If he can’t AFK behind a shield and sit in sentry mode, then he isn’t picked. Bastion should be buffed so that he can find more use in recon mode thus making him more viable, spending less time in sentry mode and more time getting full use of his kit.
His recon mode weapon should do 12 to 20 damage based on distance, and the falloff range should be 30 - 45 meters. Also since Bastion is so large and immobile, when he’s in recon mode he should be able to use his self-repair while shooting. This would of course not carry over to sentry mode, since of course he becomes a stationary turret and not a robot walking around that should be able to multi-task.
In this way, Bastion could serve as a pseudo-Soldier76 who also has shield break capabilities with sentry mode.
Bastion deserves to be more than an AFK turret who dies as soon as he is jumped on. Bastion deserves to have more reason to use recon mode than just a gun that can find little use while he’s running to his next spot to AFK at.
That’s what he is now. He trades a little bit of damage/range and Sprint for superior healing, a bigger magazine, +100 base armor, and access to Sentry Mode.
Bastion can’t just be a better Soldier while in Recon, or Soldier becomes fully obsolete. Sentry Mode is the thing Bastion provides that no one else can, so naturally a lot of his power resides in that. If you’re never using that ability, Soldier (or something else) definitely should be a better pick.
Not true. Soldier still provides things that Bastion cannot, like an added AoE heal for his team and an ultimate that locks on and serves a different purpose than Bastion. Soldier also has flanking capabilites with sprint that Bastion does not. Bastion cannot flank reliably.
Bastion’s problem is his entire design. He doesn’t need a buff. He needs an entire rework so that he doesn’t feel oppressively stupid when he is doing well or is strong in the meta (has happened a couple of times and it was terrible)
After two megathreads and years of this topic… i know one thing for certain.
Bastion needs to feel better to play in general, and better to play in Sentry Mode, because players try and fail to play him like soldier 76… which is inherently flawed.
If a Bastion is moving, he should be taking a risk in doing so… but his Recon gun does feel nice for most Bastion players… i don’t see many issues with it.
The issue is that players will dive onto a Bastion without fear, no matter what mode he is in… because they know that even if he transforms, he’ll be a free kill.
Which is why he should be able to self-repair while shooting in recon. People think this change would make Soldier obsolete, but Soldier does things Bastion cannot regardless. Bastion can’t sprint into a flank position, Bastion can’t AoE heal his team. Bastion can’t survive as well as Soldier even with my proposed change as he’s so large and immobile. He needs reason to use recon over sentry, and only use sentry to break shields and Mei walls to create breakpoints for pushing, otherwise be on foot. He shouldn’t AFK in sentry and only go into recon to run away.
This… wouldn’t change much.
Honestly it would mean most Bastion’s would run out of their healing resource faster, meaning they’d rely heavier on healers… it’s a bad spiral.
Then buff his self healing resource amount to compensate. Don’t change the healing amount, just change the resource amount. Blizzard could even change it so that the self healing resource amount is larger in recon and the same as current in sentry. He’s basically two different heroes in his different forms anyway.
I’m actually perfectly happy with Bastion staying in D tier where he belongs. Any time he’s good enough to show his face in the meta, he makes the match unpleasant. A turret hero was just a bad idea to begin with. You can’t balance around a weakness like immobility in a game like Overwatch.