Bastion needs his Sentry changed

General Discussion
42

Then just change the spread then, and Bastion could use the barrier even in Recon form just like the enemy from Uprising (forgot his name)

43

If youā€™re focused solely on making him use Recon more, why not do this:

Give him a heat mechanic
  • Configuration Sentry
    • Bloom added to weapon
      • Initial spread of 1.25Ā°, starts bloom after 0.2 seconds of continuous fire
      • Reached maximum of 2Ā° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
    • Headshots added to weapon
      • Critical hits deal 1.5x damage instead of the normal 2x
    • Ammo increased to infinite
    • Overheat mechanic added to weapon
      • Heat meter is displayed as a resource meter similar to Pharahā€™s jet fuel on the opposite of his repair resource with ticks at every ā…“
    • Heat is gained at a rate of 0.42% per bullet
      • 12.5% per second when firing continuously
      • 8 seconds of continuous fire (currently 10 seconds)
    • Heat is dispersed at a rate of 25% per second
      • 4 seconds from 100% to 0%
      • Effectively a 4 second reload (currently 2 seconds)
    • Weapon damage is dependent on heat level
      • Between [0%, 33%) : 15 damage
      • Between [33%, 66%] : 13 damage
      • Between (66%, 100%] : 11 damage
    • If the heat meter completely fills, Bastion cannot fire until it is empty if he stays in Sentry mode
    • If Bastion switches to Recon mode to disperse the heat, he can fire again in Sentry mode when the heat is at 25% or less
  • Configuration Recon
    • Reload speed reduced to 1.5 seconds
    • Heat meter markings are at every Ā¼ in Recon mode
    • If the heat meter is more than 25% full, damage is increased by 3
    • Firing his weapon decreases the heat meter by 3.75% per bullet
      • 20 bullets equates to 75% heat
      • Heat is decreased even if the bonus damage isnā€™t applied
    • Heat does not passively disperse when in Recon mode
  • Ironclad
    • Removed
  • Self-repair
    • No longer consumes resources when it cannot heal Bastion
    • Healing delay reduced to 0.1 seconds (Currently ~0.5 seconds)
    • Able to reload while repairing (Only affects Recon mode)
  • Configuration Tank
    • Completely empties heat meter on use
    • No self damage
    • Tread sounds reduced slightly
    • Adds 150 armor

Recon gets more powerful, and Sentry gets less powerful as you shoot in Sentry, so players would be rewarded for switching more often. But thereā€™s no real limit on Sentry (other than the 4 second effective ā€œreload timeā€ if you shoot continuously).

All he really needs is something like this though:

A change to Ironclad
  • Configuration Sentry
    • Reduce maximum spread to 2Ā° (Currently 3Ā°)
    • Bloom added to weapon
      • Initial accuracy of 1.25Ā°, bloom starts after 0.2 seconds of continuous fire
      • Reaches 2Ā° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
    • Headshots added
    • Ammo count reduced to 200 (Currently 300)
  • Ironclad
    • Damage resistance removed
    • Now allows Bastionā€™s self-repair to over-heal him with 75 armor
    • This armor cannot be healed by other healers, only Bastion
      • The over-heal is ā€œorangeā€ armor, similar to Torbā€™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)

If Recon can have Ironclad too, then people will use it more because they donā€™t lose the protection.

Those are from here and here if you want to see some more details about them.

44

Yes, I think bastion should get moving around self-healing in recon mode instead, and have its defense in recon mode not be balanced around self-heal capacity. It was a problem with the 35% ironclad - just self-healing in the form made bastion invulnerable to many attacks, and probably a reason why it was nerfed. Bastion would self-heal anyway as long as itā€™s regularly forced to be in recon form (which would have a chance to be stronger if bastion wasnā€™t balanced around always having sentry form available).

45

The problem with 35% Ironclad is the problem with Ironclad in general. Passive damage resistance is way too hard to balance around, and shouldnā€™t be in the game. Thereā€™s a reason that they havenā€™t given it to any other hero in the game. An active damage resistance would be fine, but passive is either far too strong, or requires far too much to be lost in other aspects of his kit to be balanced.

46

The problem I find playing bastion is in his lack of flexibility. He has no real role he can fulfill without being too easily countered. This is mainly due to his lack of mobility and inability to re position when he needs to. His lack of other offensive abilities also plays a part in his one dimensional play style. Positioning and aim is important for any hero, but bastion only has these two aspects to work from.

A small qol change I can think of is giving him a roll when he changes from sentry into recon. I hate getting forced to stay in sentry because I know changing while focused will kill me.
A bigger addition would be a mobility ability on a cooldown that can be used as a skillshot, kind of like a junkrat mine.

47

Thats another one of the reasons i offered to weaken Sentry so we can work the rest of him.

Hes can only do that thing and usually requires babysit