You dont need chickens (turkeys) to upgrade your champions. You can use other champions instead.

For example:

If you have a 3* champion. You can take it to 4* by sacrificing 3 3* champions.

Common method is to keep upgrading common (white) and uncommon (green) champions to required number of stars and then feeding them into the champion you want to upgrade.

Lets say you want to get a 3* champion to 4* using common champions :

         - You will need to sacrifice 3 3* common -> for each 3* you will need to sacrifice 2 2* commons and for each 2* common you will need sacrifice 1 1* common.

         - So in total you will need to combine 18 1* common champions to get 3 3* champions to upgrade that one champion to 4* and then you can do the same to get it to 5* and eventually 6*

It is always better to have a few 6* champs than to have a lot of lower * champs.

Okay to me everything your describing is an early game player trying to transition into mid game, this is one of the hardest things to tackle for many reasons. The best thing for players like you are to focus on one team that can tackle multiple areas of the game. Next and probably most important is to get to dragon 13, thats where you can start to get 6 star gear. Not to mention dragon is the best place to farm for early-mid game players for lifesteal gear and speed gear. you should not really be worried about competing in tourneys unless your just doing your normal farming and you happen to notice your close to first then sure that relentless gear is good, but i would not whale out trying to win. long story short get to dragon 13 and farm it everyday, yes you are waiting for better gear to drop even end game players like my self still farm trying to improve our gear. Dont worry about nm campaign right now brutal 12 stage 3 is where you get the most xp to silver ratio. fraction wars everyday you want to do whatever level you can glyphs are important. As far as how much it cost to upgrade gear.... welll get used to it lol dont know what to say to that were all in the same boat. Another mistake a lot of early players make is the power level on your champions please do not fall for that trap power level means nothing ive got an arena team with a power level of 240k and can destory 300+ k power level teams. power means nothing its how you build your champs and making sure you take advantage of their abilities is what really maters. Feel free to quote me and ask any more questions im always more than willing to help people

Question on combining champions (which I do.)   Is it better to level and ascend them to maximum and then combine them?  Or does that matter?

As for the dragon, my best group can run level 9 okay.  But at level ten, the dragon beats them with burst and poison damage.  I've gotten close at times to winning.  But haven't done so yet.

On the arena, the group I use has gotten to Silver One.  But there are some pretty powerful groups in the selections at that level with one or two characters who can solo kill me in less than two rounds.  A solo Kael is one of the worst offenders of this among others.

Ascention is not required for upgrading stars on champions. Your primary focus should be in this order:

Level (get a champ to 60) -> Ascention -> Masteries -> Gear.

I am assuming, that you do not have your first level 60 yet. If this is the case, there is 0 reason to run any dungeons at all. You should be spending all day farming campaign until you have a level 60.

Don't level and ascend the champions you will sacrifice. It doesn't have any influence and is a waste of resources. 

The higher stages of Dragon will be done when your champs get 6*. The same for arena: A solo Kael may nuke a team of 4* champs, but he is a joke for a full team with 6*.

Not yet.  She's level 55 and climbing.

I do run campaigns but the drop rates on them are horrible.  I've gotten nothing but whites and low greens from even Brutal campaigns.

Good to know.  I will stop leveling the lambs.

Campaign isn't for gear, it's for XP farming - your starter with 3 ungeared 'food' champions, doing hundreds and hundreds of brutal 12.3 runs until you have enough food for your next 6* champion. 

You haven't said anything about which champions you're using - of course that plays a role too. A team with reasonably good champion choices and geared decently can farm dragon 13 with one or two 6* and the rest at 5*, but if your team composition is bad, or if you don't know what you're doing with gear, then it may be difficult even if they're all 6*. 

Yes post your roster

Your goal:

GET 60S

Get your gear from dragon, one exception to that though

Speed boots are pretty important, rather than waiting for dragon to drop some it might be worth doing your levelling on stage 6 early on to get some boots, you can get better when able to do dragon reliably

I know others disagree with this, but i think speed boots really are vital and its ok to start with green or even grey speed boots early game.

Posting my roster is going to take a while.  But I'll get to it.

I'm not sure what people were looking for specifically.  So, here is my top five.

Dark Elf Sniper.  She's fully ascended and level 56.  She's my best DPS and the only character with a level 16 artifact.  In fact, she has two of them.  I want to find better pieces but nothing is dropping.  Skills are maxed.

Elhain.  Five stars and level 50.  Elhain rounds out my DPS.  Her skills are completely maxed out.

Norog.  Four stars and level 50.  Norog often leads many of my dungeon teams with his 40% defense buff.  His gear really needs upgrades from the three and four star items he has.  But a lot of superior class items do not have the defense stats I want for him.  His skills are not maxed and he needs the superior skill books for anything more.

Scyl of the Drakes.  Three stars and level 50.  I don't have the Superior Magic Potions to ascend her or Norog further.  She is my most recently acquired character and her skills are all level one.

Warpriest.  Five stars and level 50.  After my Sniper, the Warpriest has next best set of equipment.  Maxed skills.

Crusader used to be a character I used in every team.  He's four stars and level 40.  I have recently replaced him with Athel (four stars, level 40,) as she does more damage then he does.  Crusader has full Life Steal gear and I've lost more silver trying to upgrade his equipment beyond level 13 than on any other character.

For support, I have Arcanist (four stars, level 40,) and Mother Superior (four stars, level 40.)  I don't have enough turkeys (chickens) to upgrade them.  Or any other character for that matter.  Both have maxed skills.  I want to put a set of Healing boost artifacts on "Mom" but I don't have enough to switch them out yet.  The whites dropping from the Brimstone Pass campaign are not sufficient.

I have lots more.  But these are the top five and mains.

"I have unlocked Nightmare on campaigns.  But the first battle absolutely destroys anyone I put in the group."

Out of curiosity i've tried Nightmare (i'm on 4th week, farming 12-3 brutal already 2 weeks or so, but didn't try Nigtmare yet to preserve energy for farming). 

My best team Kael (60), Ninja (60), Warmaiden (50), Warpriest (50) - destroyed everyting (level 1-1) there on auto without any problems. Looks like, you still have some work to do, to achieve a "plateau of capabilities".

P.S. I'm at dragon level 13 with a team of Kael, Ninja, Warmaiden, Warpriest, Diabolist. Didn't try level 14 yet - but probably doesn't worth it because of affinity...

Wow, very lucky to have Norog and Scyl! Unfortunate that you actually took an uncommon (?!) to 6*, but so be it... moving forward, Norog, Scyl and Elhain are a decent enough core team though Elhain will get replaced at some point. Athel maybe as fourth, depending on who else you have. Everybody else that you mentioned, you're not going to keep using for long. 

Do you have champions like High Khatun, Warmaiden, Spirithost, Apothecary, Frozen Banshee? Any other epics? 

Yes, post a quick screenshot of your champ screen! :D

Never farm the campaign for gear if you can avoid it. The campain won't drop epic or leg gear. And even via Nightmare, 6 star (rare) gear almost never drops. Get your gear from dungeons - spider, dragon, ice golem, fire knight, etc. Dungeons are way more important than the campaign. I know they can be difficult but just start slow and do the best you can. It's best to NOT waste resources (silver) leveling up anything less than 5 star gear if you can avoid it. So if you only have 4 star gear, don't level the gear past 8 if posible. Maybe go to 12 for speed boots, crit gloves, or acc/res chestplates. The rest shoudl all work at 8 until you start seeing 5 star gear.

You want.. Crit Rate or Crit dmg gloves... Speed Boots .. and % for Chest plates or Acc or Resist. Avoid using gear that has a flat number for the stat. % is always best. Acc, Resist, and Speed are always flat though, they are the exceptions. 

Weapons will always be flat ATK. Helmets will always be flat HP, Shields will always be flat Def. So you want to look for good substats (crits, acc, res, spd) more for those pieces than the primary stat.

If you need silver, the spider dungeon is the best to farm and sell gear.. accessories have the greatest silver return when sold.

RAID: Shadow Legends Guide | AyumiLove 

You have some decent champs but you are putting resources into food champs like Sniper and Warpreist.

The above link couple help with alot, but if you are having fun do not let me or anyone stop you 😀

I do have Spirithost, High Khatun, and Warmaiden.  

If I had another character that was doing more damage, I wouldn't have ascended Sniper.  If she has a higher level equivalent, I'll switch her out one day.

You mean for the Arena?

If I had another character that was doing more damage, I wouldn't have ascended Sniper. 

Every starter champ - is much better damage-dealer than Sniper. You just need to raise them up to 60 and gear accordingly.

P.S. Actually Warmaiden is a better damage-dealer too (and does other useful things besides).