Limiting his transformation options would just kill him further than he already is… 10 seconds is an eternity to be without your primary source of damage, especially if you don’t even use all of your ammo in Sentry. If you press shift twice, you now have to wait 10 seconds, and you didn’t even do anything. Punishing players for swapping modes more often isn’t a good way to balance him.
Before his rework, players had to move around a lot more often than they do now because they didn’t have Ironclad. If we were to either go back to that (no Ironclad), or allow Ironclad to affect all modes (I suggest attaching it to his heal, and either allow him to overheal himself with more armor that only he can apply/heal, or giving him some damage resist while healing kinda like Roadhog), then people will use Recon a lot more because they don’t lose their defenses when using it.
Tank on E is a decent rework, but I don’t think he really needs a rework that large… I think if they just make some changes to Ironclad and revert (or at least partial revert) Sentry mode to what it was before his rework, he would be fine. He would still probably be at the bottom of the pickrate list, but that’s fine. A lot of people avoid Bastion because they don’t like his playstyle, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of other options out there, leave Bastion’s about where it is for the people that do like it, just make him less bad.
Here’s a link to a post going over the overheal idea if anyone cares
Ironclad rework
- General changes
- Being stunned during a transformation now instantly completes the transformation
- Configuration Sentry
- Reduce maximum spread to 2° (Currently 3°)
- Bloom added to weapon
- Initial accuracy of 1.25°, bloom starts after 0.3 seconds of continuous fire
- Reaches 2° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
- Headshots added
- Ammo count reduced to 200 (Currently 300)
- Ironclad
- Damage resistance removed
- Now allows Bastion’s self-repair to over-heal him with 75 armor
- This armor cannot be healed by other healers, only Bastion
- The over-heal is “orange” armor, similar to Torb’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)
- No self damage
And here’s my take on a Tank on E rework, but again, I would much rather they do something smaller
Tank on E
- General changes
- Being stunned during a transformation now instantly completes the transformation
- Configuration Recon
- Reload time reduced to 1.5 seconds (Formerly 2 seconds)
- Configuration Sentry
- Headshots added
- Bloom added to weapon
- Initial accuracy of 1.25°, bloom starts after 0.3 seconds of continuous fire
- Reaches a maximum of 2° after 0.3 seconds of additional continuous fire
- Ammo reduced to 250
- Reload time increased to 2.5 seconds (Formerly 2 seconds)
- Configuration Tank (E Ability)
- Damage reduced to 120 (Formerly 205)
- Splash damage now ranges from 40 - 85 damage (Formerly 70 - 145)
- Splash radius reduced to 2 meters (Formerly 4 meters)
- Tank tread sounds reduced
- 3 shots per clip
- Ammo reloads over time similar to Doomfist’s gun
- Shot timer and reload timer are independent, meaning he can reload shots even while shooting. This gives an effective 5 shots to begin with, and then one shot every 2 seconds afterwards.
- Ammo reloads at 1 shell per 2 seconds
- No self damage
- Transformation time reduced to 1 second (Formerly 1.5 seconds)
- Damage reduced to 120 (Formerly 205)
- Ironclad (Passive)
- Persistent Ironclad is removed from all modes (Sentry and Tank)
- Ironclad is now bound to Self-repair
- Ironclad can now be activated even in Recon mode
- Self-repair
- No longer consumes resources when it does not heal Bastion
- Starts healing instantly instead of having an 0.5 second delay
- Applies 25% Ironclad for duration of repair
- Overclock (Ultimate Ability)
- Adds 150 armor to all forms
- Alternatively, gives passive 35% Ironclad in Sentry/Tank, and 20% Ironclad in Recon. These are not bound to repair, they are passive.
- Instantly reloads all ammo for all forms
- Reduces transformation time by half
- Lasts 8 seconds
- Adds 150 armor to all forms
- Overclock (Recon mode)
- Increases movement by 18% (From 5.5 m/s to 6.5 m/s)
- Increases rate of fire by 50% (From 8 r/s to 12 r/s)
- Reduce reload speed by 50% (From 1.5 s to 1 s)
- Overclock (Sentry mode)
- Grants CC immunity
- Increases rate of fire by 16% to (From 30 r/s to 35 r/s)
- Overclock (Tank mode)
- Recharge rate decreased to 1 second (Normally 2 seconds)
- Increase direct hit damage to 205
- Reverts splash damage and radius to their current values