What are the issues with bastion that make him the least picked hero, and the last hero in the hero pool that is still considered a “troll” pick? In my opinion, the problems are numerous and so I’ll attempt to summarise them here:
1. High threat
Bastion’s high dps makes him a huge threat and that makes him the #1 priority target for the enemy team. Unless his team protect him and pour resources into setting up barrier’s and healing him, he will be isolated and focused down very quickly.
2. Low Mobility
Combined with the above, bastion’s design means he is by nature very immobile. His transformation reduces his mobility, and even the animation itself stops you in your tracks (unless you are airborn). When Bastion is in Sentry mode he is a sitting duck. With so many high burst damage heroes like junkrat and hanzo, and especially now with Torbjorns new rework, this problem is exacerbated even further. Despite having armor, he is in effect, a glass cannon.
3. Applicability
Bastion is good on a few select maps, and dominates those maps unless the enemy team are coordinated and know how to counter the “pirate-ship” style of play. Beyond this limited application however, Bastion is picked very infrequently, because it is easier to get the value out of other heroes. Most heroes are applicable across multiple different game-modes using different strategies and comps. Bastion is really limited to payload maps, with long lines of sight, in a specific composition. He is too niche.
4. Role
Bastion lacks a coherent design that fits into the modern landscape of overwatch. In the past, his design may have made more sense - but now that he is under the microscope for a rework, I think it makes sense to re-evaluate what his design could bring to other roles.
So how do we answer these problems?
1. Damage
Reducing Bastion’s damage output sounds crazy, as that is his defining feature, but I think in smoothing out the peaks of his design this is the inevitable conclusion we must come to if we are to make alterations to the rest of his kit that improve his design in other areas.
2. Mobility
Bastion needs to become more mobile - as it stands he is simply too sedentary to stand a chance in a fast-paced FPS hybrid like Overwatch. He needs to be moving and assessing threats and reacting - not camping and waiting for them to come and destroy him.
3. Fluidity
Bastion needs to be able to react quickly and fluidly as the match evolves. Torbjorn and Symmetra’s reworks both accentuate how important uptime is for ex-defense heroes, and I think similar ideas should be applied to any future Bastion rework. He needs to be able to shift his focus and adapt to emergent situations with greater ease to increase his applicability in a wide variety of scenarios.
4. Role
Bastions role as it stands is as a Barrier Buster hero - but with a hero like Sombra that can delete all barriers in an AoE with the push of a button, or hack a tank and prevent them from ever putting a barrier up; he has no hope to compete. So what could he do instead? I think by augmenting the offensive capabilities of his team somehow, bastion would better fall in line as a primary dps character in comps like deathball and GOATS that thrive on close-knit team groupings.
So, what can we change?
What follows are some ideas for a bastion rework, taking the above into account.
Ironclad
Passive Ability
Reduces damage taken by -25% while in Tank & Juggernaut mode.
Mobile
Passive Ability
Increases movement speed by +50% whilst in Recon and Juggernaut mode.
Configuration: Tank
In Tank mode, Bastion extends wheeled treads and a Gatling gun capable of unleashing a hail of bullets. This mode would resemble a combination of two of his current transformations, Sentry and Tank, taking the best parts of both and combining them. Bastion’s base damage per bullet would need to be significantly reduced in this mode from the amount they deal in Sentry mode now.
Frenzy
Ability
When Bastion uses this ability, nearby allies gain an increased fire speed and reload speed for a short time. This would be on a fairly long cooldown, similar to Torbjorn’s Overload ability.
Self-Repair
Secondary-Fire
Bastion restores his own health - while in recon mode you can do this in tandem with using your primary fire - this ability is disabled whilst in Tank mode.
Reconfigure
Ability
Bastion transforms between its two primary combat modes to adapt to battlefield conditions. Bastion can now continue to move when transforming, but his Passive Ability will not switch until he has entered the new transformation fully.
Juggernaut
Ultimate Ability
When you use Juggernaut, Bastion immediately gains 250 temporary armor and gains the effects of both his Passive Abilities for the duration of the ultimate (8 seconds). In addition, bastion’s damage increases (taking into account his nerfed base damage this would mean his ultimate damage after the rework would be similar to his base damage now) and he gains infinite ammo for the duration of the ultimate.