My idea of an ideal interaction between the modes is building on incentive to leave sentry mode to flee in recon rather than feeling the need to stay in sentry to keep the IC and getting swarmed.
Without IC and Bastionās general HP+Armor being high, heās not so much more vulnerable in Recon mode.
Itās recognising the consensus that Bastion is more or less just as likely to be hit in recon mode due to the size of his hitbox and how the general standard of aim has improved in the game. And this is encouraging playstyles people do not like such as turtling down smothered in shields and heals which is boring to win then suddenly youāre pounced on and insta-death.
The new reaper and armour changes are going to be devastating for Bastion in recon. Reaper didnāt have a particular problem with Bastion before, these changes (like McCreeās fan the hammer) are clearly designed to penalise tanks, but Bastion is being caught in the crossfire. Bastion needs to be buffed in response to these recent changes.
Breakdown of Reaper's effectiveness
Even at longer ranges where Bastion is trying to keep away from Reaper (so retreating from the objective) even if only 50% of pellets hit and only 2 of those pellets are headshots, Reaper will be dealing 48 damage per shot to armour. The armour is gone so fast.
Melted in 2 seconds, factoring Reaperās heal, Bastion would need to deal about 382 damage to Reaper before the Reaper fires the fifth shot after 2.0sec of firing. This requires Bastion have not only 100% accuracy but a very high proportion of headshots. If Bastion had 350HP(200A[rmor]), then at the same range and hit rate, it would still take almost the same number of shot, 6 shots rather than 5, but Bastion has far more of a fighting chance due to effectively lower heals. Bastion needs to deal 388 damage to reaper to beat his heals within 2.5 sec. Bastion would have a fighting chance to land 20 hits out of 20 shots while Reaper can miss with half his pellets.
It's similar with Sombra
After hacking Bastion sheāll wipe out his armour 25% faster. And sheās currently really good against Bastion. If Bastion had 350HP(200A), Sombra could still kill a Bastion in one clip but sheād need almost the whole 60 round capacity rather than just over half of the mag dump. This would mean the spread would be significant again, as it should be. Much more of a fair fight. She should be effective, but not with the odds stacked so much in her favour.
What do you think Bastion should have as a passive?
I really like the idea of a ādetectionā ability, there are a few of these abilities in the game already and I think they are really underappreciated for how important they are.
The developers clearly had an idea of heroes being detected with footsteps, but in practice this hasnāt worked out too well. Too many heroes have very very light footsteps.
Itās ironic we have reached a point where weāre trying to think of things that penalise teamwork, because whatās so hated about Bastion is his teamwork. But itās a particular type of teamwork, turtling down behind a shield bathed in heals. And the wrong sort of detection ability would just reinforce that sort of teamwork too much. Something that encourages Bastion to fight off further back and separate from the main team would help.
But Bastions donāt want to hang back as then they are extremely vulnerable to flankers, particularly sneaking up on them with no warning. Bastion needs a warning even if itās an ambiguous one that could be an ally.
This would also be kinda lore consistent as in that video short The Last Bastion, it showed Bastionās scanners detecting very faint things though he did overreact to a non-threat, it is established in the lore that Bastion should have very good sensing abilities.