Bastion consistently underperforms as a hero across most ranks, so yes, they really did need a buff. There’s not really an argument here, Bastion has always been one of the worst heroes in the game for all levels of play above Silver. A hero that performs this badly does, in fact, require a buff.
To this day I’m still surprised at how low ranks simply cannot answer Bastion the way average ranks can. I totally understand when newer players keep making the same mistake of walking right at them, but it’s 2020. It’s been four years. The only time Bastion is proving effective is when their entire team contorts around them to make them viable enough to possibly hold one defensive point. Once you break this defense once, it’s very difficult for it to be set up again, especially in the perspective of low ranks where players aren’t organized enough to properly move Bastion around outside the beginning of the round.
Whether you like it or not, bunker comps are legitimate comps that are intended to be effective – like any conventional comp is intended to. It’s a valid strategy that many heroes are designed around, both complementing the comp itself as well as working strong against it. There are plenty of counter options to a dedicated bunker comp, there are many areas that can be situationally exploited to unravel the defensive nature of the comp. It is not impossible to beat, I think people need to get over bunker comps and actually learn how to surpass them rather than asking for it to be nerfed over and over again. It’s a strategy in a team game, if you’re genuinely going to be upset over it being effective, then I really do think you’re playing the wrong game.
Weak heroes get buffed. What more of an explanation is really even needed? You can’t increase the raw DPS of Bastion because it’s already incredibly high, so they indirectly increase it by providing a situational self-buff that rewards Bastion for holding their ground – a reward that is somewhat locked behind skill, since all it does is increase Bastion’s accuracy. From that angle, this is a fairly harmless buff, because low ranked players don’t have the accuracy themselves to make the most of the reverse-bloom.
The healing buff keeps their overall healing potential the same, but allows them to tank some greater waves of damage with higher HPS, and frankly, that seems pretty fair to me. Bastion is a slow hero that enters an immobile state to achieve their core power, so it’s very easy to stack damage on them. There’s plenty of ways to deny Bastion’s healing, or exploit the windows in which their healing prevents them from shooting. I mean I really keep returning to this one point, that Bastion is incredibly easy to counter, even when they have a whole team guarding them. It really shouldn’t be so surprising that Bastion would get buffs when they’re quite consistently one of the worst picks in the game.