Than you can at least agree that Sentry needs to be strong again.
Good. 
All i care is that Bastion retains his identity in the end.
The only thing I majorly disagree is giving him back headshots in Sentry. IMO, Sentry is the “huge burst, no precision” mode, and Recon is the “small burst, precise shots” mode. The biggest problem with Bastion is that a lot of players think he need to be in Sentry mode full time, unless he is forced to relocate. Blizzard need to give people some incentive to fight in Recon mode as well, and let him swap modes as required by the situation.
Bastion unique shtick is his transforming ability, which is why I don’t mind watering down Tank and it becoming a standard ability. But you need to give each Config their own unique reason to exist and be used in the first place.Giving Recon extra speed is basically saying its only good to relocate between Sentry usage, and that’s not good either.
Yes.
And Sentry’s “Shtick” Is being a Big Gun, with big damage.
And…
That may be your opinion, and i respect people’s opinions…
But Sentry was Never Like this originally.
It’s supposed to reward a player’s ability, and completely lacking Headshots and the spread for them to be impactful, means that Sentry mode lacks rewards for player ability, and skill.
Meaning that no matter how much skill a player has, it’s locked from his Stationary mode.
That draw back isn’t worth being unable to be impactful in a skilled environment.
I’d slightly decrease his AoE in tank form to be around the same size as Pharahs, overall great ideas. Tank form as an ability would help his offensive capabilities that he is missing.
It doesn’t work like that. You will always deal more damage in Sentry than in Recon.
By removing headshots from Sentry and destroying its precision. Devs made Sentry mode a lot weaker, in exchange for 20% less damage taken and some more healing.
Because the thing is that when Bastion deals a ton of damage (including headshots) in a very precise way, he is a lot more useful in more situations.
Obviously because he can project his power to long ranges and even burst down at closer range with headshots.
I have a post I saved on Reddit, that I think offers great insight into how Bastion was ruined after the Sentry turret changes -
Please let me rant on this
tl;dr version at the bottom (in part 2 because this post got too big apparently).
My winrate with Bastion in S2 was 70% but after his “buffs” I think he’s significantly weaker in every situation I want to use him in. I think he’s actually quite garbage now and quite unfun (not that my fun as a competitive player matters to Blizzard). Everyone had this weird obsession with wanting to make Bastion’s recon mode “viable” and Blizzard unfortunately listened. What’s worse is that there are still people that think Bastion is better after his “buffs” and for the lack of a better word, it still triggers me to this day.
My team getting stomped because they’re garbage at DPS? Bastion. Payload won’t stop rolling because we can’t stabilize? Bastion. Cheeky peekers? Bastion. Pharah raining hell from afar and DPS can’t deal with her? Bastion. Gotta hold Point A for 60 seconds in the final final round and know the enemy is gonna panic if you get them slightly uncomfortable? Bastion in the back. Desperate push of my own and need to cheese it? Bastion. Widow peeking or even out cocky in the open trying to get kills? Yes, Bastion.
In all those situations, Bastion is either not as effective or just plain ineffective now.
Rein charges me? Before the “buffs” Rein would melt and not get close. Now Rein actually gets the pin. Hog hooks your mate or even tries to hook you? Before you’d kill Hog before the hook landed. Now he hooks you (though they made Hog, the other character I had loads of fun with, garbage now too. L-O-f***ing-L). Before I could consistently beat Genji after baiting his deflect. Now Genji styles on me every time. I want to setup a sick Bastion flank and delete half the team before they knew what hit them? “Hey what’s tickling me? Oh Bastion. Let me make it to cover ezpz while one of my unfazed mates CC or kill him.”
Bastion only needed two changes, the rest were dumb attempts at “balancing his new strengths” (re: making him a watered down piece of sh*t).
Recon spread buff - An odd complaint by scrublets that thought making Bastion’s recon mode “more viable” would somehow mean he’d be as good as S76 and therefor a better generalist pick. Mostly inconsequential since (ironically to most people) burst tapping like S76 before the buff would let you be able to get your ranged and medium kills you wanted anyway. Scrub buff.
Recon ammo buff - Transitioned more power to recon mode, which is not the situation I want to use Bastion in. Cool I guess since before the buff I did run out of ammo during Recon skirmishes but that’s how it was supposed to be like. Scrub buff.
Transformation buff - One of the two changes Bastion needed to be more viable, not that I didn’t already love him in his niche situations. Made him more effective on attacks which was nice, but more importantly it made him less clunky on defense where you’re supposed to be repositioning with him constantly*. More on this later.
Heal while moving buff - Made recon mode annoying to kill. Good if you’re a scrublet that’s always out of position in Sentry mode and need a second chance staying alive by transforming and running. Scrub buff.
Uninterrupted heal buff - The second of the two needed changes to be more viable. Honestly, I can even argue that’s it wasn’t really needed and only helped to erase some of the more fun character match up dynamics. More on this later.
Extra ammo buff - Supposed to be a “tank” buster with this but as mentioned above, tanks aren’t as scared of him as they were before because he can’t f**king kill them as fast. The buff is good for destroying barriers, but you were already doing that with 200 ammo and killing what was behind the barrier. Identifying the correct times to stop shooting and top off your ammo during quick lulls in combat was a skill. Choosing to stop shooting to reserve your ammo for a quick kill on a key target was a skill. Now it’s “keeeeep spamming”. Scrub buff.
Iron Clad - Completely unneeded and made Trastion players more likely to setup shop and not move (the incorrect way of playing Bastion) and made him much more forgiving in terms of position and general awareness/reaction time needed. Scrub buff.
So what are the correct ways of playing [old] Bastion? Positioning.
1) Constantly reposition and kill key enemies within 1 second before they realize where you are and cover themselves. If you sat in one spot with your thumb up your a**, then yes I bet you thought Bastion was shtty because YOU were shtty at playing him. New Bastion can reposition faster and that’s great, but he can’t surprise kill anyone anymore. With the spread and no crits, tanks and squishies and react and stay safe. There’s no reason for Bastion to actively reposition anymore because even if the enemy knows where you are, they can’t kill you before you can react and heal.
2) Play far, far back. You could still melt anything at a distance, you could see flankers coming for you, either directly or trying to play it sneaky, and you could make decisions to reposition for a better angle when they get near, or move closer to your allies. The enemy needed a coordinated plan to dislodge you. Now? Well you can’t kill sh*t at a distance and you have zero chance up close against flankers now so gg I guess. Playing far back was also great since it meant your allies could slowly back up and use your cover fire as a barrier of its own. The enemy will have to turn corners into a Bastion hail, meaning if they slightly over extend to win a seemingly 5v6 or catch a weak player, they need to do it without Bastion killing them in 0.5-1 second. Think of the final stretch in Numbani or the final stretch of King’s Row. It was always a thought in the enemies mind “how do we get rid of that Bastion before we can advance?”. Playing far back also meant you wouldn’t get caught in the inevitable team ult-fights, meaning your cover fire was that much more important for cleaning up or winning the fight at the end.
And of course, none of that exists now with reworked Bastion because there’s no real threat of Bastion killing you at a distance and being close up means you live and die with the rest of your team in ult-fights.
Here are some fun character match up dynamics that no longer exist:
Widow - Before, you could kill each other. It was a risk for Widow to keep trying to shoot you because you could kill her back, and it was a risk for you to stay put since she can DPS so fast AND it was a risk to transform since you couldn’t heal and run. She could shoot you, you’d hurt her, if she tried to peek in and out you could play mind games by using a long stream of supressing fire (she’d die to if she peeked) so she’d either reposition at a completely different location, or you could sneak heals in between your bullets and survive longer in the same position if she was committed to killing you there and now.
Now the dynamic is Widow tries to kill you, you either sit there healing through it because you 100% cannot kill her at a distance, or take a shot, transform and run away while healing. No one kills each other. No mind games. Just “oh time to move I guess” for Bastion, and for Widow “ugh let me go find another angle I guess”
Genji - Genji was NOT a hard counter to Bastion! He was a softer counter. There were lots of tiny things Bastion could do to increase his chances of survival against Genji! Before if you were playing far back, Genji would have to be careful lest he takes too much damage going in and lose once he’s on top of you. Genjis would deflect to try to get Bastion to kill himself, but Bastion could bait out the deflect with a few bullets and while Genji’s still deflecting, you pop a quick 0.5-1 sec heal (yes this was the difference between life or death!). Genji dashes to close the final distance and is on top of you but you could read the Genji player and start shooting THROUGH the dash right before the deflect was over. Genji would die during the dash or would have no HP to stay on top of you. Likewise, Bastion could misread the deflect/dash or mistime the heal and Bastion would now be in a losing (but not unwinnable) position with Genji on top of him.
Now the dynamic is Genji gets on top of you for free since Bastion can’t kill him at a distance, and Bastion either heals through it as much as he can before a teammate helps him, or Bastion tries to kill Genji with a really weak turret gun. Doable, but no more mind games, no razor thin “this 35hp I snuck in from healing made me win the fight!”, no Genji trying indirect routes to try and displace or surprise Bastion, no more finesse in any of the interactions. Just “oh Genji is on me. Let me try to heal through it” and for Genji “well let me dash up to Bastion and kill him now”.
Pharah - Again, playing far back with Bastion you could see if she was firing rockets at you and quickly reposition. If she wasn’t shooting rockets at you, you were gonna kill her or make HER reposition. If Bastion didn’t see the Pharah and was hit by a single rocket, you IMMEDIATELY needed to transform and move or the next two rockets WILL hit and kill you. It was pure timing and reaction to stay alive.
Now? “Rocket hit me? Let me heal through the volley then move. Or just kept up and move heal either way.” “Oh there’s a Pharah? Let me try to tickle her. Nope, she still shooting rockets. Let me keep healing.” For Pharah it’s “Bastion? I’ll just rocket spam until he decides its best to move.”. No quick repositioning from either character, neither can actually kill the other.
This rant has gone quite long and I can keep going but I very much think I’ve made my point to anyone that has read this. To close it off, I’ll say I really want the old Bastion back, or something that makes Bastion a THREAT at a distance or for peeking. I think I’d prefer the critical hits back if nothing else since that’d help with tank busting and somewhat scaring long-range enemies. My perfect scenario would be if they got rid of all the changes except for the transformation time buff. Maybe the heal+move or uninterrupted heal buff could stay, but not both, and I wouldn’t care if they both didn’t come back if Bastion got his old spread and crits back.
Thanks for your time.
tl;dr version
Bastion worse in every situation you want to use him in (stopping enemy momentum, tank busting, squishie killing, surprise attacks, cheeses)
Interesting matchup dynamics and mind games are gone because there is very little threat of either side killing one another
Smart positioning with and against Bastion no longer matters
Being unable to kill at a distance means you’re always too close to the enemy if you want kills or are just ineffective at anything other than barrier busting (and you won’t be killing anything after the barriers go down)
Bastion is now literally a healbot
Source - https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/6t96l7/can_we_talk_about_bastion/dlj5rmt/
I know reworks are a hot topic (I main Symmetra, I know the “they deleted my hero” feeling), but I believe that Sentry changes were good. I still think that Recon need a buff, especially to hit stuff beyond ~25m, where the spread makes it hard to kill any non-tank with Sentry.
The main problem with the rework is that Ironclad 35% was the exact number to cover for the +150 armor that Tank used to get, but when they changed it for 20% (which was a deserving nerf, 35% was too much for Sentry), they didn’t kept 35% on tank, nor gave back the armor it used to gain.
Aiming is overrated. You don’t need to focus exclusively on aim as your main gate for reward, and Bastion heavily reward positioning and teamwork.
But then, that’s me. I think we have a good bunch of heroes that focus in rewarding aiming skills, and there are some where aim is not that much of a big deal and you can be more lax with it. Torb, Bastion, Sombra, Moira, Reaper and Tracer can benefit from good aim, but don’t require good aim to be amazingly good. That’s a good thing, because you have varied heroes that rewards different skills.
These two changes alone would immediately make Bastion not only more effective, but more importantly, it would make him so much more FUN.
I mean, who doesn’t wanna roll up Transformer-style, volleying tank rounds into the enemy ranks, only to change to Turret mode to finish off stragglers, ALL WITHOUT AN ULT?
Plz make this happen, Blizz.
Sentry mode is supposed to be the center of Bastion’s kit. Yes, Recon should be used over Sentry in some situations. Yes, Sentry should be “less accurate, more damage”, and Recon should be “more accurate, less damage”. But that doesn’t mean that Sentry should be useless. If Bastion were meant to use Recon all the time, then there would never be a point in taking Bastion over Soldier… Soldier does everything Recon does, but much better. Higher DPS, more mobility, good burst, smaller hitbox, can heal the team, can shoot while healing, etc.
I would really like for them to copy Hammond’s spread onto Bastion. He starts off at 1.25°, which is just slightly less than Recon’s max (Recon’s max is 1.5°, don’t listen to the wiki), and maxes at 2°, which is what his max was before. It starts off somewhat inaccurate, and stays somewhat more inaccurate. It’s not so insanely inaccurate that you can’t hit anything though. Take away Ironclad, and give back headshots. Or keep Ironclad (the worse option), and don’t put on headshots. Or keep Ironclad (still a worse option, not quite as worse as the other one imo), set his damage to 12, give a 1.25x bonus against shields, and give back headshots.
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It is so nice you took my idea of Tank mode on E with recharge mechanic)
Thanks! It took us quite a long time to really design and refine this concept
Too much to read, but Baastion doesn’t need a rework. He is not a Bastion 2.0 either. He just got a passive was all.
Well, I mostly liked the part where his E ability = Tank mode with Pharah rocket damage
And this Q is just the overclock ability from the main Mech in Titanfall.
I mean, the idea has been floating around for a while now… I don’t remember who I saw it from, I want to say it was Astro, but I could be wrong on that (the recharge part that is, Tank on E has been around since before the Mercy rework I believe. It was on the old forums)… Some Bastion rework ideas < It’s in this thread too
Not trying to say you stole it or anything, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that multiple people would think of it independently. And it’s a pretty good idea imo…
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I like it, very much, especially the part that configuration tank is his E ability, I never truly felt like it was an ultimate, of course it dealt a lot of damage for a normal ability, but it just didn’t felt powerful.
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Few things sound a bit OP but I like the idea. Overclock sounds really interesting and fits his concept (as a robot 
). I’d be onboard with a rework like this that went through some balancing and testing.
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Yeah I don’t have the ability to test it in-game, so it would obviously need a second look over by Blizzard, but it’s been checked by a couple other people already
Please no, recon is what needed the buff before and that was why it needed a buff.
But then what’s the freaking point? Is he supposed to become a low dps wimp that can’t kill things very fast like Hammond?
Lower the spread and all of them are intentional.
if we removed ironclad then no. He doesn’t have the extra HP but he also has more effective HP with ironclad so healing is more effective with ironclad. Adding the same amount of effective HP as normal HP/armor means it takes longer to heal him.