For initial progression, I'd 5* Apothocary and Dark Elhain until you get more meta toons in your roster. By then you will be moving nicely until you get more shards to pull stonger toons. 

Slow and steady and keep asking questions. Save shards as much as possible for events and do only dungeons to the point you are confident. No need to waste your resources if you can't reach a certain stage.

I know there are more experienced players who will give you some good advice too, but take it from someone who is still learning, use the Forums and your Clan as a resource. Good hunting!

Disagree with taking champs to 5* right now, I think we need to be focusing on one 6* at a time.

I would leave Warmaiden at 5* right now as she can function just fine there as a defense down champ and would prefer not taking her up to 6 unless we absolutely have to.

I think I'd take Toragi up to 6 first, as he's the best clan boss champ on the account who you can also use in Dragon at the very least.

Apothecary is a fine choice as well. 

some future 6*s: Alure (S tier normal Fire Knight specialist), Skraank (good spider champ once you get towards 20 when HP burn strats get strong, is an OK CB champ) and likely Vogoth since he's a good all around defensive champ.

Agreed with working on our next 6 stars now that we can use Elhain to farm XP in campaign. 

The next goal is to advance as far as possible in Dragon to start farming some gear until we have a decent load out for each of a set of 5 champs we can use in Clan Boss. 

I'd recommend getting both Toragi and Apothecary both to 60 next and then using them to push dragon with your Elhain. Then you can pair with Adelyn (you shouldn't need to book her for now), Zargala for our defense down, and Skrank when you need a burner while working on Spider to go along with Dragon 

Good luck! You've got a good set of champs to start with for sure!!

Is Zargala a better option than Warmaider for Def down? I understand she's a better champion, but her def down is only 85%, right?

100% when booked. Zarg is better, no question. Significantly more damage output.

not even that high. it caps out at 80% and that's with the sniper mastery. at the moment i'd say you're better off sticking with warmaiden as your def down for consistancy's sake, though you could use zargala as a damage dealer.

Oops. You're right, my bad. Zarg does do significantly more damage, though.

Her Def Down ends up being 80% X2 when booked and masteries, which means a 96% you land it on a target per skill use. Plus you get extra A3s when you kill anyone with the A2, so I find her fairly reliable at landing Def Down as well as being overall a very solid damage addition to a team. 

That's ignoring the A1 weaken which makes at least a small difference in boss fights as well.

And this is why I let the experts provide much better insights and suggestions. To think I even knew what was a good idea. All the best to you.

Oh is that how it works? As I read it, it was only a single 80% chance, but you're saying it's both hit #2 and #3 that have the 80% chance eh?

Yeppers