F2P player here who hasn't spent a dime (yet) and I couldn't be happier with my team... I ranked in at 3'677 in the last arena.
My very first 5* was a Lucina with a 173 rating. The following day I pulled a 5* Azura and Takumi in the same batch. I also got Julia and Effie when the new characters came out. I often switch between Julia and Takumi because while Takumi is great for defense, Julia's heals and ability to take out armored units as is rather useful. Also Hectors are the one thing that can meta Takumi but is completely useless against Lucina. A lot of people are building around Takumi so it's kind of moot right now imho.
As for my highest rating hero. I think that goes to Effie. She's so broken at 50 health, 58 attack, 33 defense, 22 speed, and 20 Resilience. Though in Arena she will normally sit at 62 attack from Lucina's buff and gain a Resistance buff from Azura. She really an armored truck that just eats her enemies.
I'm debating on who the spend my feathers on though. I'm leaning to Camilla because I need a strong Axe user for events, but Chrom and Hana have their uses as well but none of these will really benefit my core team, at least not at this point. I'm even leaning toward Sakura for power leveling others. In the end I'll benefit for events with Camilla so I might go with that or hold on to them until I have enough to throw around for the hell of it.
