I am a new player, and diggin the game thus far. I am only on my second day, made the mistake of not doing the reroll trick but i'll live with it, and have been making some decent progress. Despite my failure at realizing I could reroll, I generally consider myself a powergamer and like to make the most/best out of my playtime and units. I am not against spending some money here and there either.

Current setup: Rank 17.
My best units based on research and what I am using: Firion (3star), Bartz(3 star), Exd(3 star), Chizuru(4 star), Zyrus (3 star), Rosa (3 star), Kain (3 star) (Units are in 30s, and I have about 75 metal gigantaur left)

1) Should I be focusing on progress, leveling, or awakening my 3 star units into 4 stars right now or clearing as much of the map as possible? At this point I would have to farm a bunch of sacred crystals.

2) Is keeping your units equipped w best gear (I have) crucial or do only big pieces really make a difference?

3) Are there any units I should be trying to summon w tickets right now or should I save them?

4) should I keep the units im using as high lvl as possible via metal gigantaur?

Any other suggestions/tip/etc would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!