On behalf of Pharah, who wrote this post but is not trust level 3 and cannot post links, but this issue has dragged out for over a year and a 1/3rd, and it means a lot to a small playerbase that still tries to play Bastion, in his current, unfortunate form.
Yes, I, Pharah, wrote this post however this will be my last one. I have cried out loudly and if this thread doesn’t get through, then it proves my title correct: Bastion is being ignored. Too many great people have supported Bastion and have advocated for buffs and making Bastion a better hero, and the amount of dedication and support is unfathomable. I can’t keep making posts that won’t get through when some of the largest threads talking about Bastion have gone unnoticed, either that or untalked about.
Chapter list:
- Introduction
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- a) The TL;DR of his current state
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- b) Pirate Ship is a byproduct of the map, Junkertown, and it’s now a failure because of…
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- The longest silence
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- a) He doesn’t even excel in his arbitrary niche.
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- HE SUCKS IN THIS META, I KNOW!!! But his rework and nerfs are what caused the floodgates of Dive to be opened
- This Community Knows what Bastion needs.
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- a) Even the pro, Seagull, a Bastion player, knows what he needs.
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- !!The Basics of what Bastion needs!!
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- a) Pharah’s rework additions and changes.
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- Or… We give him the Mercy treatment. (Highly liked by Bastion players)
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- a) Other community Suggestions compiled by SunderGold
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- A Tankyou
Introduction:
The previous " 
Bastion is being forgotten" thread has reached almost 5000 replies, and 370+ likes. Still no response:
1. a) The TL;DR of his current state:
His rework brought around changes to Sentry (and Tank), when only Recon needed buffs, because of how clunky it was to use.
They did a 180 on Bastion, by buffing Recon, but absolutely destroyed Sentry in the process. ASK ANY BASTION MAIN/PLAYER AND THEY WILL SAY 35% IRONCLAD WAS A MISTAKE. He never needed a change to Sentry. THATS what broke him into OP territory and THEN nerfed him down into the gutter. Prior, a Bastion was rewarded:
- for aim, tight spread
- for positioning, headshots
- for no mobility, the highest damage potential in the game, which wasn’t wasted like how his current spread is.
Then within a week he became the game’s most hated hero 
and was nerfed, to a near-unplayable state.
20% IC only equates to ~70 total health, meaning Bastion has 370 health in Sentry. That 70HP is moot when 35% IC was 150 health. The 35% was calculated from his old Tank armor that he used to get while ulting.
The problem with 35% IC was that he could survive ults, and with a nano, a Dva bomb point-blank.
HOWEVER, the current problem with IC is that it only makes him easier to pocket. the 70 HP is easily destroyed, but if you can keep a Bastion up indefinably then the 20% IC reduces damage RATHER THAN acting as a buffer to his HP, which is a major reason why Pirate Ship is so effective.
You just plop a Mercy behind him and he’s taking minimal damage because his IC is reducing incoming damage, ALL WHILE Mercy’s heal is acting as a sudo-DR too, since her healing is also negating some of his incoming damage. As it stands a charging Rein wins against a Bastion who isn’t being pocketed. A Hog will win against a Bastion that isn’t being pocketed. A Hanzo will win against a Bastion despite him being pocketed.
This doesn’t even cover what happened to his Tank mode. Tank used to get 150 extra armor, and he got it at the start of his ult, much like how Torblet and Winston do currently. Press Q, get that dank armor. HOWEVER it was balanced because he has a 1.5 second warmup time, where he was immobile. 150 Armor on Tank was never a problem. But yet that got gutted when IC was dropped down nearly in half, to 20%.
1. b) Pirate Ship is a byproduct of the map, Junkertown, and it’s now a failure because of…
Pirate ship is just Orisa slapped on Protect the President “meta” with a flat payload and awkward point A layout on Junkertown.
The reasons as to why it was effective are these:
- IC making him easier to pocket, especially from Mercy.
- Junkertown point A has poor cover and poor high ground to contest and drop down onto a Pirate Ship.
- At the time, there were no other barrier busters, so the counter to 2 barriers were a mirror comp, but it proved to be ineffective since like I said, there is horrible cover.
- His damage was severely gutted, so he needs more time to kill enemies, which is why Orisa and Rein babysit him, so he could survive a little bit longer to get a kill.
All of that has changed now.
- Hanzo’s E is worse than Scatter ever was against Bastion (You really have to try to miss 6 shots on a stationary target)
- Hanzo is also the king of corner peaking, so Bastion can’t even reposition out of Sentry before Hanzo has already landed 2 shots on him.
- Junk has 2 mines, so his damage is higher, and Junk was always a Bastion counter.
- Brig’s armor hurts Bastion’s gun even more, since at medium range his spread is too wide and only a few bullets will hit a target.
- Her barrier also adds an extra 600HP into a meta that is reliant on barriers, which means he needs more time to destroy enemy barriers. Time that he doens’t have
- Tracer may have had her pulsebomb nerfed, but she is still too hard for him to hit at any range due to his spread. Despite her nerf, she can still reliable kill him if she unloads 1 clip either before or after the Bastion is stuck with the bomb.
To finish the clickbait title of this chapter, Pirate Ship is a byproduct of the map, Junkertown, and it’s now a failure because of how the meta has progressed and how weak Bastion is, and keep getting.
The longest silence
He was overly buffed on February 28th, a day I know by heart because I knew 35% IC was too much with everyone else.
He was nerfed a week later, on March 5th, a day I also know by heart because it was the last time he would be relevant until Pirate Ship. (Since they couldn’t hotfix how broken he was, the console platforms had to wait another 3 weeks after he was gutted on PC.)
He was not acknowledged, and still hasn’t. The last time I can recall one of them typing out B A S T I O N was back on the old forums in a thread that talked about Bastion and how bad his recon + self heal were.
He was not acknowledged by the devs even during this current F-Tier Renaissance. Hanzo and Sym were said to get reworks, and Mei, Sombra, DF, and Torb would all get buffs.
So… Radio silence.
And if OW data sites like Overbuff go down due to hidden profiles, then we will never know how far Bastion will fall again, after the Sombra buffs.
2. a) He doesn’t even excel in his arbitrary niche.
Blizzard gutted his damage to become a barrier buster… But when is that going to happen? It takes at least 4 seconds to go through a rein shield, and Orisa has hers up so often that by the time he shreds it she can have another one ready, which means she can protect her teammates and have them shoot at and kill the Bastion before he can finish any of them.
Combine both of them, and he’s dead before he can break through one of them.
In the niche of barrier busting, Sym has now passed him, along with Hanzo and Junkrat.
They are all more mobile and have more consistent DPS.
- Sym can charge her gun off of the barriers now, Tele to get behind or above the enemy.
- Hanzo’s E couldn’t miss a brick wall from a mile away, Or if he saves his E he can shred said tank via leaping through their barrier.
- Junk having another ~120 mine, and the knockback it brings which can knock up a Rein, or melt Orisa.
Having a stationary target with the highest DPS in the game dying to a suicidal Rein charging is anything except balance. Now with Hammond, it’ll be interesting to see how Bastion plays out against him.
The power creep is REAL, as a DPS hero with the most damage in the game is being outclassed by burst-damage heros who have gotten buffs, both to their damage AND mobility added/buffed.
HE SUCKS IN THIS META, I KNOW!!! But his rework and nerfs are what caused the floodgates of Dive to be opened
Fun fact: The time Bastion was reworked gutted was when Dive took off. Bastion Hard countered BOTH Winston and Dva to the point of perfection, but Dva’s 3DM and several buffs to Winston alongside Bastion’s demise are what made Dive a staple for over 9 months.
I don’t expect Bastion to win against current Hanzo, but as it stands Bastion’s nerfs caused dive, and it frustrates me knowing that Blizzard will only ever see Bastion as a “barrier buster” when he can’t even pressure Rein and Brig in this meta.
This leaves that sour taste in my mouth because Dive could have been put back in it’s place if Bastion got buffed over the addition of Brig.
Despite Hanzo destroying him into rubbish, Bastion still needs to be looked at since he’s been in this horrid state for over 16 months.
This Community Knows what Bastion needs
So awhile back, I (Pharah) made a thread that listed 2 polls:
One for the Non-Bastion players: https://www.strawpoll.me/15610416
One for the Bastion players: https://www.strawpoll.me/15610417
Together, between a minimum of 211 Bastion and NON-Bastion players…
211 Players have voted for a reduction in Spread, and Headshots added back.
Following that, people have advocated for more Tank Ironclad AND an extra ability on E (Some even proposing a nerfed Tank mode on E so he has 3 modes, with his Tank mode giving him more mobility in a game that punishes heros with no mobility).
This isn’t skewed data where the Bastion mains want him OP and to roflstomp every enemy team, this is 2 sides coming together and agreeing on what Bastion needs to get better. The Bastion mains aren’t delusional, and recognize many aspects about Bastion and playing against him.
3. a) Even the pro, Seagull, a Bastion player, knows what he needs.
HUGE thanks to Astrobiologist for donating to Seagull (SHUSH this isn’t about Mercy nor his involvement) and asking Seagull on his opinion on Bastion, and some possible solutions like Nerfed Tank Mode on E. Seagull is known for picking up Bastion from time to time, and so he brings up some valid points.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Seagull agrees that Headshots should be added back.
So between NON-Bastion players, Bastion players, and one of the best Bastion players in the world, agree that HS should be added back! WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?!?!?!
The Basics of what Bastion needs.
First off, Bastion needs more independence. OLD Bastion could be pocketed, yes, but his IC didn’t exist making him extremely fragile, but in return he could kill anything that crossed his sights. THAT promoted skilled Bastion play because good Bastions needed to know the correct positions, and how to position correctly because they would die if they didn’t. In return, he had reliable Sentry damage to kill things with. When you have the highest DPS in the game, what good does Mercy’s damage boost do? Nothing. But it worked in Pirate Ship because Bastion is so god awful by himself that you need 1 comp for him to even have a chance at being viable.
Personally, I think IC should be removed from Sentry, as it promotes too much unhealthy aspects for the game, like how easy he is to pocket, thus hurting Bastion’s rep and balance in the process.
His spread shouldn’t be straight up reverted, as I do believe there is a way to make him better, but here is the rundown:
Recon:
- fine
Comments: Recon is decent right now, and it should NOT be the main focus of Bastion nor his buffs. Any better and it might rival/overpower Soldier 76, which is another power creep, and one that we don’t need.
Sentry:
- 40% less spread (his original nerf was 50% more spread, so it leaves him more accurate but not a laser sniper like he used to be)
- HS added back, but at 1.5x the value. With the amount of bullets he pumps out, I agree that 2x would be a nightmare to tanks, so I feel like 1.5x is a great compromise.
Comments: Sentry is the gist of Bastion, and so it needs to be more reliable than it currently is. HS added back will make him feel more consistent at killing aggressive tanks (charging Reins, ballsy Hogs), and his spread decrease will reward aim like how it used to. The current “spray and pray” just feels AWFUL.
Tank:
- 35% OR 30% IC added back, to make up for the old 150 armor he lost after the IC conversion, and then 20% IC nerf.
- Instant IC upon transforming.
Comments: 150 Tank armor was NEVER a problem, so I think the 35% → 20% IC nerf just glossed over Tank and thus it was unjustly nerfed. Even if the 30% IC is a problem, his ult only lasts 8 seconds (11 including the 2 times he transforms for 1.5 seconds), thus it’s not permanent like how 35% IC was on Sentry.
This is what most Bastion players see fit, and some aspects from non-Bastion players like how HS are added back, lower spread, and more IC on tank. However, this is also the basic outline, as I still see some glaring problems that I’ll list below.
4. a) Pharah’s rework additions and changes.
I’ll cover the problems as I go along. Most changes above have been brought down and included just so you can see the whole picture.
Recon:
- fine
Sentry:
- 40% less spread
- HS added back, but at 1.5x the value.
- IC removed entirely
Tank:
- 35% OR 30% IC
- Instant IC upon transforming.
Other:
- Self-repair:
- no longer has a cast time
- 100/200 HP
- 50% Ironclad when transforming
- Slides off the payload when in Sentry
Overall Comments: The goal of removing IC in Sentry is to give him less sustainability in that mode, HOWEVER it is compensated with 50% IC while transforming. That way he isn’t protected while in Sentry, but rather WHILE SETTING UP. Self-repair just feels clunky, so making it more responsive will help with making it more reliable. His health adjustment is just a little compensation for his already huge hitbox. Then the icing on the cake is how Sentry slides off the payload. If Bastion is immobile, he should stay immobile. Pretty much every Bastion player dislikes Pirate Ship, and so this will be a natural counter to it. Plus with less IC on Sentry, Bastion will be able to reconfigure a lot more and not just camp in Sentry.
Quite a mouthful, but I hope that you can see where I’m coming from with these ideas that I have.
Or… We give him the Mercy treatment. (Highly liked by Bastion players)
Put Tank on E…
WHOA WHOA WHIO, I’m not insane for putting this here, as there will be MANY CHANGES to the point that it won’t be a Mercy V2 where he’s meta because his ult got moved to his E.
Since many people already agree that he needs an E ability, it seems reasonable to put Tank on E, but put restrictions on it so it’s not as OP as it’s current Ult form.
Now, the common idea is that Tank gets put on E, but the fine detail varies from player to player.
Tank on E:
- 40-120 damage per shell
- each shot has to warm up to reach its full damage. This will make it like Widow but without the instakill, despite it being a projectile skillshot.
- 3 shots in reserve, like Tracer’s blinks. (he can fire all 3 at once, and if all 3 are direct shots then it will only do 120 damage, the same as 1 fully charged shots.
- 1 second configuration (like current Sentry).
- 5 seconds per shell reload (15 for all 3)
Comments: This will give Bastion some more damage potential outside of Sentry, as well as giving Bastion a skillful mobility ability, since many Bastion mains and players “rocket jump” while ulting, allowing him to reach high grounds.
New Ult: Overclock.
Bastion’s new Ultimate would instead improve the performance of all of its modes, returning Sentry Mode and Tank Mode to their former glory for a short time and making the Recon Rifle better as well.
- 12 second duration
- 50% faster transformations
- 25% Ironclad
Recon:
- no spread
- 25% Faster reload
Sentry:
- 50% Faster reload
- 25% faster firerate
Tank:
- 3 seconds per shell reload
- 60-205 damage per shot
This is still very basic, as I don’t believe anyone has laid out a common agreement for how Tank on E would work, but I figured I’d give my take on it and see the reactions and discussions from it.
With more skill added to his kit, he won’t have to camp in sentry and get pocketed and babysat by 4 teammates for him to be viable, as he will be far more mobile and interesting to play.
5. a) Other community Suggestions compiled by SunderGold
This thread lists out many other ideas, and I highly recommend that you check it out as it lists many unique ideas that revolve around Bastion and him getting buffed and/or reworked.
Then also GrantMan has made some threads discussing Bastions TTK and Tank on E.
A Tankyou
Very punny ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
But I have seen a huge amount of support for getting Bastion noticed and buffed so he is better. So first off, Tankyou all who have participated in the original megathread.
Tankyou for those who have voted on the polls that asked how you wanted Bastion buffed, and for those who had unique suggestions that explained below (
Tankyou Deykar for giving me the idea for 100/200 HP, and 50% IC while transforming)
Tankyou for those who lurked and read as many posts as you could since there are 5000 posts in the megathread alone.
Tankyou for those who have advocated for Bastion buffs and realized that he wasn’t actually fine, and have rallied your support for him.
Tankyou for those who have stalked each and every Bastion thread, given advice and opinions on Bastion, and have tried non-stop for getting Bastion noticed and into the limelight, so Blizzard can recognize him and make him better. A LOT OF YOU FALL INTO THIS CATEGORY, so I’m sorry if I can’t remember your name off the top of my head, but if you let Chibi know, you can get added here.
Tankyou Chibi, for being the host of this thread for me, since I’m not Trust Level 3 and cannot post links. As well as lurking and sneaking into almost every thread to spread the word about our lord and savior, Bastion.
Tankyou Terran for being an all-around good defender of Bastion, as I’ve seen you in countless thread talking about how Bastion is in a bad spot, as well as giving many ideas and dedicating many threads to Bastion.
Shoutouts to JaredMnstr, GrantMan, DerGReif2, ZDanned, Dekunut, Astrobiology, SunderGold, ArcticGator, Proxillus, DrClan, for your dedication to Bastion and making him better.
Bastion is not being forgotten, because of the amount of support and players willing to get him to a better spot, and become recognized. Everything afterwards is out of anyone’s control. Please don’t ignore Bastion any longer. 
Hello, This is ChibiFox
I’m Greatly Honored to be hosting this thread on Pharah’s behalf. Please, keep it civil.
THANK YOU
Aria Rose, For not only featuring this thread on your YT Series and reading through the main post, but for your support and genuine kindness towards us here in this thread and many others.
![:smiley:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=5" ":smiley:")
The old thread should be full in tomorow I think.
