Here are the issues I’ve noticed with Bastion, as well as what other Bastion mains have noticed. While Bastion seems like a high damage output hero on paper, in actual gameplay, he’s really not…
Recon mode:
This mode is almost perfect. It needs no changes. It has a good damage output, and allows Bastion to move around. There’s nothing I would really change about Recon. Perhaps he could use a bit more ammo, or a slightly faster reload, but there’s not much point in changing something that’s already very good.
Sentry mode:
This mode needs some work. A lot of it to be honest. Bastion’s rework was meant to take some of his damage output, and compensate him with better survivability. And it did. With 35% Ironclad, he could survive almost anything, especially when you consider that there was no cap (Or at least a very high cap, not sure which) on damage resistance, so a nano-boosted Bastion in Sentry mode had a 85% damage resistance, which is pretty insane… When Ironclad was nerfed however (which was justified), he didn’t get any of his damage potential back, leaving him in a worse state than he was in before his rework. He now doesn’t have enough damage to defend himself, and he doesn’t have enough survivability to live through most threats.
Bastion’s spread is the main culprit behind his inconsistent damage. It’s a bit too large for him to be effective in his effective range (his damage falloff starts at 35 meters). At 35 meters, his spread gives him a 6 foot circle in which his bullets can land. That’s about as tall as most characters in the game (excluding tanks and Bastion himself). At 55 meters, his spread is about 9.45 feet, which is much larger than any character in the game. If you’d like more information about his spread, you can find it here:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/stop-sign-bastion-is-being-forgotten-320-likes/32040/2967With his spread being what it is and his lack of headshot potential, Bastion doesn’t reward good aiming or tracking, and basically actively discourages it. You have to aim at (well, near) the center of mass if you want to actually hit anything instead of aiming at the head. His spread effectively forces him to be a “spray and pray” character, which further enforces people’s opinions that he is a troll pick, or a skill-less hero.
Tank mode:
This mode also needs some work, but not quite as much as Sentry mode. After his post-rework nerf, Tank mode was left with roughly 60 additional effective HP (though this will change depending on what’s damaging him) instead of the 150 armor he had before. Not only that, but the rework made his ult much more risky to pull off, because Ironclad isn’t applied until after the transformation finishes. His old armor used to apply as soon as the player hit Q, allowing Bastion to take some additional hits while transforming and keep relatively safe. However, Ironclad does not do this. This makes ulting much harder than it used to be, and when combined with a difficult-to-use ultimate like Tank mode, it makes it a rather weak ult. His post-rework ultimate requires the player to hide to cast it, which takes away precious time that he could be shooting.
While it’s a very fun ultimate, with the rocket jumping and such, it’s very hard to get good use out of it because he’s so vulnerable while using it.
Self-repair:
This ability, like Recon mode, is nearly perfect. It doesn’t really need any changes, but a couple changes would be really nice. Reducing or removing the delay between pressing RMB and when Bastion actually heals would be a nice change. At the moment, there’s a 0.5 second delay from pressing the button to actually getting healed, yet during that time, the repair meter still depletes. Another nice change would be to only have the meter move when it actually heals Bastion. This would also fix the afore mentioned “issue”, as the meter would no longer go down if Bastion isn’t healing himself. Again though, repair is almost perfect, and isn’t really in need of any changes.
Overall issues:
Bastion relies far too heavily on teammates to do well. Yes, Bastion should need a good team to succeed, and he shouldn’t be able to solo carry, but at the moment, if he doesn’t have a main tank and a healer on him almost constantly, he’s going to die immediately. He needs to shed this massive team reliance, and become slightly more independent if he’s ever going to become close to viable. Again, he should not be able to carry a team on his own, but he should not need a team that works for him the entire match to be usable.
Another problem, one that I’ve seen many people use to justify his place in the game, is that he’s “niche”. Bastion’s “niche” is now supposed to be barrier busting since his rework. However, many heroes do this job much better and much safer than Bastion can. Junkrat can lob grenades over a wall with no threat of being killed. Hanzo can corner peek and use Storm Arrows, and then follow up with normal arrows to finish the job (especially if he has his team helping out). Symmetra (After her rework) gets an infinite ammo, 180 DPS beam to melt shields with, or she can just teleport her team around the shields all together. Pharah can shoot rockets from far enough away that she’s in no real danger. Brigitte can instantly stun a Reinhardt barrier down with almost no danger to herself… Meanwhile, Bastion has to move to position, set up in Sentry mode, and only then can he start breaking barriers. And if his barrier drops first, he’s done for, while other “barrier busters” have plenty of escape options. Bastion’s “niche” is being taken away be more and more heroes, leaving him worse off as the game progresses. Bastion needs to lose this “niche”, and become a more well-rounded hero overall.
Fixing these issues:
In order to tame his heavy team reliance, he may need a way to discourage sitting in Sentry mode forever. While Sentry mode should definitely still be the center of his kit, encouraging him to always stay in this mode may a cause of this team reliance. Because he always has Ironclad in Sentry mode, it’s often better to stay in this mode than to switch to Recon and retreat. I think a hard limit on Sentry (for example, having it on a timer and cooldown) would almost certainly ruin his kit, but having a soft limit on it (for example, limiting his reload, or giving him a longer reload time) would encourage people to use his other mode(s) more often. If players can use their ammo wisely, they’ll still be able to do well with Bastion, but if they don’t, then they won’t get much out of him. I believe that making his high damage potential harder to utilise is the best way of allowing him to be more independent.
As for his “niche”, I think making him more well-rounded is the best way to go for remedying this. As stated before, make his damage harder to use, but more rewarding is probably the best course of action for bringing back into viability. In a couple of the recent reworks to heroes, Blizzard has put some heroe’s ultimates on a normal ability. I think this may be the best course of action for Bastion as well. Placing a weakened version of Tank mode on E would allow him much more mobility than he has now, as well as better burst potential options than he has now. This also helps with the first point of making him more independent, as it allows him to more easily get into good positions for Sentry mode surprise attacks. Tank on E gives him good long-range damage in Recon mode, good mobility and burst damage in Tank mode, and good short-medium range damage in Sentry mode, making him a better well-rounded hero. It still takes time to transform from mode to mode, so it’s not like he can instantly deal out many forms of massive damage, but he has many more options than he has now.
These are Bastion’s main problems that I’ve noticed. If you have any more, please share, I’d be happy to add them. It’d be super if discussion wouldn’t devolve into “Just remove Bastion from the game, I don’t like playing against him”, but I’m not a cop, do what you will (within ToS anyway)…
Here’s my take on giving Bastion his Tank mode on E. This rework is included in the thread that the first link leads to, as well as several other reworks.
"Tank on E" v2
- General Changes
- Being stunned during a transformation now instantly completes the transformation
- Configuration Sentry
- Spread reduced to 1.5° (Formerly 3°)
- Headshots added (1.5x multiplier instead of 2x)
- Ammo reduced to 200
- Can no longer reload
- Instead, Bastion must switch to another mode to replenish Sentry mode’s ammo
- Transformation times no longer count towards reloading Sentry mode’s weapon
- Bastion must stay in another mode for a total of 2 seconds to gain more ammo for Sentry mode
- Configuration Tank (E Ability)
- Damage reduced to 120 (Formerly 205)
- Splash damage now ranges from 40 - 85 damage (Formerly 70 - 145)
- Tank tread sounds reduced
- 3 shots per clip
- Ammo reloads over time similar to Doomfist’s gun
- 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 20% Ironclad for duration of repair
- Overclock (Ultimate Ability)
- Adds 150 armor to all forms
- Alternatively, sets Ironclad to 35% in Sentry/Tank, 20% in Recon
- 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 speed to 6.5 m/s (Normally 5.5 m/s)
- Increases rate of fire to 30 r/s (Normally 25 r/s)
- Reduce reload speed to 0.5 seconds (Normally 2 seconds)
- Overclock (Sentry mode)
- Grants CC immunity
- Sets ammo count to 250
- Increases rate of fire to 35 r/s (Normally 30 r/s)
- Overclock (Tank mode)
- Grants infinite ammo
- Increase direct hit damage to 205
If you’d like to see some buff/rework ideas that I’ve found around the forums (and some I’ve made), please look at this thread:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/some-bastion-rework-ideas/128305
And here’s a link to the ongoing Bastion mega-thread if you’re interested:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/stop-sign-bastion-is-being-forgotten-320-likes/32040
… I know they don’t like to announce anything too far in advance, because that just leaves people in anticipation (I assume that’s coming from the whole “Sombra ARG” thing, but maybe that’s just a Blizz thing in general), but I think not knowing if he’s even being considered is worse than waiting a while for a fix…