💔 Bastion ISN’T being forgotten, he’s being ignored

[TREB-21513]

Solution: Make it happen faster, alias around 20 rounds.

Perhaps instead of being a naysayer, contribute to construct.

Dude… I suggested spread shrink quicker several thousand posts earlier in this thread.

20 rounds seems about right though, 0.66 of a second, but that’s going to fit so well with bastion’s current damage and clip size.

That’s enough that non-tanks at medium range aren’t immediately hit with 450DPS as the spread starting at 3.0 degrees means a lot of bullets will inevitably miss. But DPS swiftly rises.

You need a “normalising” effect on damage output, like for tank busters as the damage to kill tanks quickly enough can kill squishy heroes way too quickly.

[I]

Bastion looks up [ ^[] ]

Bastion looks down [ _[] ]

[ChibiFox-11511]

Bastion looks down [ [] ]

Bastion looks down [ [] ]

Bastion looks down [ [] ]

“Non-emotive depression intensifies”

(BTW I’m still entirely against restricting Bastion’s Sentry Mode in any way)

[TREB-21513]

Ganbatte, Bastion-san. Ganbatte.

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[Cleric-2934]

You need a “normalising” effect on damage output, like for tank busters as the damage to kill tanks quickly enough can kill squishy heroes way too quickly.

Hmm, this is a bit of a difficult thing to balance, however i’d say that range should still be your best cover against Bastion in sentry.

The way Blizzard changed this before was to increase the spread Bastion has by default. Not quite sure it would be a good balance in order to make it “fair” to the dps as Bastion supposed to be a ranged tank/shield buster.

Having the spread decrease more as you fire to be more accurate could fix that, increasing spread by lets say 15% but lets you be 15% even more accurate with continous fire than right now?

Dude… I suggested spread shrink quicker several thousand posts earlier in this thread.

Genuine pardon then, not in my interest (and time) to filter through 19k posts, did not ment to be that blunt.

[TREB-21513]

The way Blizzard changed this before was to increase the spread Bastion has by default.

Well before March 2017 the spread started at 1.2 degrees before blooming to 2 degrees within about 9 shots and headshots as well. This was disproportionately effective against small squishy heroes as you could quite easily deal a huge spike of damage

However Starting at 3 degrees was such the opposite extreme.

I see how taking that initial “bite” out of his minigun on squishies at range is important but 2 seconds is just too long considering how what all these squishies can do in far far less than 2 seconds:

• Hanzo: Kill Bastion with storm arrow combo
• Junkrat: shoot 3 grenades at Bastion that will kill Bastion
• Pharah: Shoot 3 damage boosted rockets that’ll kill bastion
• Ana: Shoot a sleep dart
• Soldier:
• Iceblock survive and ice wall you

increasing spread by lets say 15% but lets you be 15% even more accurate with continous fire than right now?

So 3 degrees x 1.15 and 2 degrees x 0.85?

3.45 degrees to 1.7 degrees? Still shrinking in 2sec?

Seems a bit arbitrary, allow me to give a more direct proposal. Consider how Bastion having a 2 degree spread is quite a universal constant in the game. Since launch until 2017-March Bastion’s spread would bloom from 1.2 degrees to 2 degrees after firing for a fraction of a second, so most of the time his spread was 2 degrees. Now since 2018-Nov with the inverse spread shrinking to 2 degrees that’s a return to that familiar spread/DPS relationship.

That’s a known quantity, lets work around that. We don’t know how good or bad 1.7 degrees spread might be, might be an insignificant improvement, might be way too good.

One possibility is a nonlinear change in spread.

Consider soldier 76’s spread, it doesn’t steadily widen for each shot, the first 5 shots the spread doesn’t increase at all, then it “buckles” and the spread suddenly opens up. This makes it quite easy to estimate DPS on distant targets as the spread is effectively in a binary state, for the most part its either pixel perfect so could land 100% headshots on an enemy headclipping just a few pixels then 2.4 degrees spread where odds are not a single bullet will hit the same target.

How about the same working the other direction with Bastion’s spread sticking at 3 degrees not shrinking at all for a few shots then quickly shrinks to 2 degrees. I propose the first 15 shots are at 3 degrees then after that it quickly zips down to 2 degrees spread for the remainder of the firing. That would be 0.5 sec of shooting at the wide 3 degrees spread.

I know from shooting at a frozen ana bot tapping single shots (to maintain 3 degree spread) that at only 20m it takes 49 shots to kill, that means the hit rate must be only about 29%, so would take only about 60 damage in half a second. 120DPS. At ~30m it took 70 shots to kill, a 20% hitrate so only deal about 45 damage in half a second. 90DPS.

This means if you’re a DPS being shot at by Bastion you didn’t know was there (because he wasn’t firing) you have time to respond to the fire utilising defensive abilities (ice block, fade, wraith, recall, deflect) evasive abilities (jumpjets, roll, lunge, sprint, blink, coachgun) but you can’t just stand your ground and shoot back at bastion and usually win.

Genuine pardon then, not in my interest (and time) to filter through 19k posts, did not ment to be that blunt.

This is what I’m thinking about for Bastion Megathread 3.0, the Original Post could have a table of contents or appendix updating points people have covered.

Until then, I’m sure that if you had asked anyone here about what has already been posted in this thread you’d be flooded with helpful responses.

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. . . —
PS: you can make that ASCII art Bastion with:

<h1> [<sup><small>[]</small></sup>] </h1>

[Cleric-2934]

I propose the first 15 shots are at 3 degrees then after that it quickly zips down to 2 degrees spread for the remainder of the firing. That would be 0.5 sec of shooting at the wide 3 degrees spread.

Brilliant idea. This would leave the response to the one being shot at, and those with a small hitbox should have a time to respond, while those with big hitboxes immidiately takes more damage at the start.

[TREB-21513]

At about 30m, it’ll be a 5x difference in DPS. Roadhog would lose 37% of his HP while lil ole ashe would lose only about 22% of her HP.

It’s not in every way better for you as bastion though, opponents who intermittently peek from behind corners will have a much easier time as currently the spread does at least shrink somewhat. About a 10% increase in density of fire overall. So if you’re in a bunker opponents spread out peeking on you from different corners they could all easily shoot off 0.8 sec of fire (0.3 sec reaction time + 0.5 sec bad spread) quite safely.

To make this ASCII art easier to copy:

[^[]]

I just broke up the < brackets:

< h1> [< sup>< small>[]< /small>< /sup>] < /h1>

Just remove the space after every < to reactivate the HTML.

EDIT: copy that into a notepad first then copy from notepad to prevent a transcription error. Might as well save that in the notepad while you’re at it.

[Cleric-2934]

So if you’re in a bunker opponents spread out peeking on you from different corners they could all easily shoot off 0.8 sec of fire (0.3 sec reaction time + 0.5 sec bad spread) quite safely.

Indeed, facing a Bastion head on should be punishing, while peaking should be rewarding.

[Gaba-1961]

Say the low gold Hanzo main.

Oh yeaaah, let’s start to attack each other based on ranks instead of providing meaningful texts for the discussion…

[ChibiFox-11511]

Indeed, facing a Bastion head on should be punishing, while peaking should be rewarding.

Though this shouldn’t reward every single hero who faces a Bastion “Head on” with a single wall five feet away, every single time.

[TREB-21513]

Huh? I’m not sure what this is referring to. What is “a single wall five feet away, every single time”? I don’t recognise what that could be referring to.

[ChibiFox-11511]

Huh? I’m not sure what this is referring to. What is “a single wall five feet away, every single time”? I don’t recognise what that could be referring to.

Imagine you’ve got someone peaking about five meters away, from behind a wall.

What i’m saying is, that shouldn’t reward an enemy nearly every time, simply because it’s peaking.

[TREB-21513]

Well if they’re 5 metres away then the 3 degrees spread won’t help them, at 5-10m they should be getting the full 450DPS… if you can get your crosshair on em quickly enough.

The problem at close range is a matter of raw aiming skill, and I know that’s going to cut deep with you Chibi as aren’t you soldiering along on console where you’d of course have thumbstick aim.

At close range the same 5.5m/s movement speed most heroes have results in a far higher and also more variable angular velocity, much harder to track.

[ChibiFox-11511]

Even so, (Especially with Hanzo) I swear aim doesn’t matter.

[DrClan-1789]

Hitting people who are running around and over you is surprisingly difficult.

[ChibiFox-11511]

Oh in that situation it totally does matter, but when one is peaking a corner it ceases to be a factor…

They just spam from the same spot, i hold fire at that same un-moving spot, and I die.

[TREB-21513]

They just spam from the same spot, i hold fire at that same un-moving spot, and I die.

Ahh this if the REPEATEDLY peeking around a corner, without delay, then they’d get torn to shreds.

Sure, they dip in after 0.5sec of firing… but if they then immediately hop back out again they hop into 450DPS where instead of most of your shots missing now most of are hitting. They have the very easy task of aiming at a stationary target, you have the easy task of pouring fire into a stationary point, the edge of a corner they’d emerge from.

This is why I DO NOT like the idea of cutting Bastion’s capacity, because 300 rounds means 10 seconds of continually shooting at just one corner keeping it suppressed. Or suppress 2 corners for 5 seconds in rapid succession. It can’t be suppression if it’s a low DPS. The damage has to be at a high rate the entire duration of that firing as they’d only peek around the corner for a small fraction of a second to burst off a shot.

The problem right now is the SLOOOW reduction in spread, over 2 seconds, when opponents can dump out so much damage in 2 seconds. McCree can dump 420 damage which will frag bastion in that time.

Not if ironclad was replaced with a 100HP personal barrier though.

Some heroes bastion loses to such peeking tactics not because bastion’s attack particularly lacks in effectiveness but because Bastion is just too weak. As you’re sitting there in sentry mode a lot of attacks can destroy you super quick even at close range, Junkrat’s Nade mine nade combo = kills in 0.65sec.

[Beep-21505]

Not sure if this video has been shared already but It’s a really good video and deserves more attention. It’s a response to BTC’s recent Bastion rework concept.

[DrClan-1789]

The guy who made that used to be a frequent poster here.

[Astrobiology-1687]

Oh hey look it’s me lol
Glad you liked the video!