I've been playing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes religiously since it released on Android and iOS. It's exactly what I was looking for in a Star Wars game for smartphones, similar to Brave Frontier. It's free-to-play with microtransactions, and while you can defintely enjoy the game to its fullest without ever spending a dollar, I like to support the games I play. If I value my time with a mobile game at $60 (at that point giving me the same amount of entertainment as a full-blown console game), then I can justify spending some money in it to support the devs and keep updates coming.
This is the case when I bought the Heroine Starter Bundle. The Heroine Starter Bundle was a $50 purchase that gave you 350k credits (chump change), 40 training droids, 40 Nightsister Initiate (1-star) shards, 30 Asajj Ventress (3-star) shards, 25 Ahsoka Tano (2-star) shards, the characters for each of those shards, and then Barriss Offee. To be honest though, the reason people (at least me) bought the Bundle was for Barriss Offee. Barriss Offee was the best healer in the game, and every team I went against had her. Her heals would bypass healing debuffs, making her really strong with a good amount of health, but she hit like a wet noodle — something I can overlook for healing. And the reason she went by healing debuffs is because Force Healer isn't actually a straight forward heal — it's a health equalizer. If you kill everyone else, there will be no health to equalize.
Now, here we are a month after the game's release, and EA has nerfed Barriss Offee into the ground. Here are the Barriss Offee nerfs that came in Galaxy of Heroes' 12/17/2015 update (full patch notes here):
Barriss Offee
She is an incredibly durable healer with a unique health equalizing effect. While intended to be a viable healer, she is currently outperforming nearly all healers in most situations.
- Invigorating Strike: healing effect reduced to [3/6]% of Barriss Offee’s maximum health. (down from [5/10]%).
- Force Healer: additional healing reduced to [2.5/5/7.5/10/12.5/15]%. (down from [15/17.5/20/25/27.5/30]%)
That is a sizeable nerf for a character people essentially paid $50 to get. After the nerf, I've tried her out, and I don't think I can even carry her in my team anymore. She's a fraction of the healer she used to be, with other healers packing more healing power and damage, all while being easier to farm. I have Barriss Offee at level 50 with all of her skills maxed for that level, and she can't heal up my characters to full health from 75% health. Offee is borderline useless now, with her only utility coming in Galactic War. She has no damage and her healing is a joke. I understand the need to balance characters, but to make a huge sweeping change like this (when all that was really needed was for healing debuffs on characters to affect her) is kind of crazy.
To make up for the nerf, EA has rewarded players that bought the Heroine Starter Pack 500 crystals. For comparison, 610 crystals in the shop costs $4.99. So they gave you a few dollars back in crystals. But the characters many bought that pack for isn't even worthy of being taken into battle. In the heat of the moment, I'd say I would rather them take away the starter pack away from me and give me my $50 back, but I genuinely enjoy this game and realize that things like this happen. Nerfs, buffs and balances are part of every game, and Barriss Offee was clearly OP at the time. But I won't be rewarding EA with any more money towards this game. How can I trust that the next time I buy a pack that has a character I want (and paying a premium for it), that they won't annihilate that character a month later? I can't. So they don't get my money.
For now… (I'm weak and I'm sorry.)
