Bastion 3.0 (Tank Mode is Now a Secondary Ability)

General Discussion
56

You can’t ask those questions about a game. There is no black and white. The “or” are where some heroes fit.

57

Well, you seem to think that it’s good to give mobility to heroes who were designed to explicitly lack that mobility as defining feature, so I’ll mark you down as “yes”.

58

I have never thought to myself ever that he was specifically designed as a whole to have no mobility, in sentry, sure, but not so much out of sentry. I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash if they gave him more mobility in recon. It’s not a foreign concept either it works in other games. This one is a smaller game but there’s a robot in a PVE game Risk of Rain who is incredibly slow and his attacks are also slow but has an ability that speeds everything up for a short time.

59

But that’s the problem. They shouldn’t, because he was not designed to be mobile in recon. The lack of mobility is a key point of how he works. That’s a key weakness: lack of mobility in all forms, unless it’s an ult, which is different because it’ a super move.
I can’t speak for RoR, but I know for Overwatch, the basic idea of Bastion is:
+powerful point defense
-low mobility
Then there’s an ult which, yes, might be good in some aspects, but it’s not how he is defined as a hero at the basic, normal gameplay level.

Therefore, a fix shouldn’t just remove that weaknesses, it should work on rounding out his kit such that his point defense is better, or the things he does to get to that point defense work more synergistically.

60

People whine about buffing point defense on him, people might complain a little less about being a little more mobile (rigid vertical)

61

But why not buff Recon mode in a way that doesn’t get rid of that unique weakness? He has two modes - lets not touch sentry. How would you fix recon mode, bearing in mind that “low mobility” is part of his basic concept?

62

But what could we do without putting a change that changes nothing or one that makes him more powerful than Soldier? IMO that’s not inherently bad but inb4 “if you’re going to play Soldier why not do Bastion?”. It makes more sense the other way around because the devs are trying to force Bastion to basically never use sentry so why use Bastion for his “main mode” which they’re trying to make recon into when Soldier just does that better?

63

I really don’t see anything wrong with bastion.
He is a good hero, but you can’t play him in every match

64

He has a negative winrate in bronze and silver which is the only place he has above a 1% pickrate which is where he’s supposed to dominate and he has less than a tenth of a percent of pickrate in GM and his winrate fluctuates wildly there and he’s generally considered F tier if you look at anybody’s list of characters at different tiers. People keep saying he’s good when all around him he’s called F tier repeatedly.

Where he’s picked he’s bad, where he’s not picked he’s bad, where he’s kinda but still barely picked he’s still considered F tier.

That’s not good.

65

But then there can be some way of tweaking recon which keeps it useful, which doesn’t encroach on what 76 does, and which doesn’t get rid of that overall design ethos of low mobility.

Like, look at my idea. Now, I don’t think it’s the best idea. There are others that work. But when I think about Bastion, and how to improve him, I think about:
-the fact that he has recon mode; low mobility and an eh gun
-the fact that he has good point defense; no mobility and a great gun
Which, to me, means he could help with scouting, help in funneling, or both. Scouting is something few other characters do, really, outside of things like Sombra calling out, a Hanzo sonar, or a Widow ult, but normal, formal position tracking isn’t very common.
Tripwire bullets could solve that - they’d serve as a way to have Bastion consider his normal recon shots more, it can add on extra damage, and it could force an enemy to either a)not trip them, and go down a path he wants them to go down (into his sentry) or, to b)trip them, revealing to enemies where they are and, if they’re not careful, to rack up some extra damage.

Then, marking enemies on his vision, the second bullet point, tracks their movements, allows for callouts, and allows good pre-positioning for the sentry.

None of that runs into what other characters do, and it instead leverages the idea of point defense while not getting rid of his weaknesses, which, all together, is part of what makes him unique.

Again, not saying this is the best idea ever. Just that it plays into what he does and how he does it in a way that still keeps some of what makes him Bastion.

66

Basically I think he needs more ways to help himself. Helping himself means more people die which helps his team. Helping others directly instead of himself means he’s just becoming a support and still sucks on his own.

giving teamates vision or having alarms won’t help because knowing where they are already doesn’t matter for him. The heroes that counter him don’t do it sneakily they just walk up and shoot while bunny hopping anyways. Information isn’t enough because once bullets start flying information goes out the window.

67

I mean, tripwire bullets wouldn’t just be alarms, they’d also still be, you know, bullets. Also, yes, while info is less important than bullets, that kind of information is the sort of thing which a Bastion could then use to get into sentry mode ahead of a hallway he now knows where enemies are coming out of. If anything, I’d say more info is most important for him, since he has a stationary mode that he needs to get into position for and transform into.

But, like I said, there can be better ideas out there. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have it be ones which undo part of his defining characteristic weaknesses. He can help himself in ways which neither boosts his sentry gun nor gives him extra mobility.

68

stacking 25 bullets on a wall and oneshotting someone would get him instanerfed. If the damage is just reduced on them, then anything less than 25 would suck. His main issue isn’t with information, it isn’t with flankers, it’s with the stupid heroes that stand in front of him and somehow win in a war of attrition. Whoever does the most damage wins right? Wrong because all of his bullets miss so not really.

It’s the confrontations that he needs help. Knowing it’s coming doesn’t help once it’s there.

69

Well that rules out basically all of my ideas and the most liked changes. (reduced spread, possibly a revert to sentry, maybe tank on E, other protective E abilities, stuff like that.)

70

Well, with 25 bright red lasers in a wall, I’d think people would be able to see it coming, but like I said - other ideas exist. Or I don’t know, have it only be the last 10 bullets.

How would you help his confrontations without uping his mobility? I’m not worried about boosting his sentry, as that being good is also a big part of him, but I’d see people whining about it. Mostly, I’d want to see changes that don’t give him extra mobility or make him into a less fun version of someone else.

71

Trust me, people won’t. Don’t underestimate the people’s power of not noticing things.

72

Here are the protective ones I’ve come up with and have seen

  • temp barrier on E: It deploys his beta barrier with 500 something HP for a set duration. Like the first version of Defense Matrix, maybe It could maybe have a recon version too like a standing shield.

this means you can bait his barrier so he doesn’t always have it because it can go on cooldown but if you’re forced to fight like if you all push in and have no time to bait the barrier it’ll be difficult to head on fight him, this is where flankers would come in.

  • temp barrier with resource on E: It’s basically Defense Matrix but a barrier with HP. It draws from his healing resource which might need a small duration buff to if two abilities can suck from it. maybe It could maybe have a recon version too like a standing shield.
    this’d have the same reason as the first version
  • This one I came up with but maybe ironclad had a higher percentage on the front? Shooting him dead on does less damage than normal like at 30% but shooting him in the sides or back is just plain 20% ironclad.

I’m really drawing a blank as soon as I try and think of anything :stuck_out_tongue:

offensive

cannon/railgun on E: IDK how it could look but the idea is you get a quick shot from his tank gun, either with nerfed damage or it requires a charge up if it were a railgun.

revert sentry: It’s self explanatory. It’s the most liked change for him. If you want sources I can site them.

reduced sentry spread, his sentry spread is reduced and that’s it. You can more value if you’re good at aiming but your spread won’t hit your target for you if you miss. So higher damage potential if you’re good, lower damage potential if you’re bad (because you need to be good at aiming)

This one I came up with, I don’t really have a name for it but maybe “charge shot”? It’s some sort of knockback attack in sentry and recon. It’s for when that Reaper gets a bit too close. IDK maybe it’s like a weakness things again or whatever but he’s got too many when it comes to which heroes counter him or not.

Ganymede: this one has so many versions I don’t know what to say about it other than it uses Ganymede which’d also allow people to see the bird skin you have too.

There are more ideas but I just realized how big this comment is already getting.

1 Like
73

Those are all great, and I appreciate the thought and time you put in to write that all up. I mean, I haven’t thought about every single one of those and the broad implication, but it certainly helps make him more useful while still having him be Bastion-y at his core. I don’t think one of his core weaknesses is a lack of close range viability either - his biggest, most definable one is mobility, and I think his current close range struggles are incidental rather than a specific design direction.

1 Like
74

Boom, and now Bastion is less stationary and more dynamic in his transformations.
Because stationary heroes does not belong to this game, Sym and Torb reworks approve that.

75

<cough> Tank on E </cough>