Bastion Ironclad rework

Ironclad is a pretty problematic ability… With 35% Ironclad, Bastion was very hard to kill (It didn’t help that the damage boost limit was 80%, so stacking it with Nano boost actually worked back then), and with 20% Ironclad, he’s still much easier to pocket than most heroes because he takes less damage than the healers need to heal him.

This rework aims to convert Ironclad from a passive ability to an active ability. Technically, it would still be Bastion’s “passive”, but the player would have to actively use it. It also makes Bastion less pocket-able because of how the new Ironclad works. If he still has “Ironclad armor”, he can’t be healed by a teammate, and then once that armor is gone, his healers can’t give him more.


  • Configuration Sentry
    • Reduce maximum spread to 2° (Currently 3°)
    • Bloom added to weapon
      • Initial accuracy of 1.25°, bloom starts after 0.2 seconds of continuous fire
      • Reaches 2° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
    • Headshots added
    • Ammo count reduced to 200 (Currently 300)
  • Ironclad
    • Damage resistance removed
    • Now allows Bastion’s self-repair to over-heal him with 75 armor
    • This armor cannot be healed by other healers, only Bastion
      • The over-heal is “orange” armor, similar to Torb’s armor packs
  • Self-repair
    • No longer consumes resources when it cannot heal Bastion
    • Startup delay reduced to 0.1 seconds (Currently 0.5 seconds)
    • Able to reload while repairing
    • Healing resource increased by 25%
      • Allows for 375 healing (Currently 300)
  • Configuration Tank
    • No self damage
      • Still applies the same self knockback, but does 0 damage to Bastion
    • Tread sounds reduced slightly
    • Adds 75 normal armor
    • Instantly applies 75 Ironclad armor (in addition to the normal armor)

This both strengthens and weakens Ironclad. Recon mode can now benefit from the effects of Ironclad, which should encourage players to use the mode more often than the current version of Ironclad does. Since the current Ironclad only applies it’s damage boost in Sentry and Tank modes, it can often be more viable to just sit in Sentry mode and tank some damage instead of switching to Recon to get away from the damage source. With this version, Recon maintains the extra armor, so it would usually be better to flee instead.

The current version of Ironclad adds an effective 75 HP to Bastion when in Sentry or Tank mode. While adding 75 armor is technically more valuable, Bastion does not always have this armor, only when he applies it himself. During a battle, Bastion will most likely not be able to maintain the full armor, thus it will be less effective than the current version. Plus, he can only get more value out of Ironclad if he stops shooting in order to heal.

Since Ironclad is less effective overall (once you factor in the part where he can “lose” it), Sentry mode deserves to get it’s power back. He’ll have some protection, but not nearly as much as a passive damage resistance, which is what his first rework was trying to achieve in the first place. If need be, his Sentry can lose a bit of power…

I’d also like to point out that Torb is the one that maintains Bastion, and this version of Ironclad works the same way that his armor packs do… Just throwing that out there…


Some potential balance nerfs:

I believe that it’s better to start off a little strong and work downwards rather than start off weak and work up. It’s easier to notice is someone is over-performing, and make adjustments than it is to notice that they’re under-performing. That said, here are some potential nerfs that still preserve the idea of the rework while toning it down just a little. They’re mostly for Sentry mode, because that’s where I forsee most of the issues stemming from. For these, just imagine replacing the existing parts of the rework with the nerfed sections.

Sentry mode base damage nerf
  • Configuration Sentry
    • Reduce maximum spread to 2° (Currently 3°)
    • Bloom added to weapon
      • Initial accuracy of 1.25°, bloom starts after 0.3 seconds of continuous fire
      • Reaches 2° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
    • Damage reduced to 12 (Currently 15)
    • Headshots added
    • Ammo count reduced to 250 (Currently 300)
    • Deals 25% more damage to barriers

This nerf reduces Bastion’s base damage by a fair bit, and adds bonus damage to barriers to keep him at the same effectiveness against them. This raises his skill floor a bit because it will take a little longer to kill enemies, meaning he has to track them for longer.

Sentry mode headshot multiplier nerf
  • Configuration Sentry
    • Reduce maximum spread to 2° (Currently 3°)
    • Bloom added to weapon
      • Initial accuracy of 1.25°, bloom starts after 0.3 seconds of continuous fire
      • Reaches 2° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
    • Headshots added
      • Deals 1.5x more damage instead of 2x
    • Ammo count reduced to 200 (Currently 300)

This reduces his maximum DPS to 675 instead of 900. With this, he won’t be able to take out enemies quite as fast.

Ironclad nerf
  • Ironclad
    • Damage resistance removed
    • Now allows Bastion’s self-repair to over-heal him with 50 armor
    • This armor cannot be healed by other healers, only Bastion
      • The over-heal is “orange” armor, similar to Torb’s armor packs
  • Self-repair
    • No longer consumes resources when it cannot heal Bastion
    • Startup delay reduced to 0.1 seconds (Currently 0.5 seconds)
    • Able to reload while repairing
    • Healing resource increased by 17%
      • Allows for 350 healing (Currently 300)

This reduces the amount of additional armor that Ironclad provides. Pretty self-explanatory…

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In all honesty… This might be the best written Bastion thread in a long time.

THIS^ Deserves a response from the higher ups.

I Can’t find a single thing that i even slightly disagree with…
And it’s all more balanced than i could personally dream of making it.

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In all honesty your changes sound like they’d make him even less consistent than he is now. Replacing the passive damage resistance in lieu of armor makes consistent damage sources more effective against him, making him rely even more on healers to survive.
The reduced spread and headshot damage is an improvement but with the reduced ammo (on top of what I just mentioned above) makes it sound even more critical that you have to accomplish your goal in a very small period of time or risk even more.

These changes could definitely improve his viability, though probably won’t stop him from being a “troll pick”.

I agree with all of them except for the Self-repair delay, the ability should punish Bastion for acting too late or attempting to get away with it in combat, and that was what the delay was for.

Ever tried to kill Bastion as a hero without high burst damage while he casually walks away, healing? It is a painful experience.

Except for this tho?

This could be interesting, but i disagree with your philosophy of aiming to over buff hero’s strengths and work down. Mercy mains may agree with me on that point. I stand by my belief that they should start by giving him more incentive to swap forms. I still think even using his tank form isn’t incentivized very well.

Well, would you look who it is.

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I’m trying to be civil :wink:

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This is my point. I think it will have the exact opposite effect from what he intends. 25% damage resistance is universal. It’s like having 25% more health and also having all sources of healing do 25% more to him. By stripping this away and replacing it with what he described, he’s shifting the focus to Bastion needing to actively heal himself instead. Every second Bastion spends healing is time he cannot shoot. And without boosting the heal rate on his repair, he is less survivable than before because the net incoming damage actually exceeds what it used to. This makes him even MORE reliant on teammates to help heal him.

You’ll get a Civil war if you aren’t careful… <.<

Beep boop.

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I… disagree.
As his healing would actually be more effective, probably reducing the time needed to actually heal up from poke/chip damage, or high burst.

but then again, i don’t do math.

How would it be more effective? The changes above do not change his heal rate, so he heals the same amount.

As he works now, repair heals at 75/sec.
Imagine the changes above go live and his damage reduction is removed. Bastion takes 75 damage, which he can now heal in 1 second.
However with damage reduction, he actually took 56 damage from the same source. He can heal this in 0.75 seconds, and others like Mercy can do so faster as well. Thats a quarter second less downtime required to heal.

This would mean consistent damage sources (e.g. Hanzo dragon) would kill him even faster, even with self repair and an external healer, where he can currently tank a lot of that damage WHILE also shooting.

Probably should have specified that a bit more… start a little strong, and then balance it while still on the PTR, not over the next 8 months…

That’s kinda Bastion 2.0’s problem, they didn’t balance it on the PTR, and then he was OP, which led to a knee jerk nerf instead of a more calculated one while he was still on the PTR…

I also think that Recon has a much higher incentive to be played with Ironclad applying to it as well. Recon’s gun is quite good, but his durability is somewhat lacking, especially compared to Sentry mode. This fixes that. Recon should never be Bastion’s primary mode, but this makes it quite a bit better than it is currently.

It does make him less durable overall, but with an increase in damage output, he can kill and move while still remaining relatively safe. The issue he has now is his ‘time to kill’ being a tad bit too low for the amount of effective health he has. It’s easier to kill the Bastion than it is for him to kill you

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Well a 25% damage resistance is more like a 33% boost in health…

I’ve got to think a bit on how I arrived at that formula, but I’m quite sure that it’s right…

Perhaps, but I feel like his problem is usually less about time to kill and more about being in a position where he isn’t easily countered without the help from teammates. I’ve always just found him to reliant on the team to survive.

If I were to start with something I’d probably consider reduced susceptibility to forms of CC while in sentry mode which would make his killing power more reliable IMO.

But again, I can’t say I’m a heavy Bastion player so that’s just my opinion. I do find him fun to play but more of a niche thing (Woo pirate ship).

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You’re correct - but that actually only further illustrates my point because you’ve traded 25% damage (equal to 33% health) for a 25% health bonus and the requirement to manually heal. But it sounds like you’re focusing more on time to kill than on his health pool so I think we’re just seeing it a different way.

FYI: The formula/calculation would be “300 = (x * 0.75)” — i.e. how much damage, x, would need to be dealt at -25% damage to kill him at 300 health. Without damage resistance, x would be the health he’d need to be equal to that.

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I certainly wouldn’t complain, but all he’s really susceptible to is Hook, Charge, and Sleep Dart (I think)… They stealth buffed him by making him immune Orisa’s Halt with the Symmetra rework patch, and they haven’t addressed it at all, so I guess it’s not a bug :man_shrugging:

20% Ironclad only gives him 75 health anyway, this makes it a tiny bit stronger because it’s armor instead, but it can get depleted.

Yeah, I think that sounds right… Really can’t be bothered to math right now, but that sounds correct

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Oh right, it’s 20% not 25%. I’m derping today…

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