I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying with this one…? Are you wanting 300 rounds, 2.5 seconds?
Yeah, his shot timer and reload timer are independent… I didn’t know Doomfist didn’t work this way until recently, I thought his timers were independent too… I’ll change that.
Yeah, that’s fair too… I need to reword a quite few things.
Yes.
I want to encourage Bastion players to often change configurations, giving each its clear “goal”: Sentry trades mobility for high sustain dmg, Recon is the accurate long-range middleground between the 2 others and Tank is the mobile burst dmg.
You did not cite anything else. May I take it for an agreement on said uncited points ?
Yeah, forgot to put your name in the change log… Didn’t want to put it next to every change for somewhat obvious reasons 
No problem. I wasnt’ really talking about it.
(Can’t even remember what exactly i was talking about… following to many threads at once.)
So I just sent a link to my friend who’s a Rein main to see what he thought about the changes we’re proposing. For some reason he cannot post on the forums (parental control or something, even though he’s 21). StratOFerus, if you’re reading…
Said he really likes the changes though and he misses seeing more Bastions.
I’m happy.
Edit: my english is brokener than usual, it seems.
I feel like the “bastion is being forgotten” thread served it’s purpose now.
Should we post a link there to this thread (which will arguably be the new megathread) ?
Could be best to leave the old one for brainstorming ideas and have this one to discuss tank on E further.
I think we’re going to make a new megathread, and just link this thread to that one… I think a megathread that addresses his issues would probably be better than just a rework idea…
Having said ideas doesn’t hurt either. We do know his issues and already are proposing a solution.
I like these ideas personally. Being able to switch configurations based on the needs of the team would be super fun.
We have Santa with us!
No, it’s the fish from American Dad
So, now that I removed this parental control, I’ll say what I wanted to say : As a tank main (specifically a Rein main), I started to think that Brigitte was the new counter to Reinhardt instead of what was designed to be a tank buster (a.k.a Bastion). It would be nice to watch the table turning once more.
Absolutely… Bastion counters Brigitte somewhat well at the moment, but give him better accuracy so that his shots actually hit her barrier, and he’ll be a really good counter. Something that people have been asking for since her release. And even with an accuracy boost, he doesn’t counter Rein anymore than he does now… well, Rein’s barrier anyway. He becomes a fair bit better at not being pinned.
Remember when you could burst down a Rein before he could finish his charge animation ?
Those were the good days
Yeah. I started to notice more and more Rein that are so dumb that they charge directly into the enemy team, specifically Bastions. I started to hate them when I flexed to supports.
Saved the life of a Reinhardt 3 times in a row as Ana once. He managed to die straight away too.
It normally works unless you’re pretty far back when you start… Bastion can’t really do enough DPS with his spread and lack of headshots to kill a Rein if he charges within like 15-20 meters or so… just estimating the distance, haven’t really tested it…
This is a cool idea. I’d love to see tank mode become a more integral part of his kit.
You can absolutely balance around shields and healing… It’s not a 1v1 game, you’re supposed to work with your team.
Mei can now 2 tap a Widow from across the map, and she can do it slightly faster than Bastion would be able to… I did have a damage falloff in place before the Mei falloff was removed. If it does turn out to be a problem, adding in falloff would be fine.
Tank on E isn’t for killing, it’s for burst damage. It gets rid of armor really quick. Oh no, a Brigitte ulted, and now the enemy has armor? Tank mode. At the moment, Bastion doesn’t have burst damage, this gives it to him. You’re not supposed to hunt down kills with it. You can finish people off with it, but you shouldn’t be using it for killing primarily. If you shoot someone in Recon, and you know they’re about to run behind a wall, go Tank, jump so you can see over the wall, finish them off.
Jump on Recon doesn’t give him burst damage, and isn’t as fun. Another one of his major problems is his “fun factor”. Yes, I enjoy Sentry mode. Most people don’t. Even I find it kinda boring to watch. This makes his kit as a whole much more interesting and variable. It adds a whole lot of new playstyles to the mix, making him much more versatile than he is now. He already has a good mobility option, why bother giving him another (weaker) one when you can just give him access to his current one more often.
I’ve been thinking about Tank on E a lot and while I really liked the idea at first and tested it a lot in custom games (by tweaking damage values in unlimited ult mode) something just kept nagging away at me and the whole concept isn’t sitting right with me.
Okay, Tank on E sure seems like an obvious solution:
What worries me is this is too much of a “simple rework” that actually ends up way too complicated when you try to figure out a way to implement it. Reworks are very very risky. Too often they don’t really solve a problem but just create a whole new paradigm with it’s own new problems that don’t become apparent until it’s too late.
Okay, lets look a bit more specifically what is the problem, the problem is surviving and being useful in recon mode. Tank on E doesn’t actually address the problems with being in recon mode. It just proposes a de-facto alternative mode to Recon mode at the cost of there being three standard modes!
This isn’t a very holistic solution, this is giving up on recon mode as a lost cause or just so excessively leaning on a Tank on E as something to wait to come off cooldown while Recon remains too hard to use.
This “simple solution” of putting tank on E actually causes more problems of “well now what the heck do I put on Q!?!?” frankly, I am far more afraid of what the developers would put on Q which will lead to more instability of “too powerful, nerf bastion!” and he gets over-nerfed in the backlash or they just make something really tedious.
No, the situation needs to remain focused on most of the gameplay just switching between Recon and Sentry mode. Then an ult mode when it’s earned.
There is actually other precedent in Overwatch of solving the bastion tank-mode problem: heroes don’t all gain Ult charge at the same rate. Rein’s ult charge he needs to gain is only about 1300 “units” compared to 2000 for Bastion. Similar with Tracer, smaller ult charge for a smaller ult. Part of the problem with Tank on Q is that it’s a big investment that you have to cash in all at once.
What if Tank stays on Q but is earned much quicker but much shorter. That’s going to do a lot:
The problem with Tank on Q right now is that it’s rare enough and telegraphed enough that the enemy generally is able to readjust themselves to essentially neutralise the Tank Ult. And it’s hard to get much use (I mean literally much, literally fire off many rockets and advance very far) out of it. There’s the weird case where you may want to use the ult to rocket jump up to some high point where 10 rockets would be far more than needed yet you’re only about 60% of your way to an ult charge.
This of course assumes also many QoL improvements like sorting out the transformation problems, the sound telegraphing problems, etc. So it would be something like 6 seconds (6 rockets) but you’d only need to gain 1300 ult, so mow down 1-2 tanks and a bit of self healing and boom, got your mini-ult. Yeah, the battle whistle sound really shouldn’t sound so soon in the transformation, but rather only after Bastion has fully transformed into Tank mode should there be that distinctive “bastion ult whistle” that is heard AS he launches his first attack.
Something needs to be put on E but it has to be something that helps solve the troubling transition from Recon to Sentry and back again. Bastion can’t really be made any faster in mobility without huge animation changes, he can’t be made tougher without becoming a tanks, he can’t be made more powerful in recon mode without simply overshadowing Soldier/McCree… There’s only one thing self: Detection.
What Bastion needs on E is something that perfectly ties in with his design from day one. What is seen in his introduction trailer? His robot vision, how it scans for targets and locks on to threats.
There are already three types of enemy detecting wallhacks in the game:
Some sort of enemy detection ability is the perfect pairing to solve the problems with Recon. The problem with recon is how you have no idea what’s going to appear around the corner, that’s where it’s frankly too steep a learning curve for most players, it’s just too damn risky trying to set up in sentry mode.
How would such an E ability work, there are a few ways:
Downsides could be:
But not anything like a very slow activation that leaves bastion immobile/impotent, as the whole point is trying to figure out when it’s safe to move in recon mode and transform and vice versa.
Such an ability would have synergy with all three modes. It would tell when is relatively safe to move forward in Recon mode and set up in sentry. When Sentry will be surrounded and it’s time to move, and when there’s an opportunity to use Tank Ult.
And what I’d think is far more valuable it’s an element of support.
Bastion kinda needs that as usually his team has no love for him. He’s the ugly duckling, the odd one out, he doesn’t talk, he acts different, no hero has any nice voice lines for him. He builds up many a nemesis on the opposing team and no friends on his team. Something like just a bit of wall-vision, especially if it was of a slightly different style so that everyone knew “ahh this is a gameplay advantage that our bastion is giving us” would really add to help the non-bastion players.
Many heroes outside of the Support class have some element of support to allies:
That’s essentially half of the non-support heroes have a way to directly help allies score kills other than just dealing damage to the enemy.
So, yeah… Bastion doesn’t need a “rework”.
He needs all his abilities to be fundamentally the same, so not reworked… what I’d call “re-tuned”. He needs the stats moved around a lot and something added… but adding an ability on top isn’t a rework - by my definition at least - like how DvA getting mini-rockets isn’t a rework, it was a buff (along with the nerf to her DM).
But mainly it’s a lot of QOL movements and rebalance Tank on Q from a big long ult gained rarely to be a short and sharp ult gained several times per game or very reliably gained early in the game.
One thing that occurs to be with “Detection Ability on E” is there really needs to be an ability to distinguish enemy heroes.
For example you need to know a Hanzo is coming around a corner to mow him down or run away as his storm arrows are - by design - very very powerful and if they’re supposed to be good against 600hp tanks, then they’ll inherently be good against Bastion. Hanzo must be a counter to Bastion but it’d be preferable for Bastion to have a chance to run, hide and play more passivly with a Hanzo around then just be insta-melted.
But Bastion needs some sort of warning.
Tank on E swings it too far the other way, now Bastion has a mode for every hero always on demand.
Wall vision on E is an inherently limiting ability with Bastion as “wall hacks” are nastiest when you are advancing AND have high burst weapons, you can “psych yourself up” and prepared to open fire exactly when rounding a corner knowing exactly where to shoot as you know where you enemy is.
Bastion has high burst… but not while moving. Bastion in recon mode is obviously unsuited to being aggressive, even if he new exactly where his opponent was it would be far better for him to use that information to play more passively.