is better in my mind than one with five characters at r9 and no one else unlocked (although if you had everyone at G1 and 7 stars you're certainly cheating so... grain of salt). Characters who unlock other characters should be prioritized over ones who just sit there looking stupid (or, in CUP's case, being a badass meme guy).
If you're slightly farther along, I'd say it's time to start thinking about how you catch up to the power curve of the game. Think of the curve as a wave you're trying to surf. You gotta paddle a bit to catch it, but once you do... you're golden. So you have to know where the wave is going to form, right? You can't just start surfing when you're still on the beach. That's lame. So you're going to want to get characters who get you more characters so you can hopefully get even more characters in the future.
There are two places to do that more than any other: Fleet Arena, where you earn daily crystals, which let you do more energy refreshes so you can earn more characters, and Conquest, where you earn new and shiny characters loooong before they're available to people who aren't maxing conquest every time. And the good news is that there's some overlap there - the fleet arena for newer players can be well handled by Executor, which needs Piett to pilot, and Piett is a key part of the Imp Trooper conquest team (Veers / Piett / Starck / Gideon / Range) which is all supports and runs a nasty turn meter train (and also can be used to complete not one but two Assault Battle events that reward relic mats and shards and stuff).
You'll need to buy two sets of relic 8 materials with crystals, probably. So save up a few!
If you've got executor, then I recommend going after JML and Wat next (along with the reqs for JML - JKL, wampa, CLS, Chewbacca, Bounty Hunters… this is a long list which should keep you busy for some time). The JML / Wat combo enables a LOT of cheese strategies in conquest. All of this will also help your GAC success.
If you've hit these benchmarks, then you've probably done enough that you have a sense of where your roster could benefit more. Remember to keep in mind "how does this help me get more characters" and you'll find you're doing very well.
TL;DR: Plan on being a year or more behind the release schedule of new characters, and you'll be able to stay astride of your fleet shard while climbing GAC ranks and prepping to dominate conquest when you get to 4M GP. Don't buy CG's marketing hype; take a "wait and see" approach to new characters and let the whales figure out who is good and who isn't before you spend time and energy on them.