As we all know, many of us already hate Bastion and are not too pleased about the buff. The devs certainly know this as well as inferred by Jeff’s cheeky comment, “I know many of you are dying to see more Bastion in your matches.”
So, it got me thinking and I came to two conclusions. Either:
A) Jeff and the devs sadistically enjoy watching us get mowed down by a 9 year-old with a Gatling gun, or,
B) There are counters to him we’re not using, so the devs are making him stronger to motivate us to use our abilities better and work more as a team to take him down.
Which, before I go on, I don’t think it should take a team to shut down a single, low skill character. That is ridiculous. But, the devs have also said that this is a hardcore game that requires mechanical skill and cooperation. Perhaps this is meant to be a sort of refining fire for those of us who are still struggling to take down Bastion oriented comps.
Just last night with my team, we got shut down by a Bastion three times in a row. And each time we recognized that we’re not working together enough to deal with the situation. We kept charging in, or half a** executing our attacks on him, and so we got exploited and shut down.
So, I hope that in spite of these changes to make Bastion (said in Dr. Evil) “More viable,” this motivates players to really crack down and shut down Bastion and low skill Bastion players.
Eventually, I do think he needs some serious changes. If you look at him on paper, Bastion:
- requires low skill to play and succeed with
- does lots of damage
- has high survivability
- performs at his max while being protected by his team
If you look at a character like Wrecking Ball, he:
- requires higher skill to play and succeed with
- does moderate damage
- has high survivability
- can’t perform to his max if being protected by his team
So, a balanced Bastion would need to affect one of those areas. Require more skill to play him, and he’s not pulled out as often by low skill players who are losing. Or, reduce his damage output and he becomes less of a threat. Or, reduce his survivability and now he’s a glass canon, high risk/high reward character. Any one of these would dramatically balance him out and make him less infuriating to go against.
Some have recommended putting his turret form on a cool down and buffing his recon form. I think that that’s a great idea.
Those are my thoughts at least. Curious to hear what the rest of y’all think. Do you think your team will be able to rise to the challenge of disabling this newly buffed Bastion? What nerf(s) would you give Bastion? Would you yourself play him more if he was nerfed/more balanced/required greater skill to play?