Is Bastion even on the Devs’ table?

General Discussion
1

I hate to sound whiny or complain into the dark that is the OW forums, but with all this attention currently being given to the “troll picks” of Overwatch (DF, Sombra, Hanzo, Mei, Torb, Sym), why haven’t we heard anything from the Devs about Bastion?

Bastion has quite literally the lowest pickrate in the game, with an abysmal 0.58% (for context Torb and Sym have 0.66% and 0.68% pickrate, respectively).

We need something, anything, on what’s happening with Bastion from Blizzard.

Now I know many fellow Bastion mains have the sentiment that Bastion just needs some tweaking, and while I would fully agree with this if most people had 150+ hours on Bastion, they don’t. In a game designed around switching, you can’t expect someone to pick up Bastion even for many of the situations it would be good in. Us Bastion mains are the exception here, as we’ve managed to finagle this borderline-useless character into some viability. That said, it’s because we like playing Bastion, not because it’s viable. If we cared more about viability, we’d be playing Junkrat or Soldier, who largely do Bastion’s job better than Bastion.

The sheer obscurity of Bastion is quite apparent, not only by looking at its pickrate, but by looking at how many people in this community don’t even give it the title of “meme” like Sym or Torb. It’s not even given attention as a joke. I regularly meet people who have completely forgotten Bastion even exists in Overwatch.

And for those who claim that Bastion is a “scrub” hero who only exists for noobs and casual players, I would note that even in Bronze, Bastion is the seventh-least played hero out of 26 heroes, with a pickrate of 2%. There’s obviously something WRONG here.

Notes:
Current SR: 3270
Total Bastion Time Played: 207 hours
Platform: Xbox
Winrate: 52%

7 Likes
2

No, no he is not right now

3 Likes
3

DId you at least read the post?

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4

I will be honest, no, but as they have said, their list was most of the defense category, except junk, bastion, and widow, they are looking right now at Hanzo then most likely sym, then torb

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5

Yes that I’m quite aware of, but considering that Bastion is both in the Defense category, and is the least-played hero in the game, I’m both curious and concerned as to why we’ve heard literally nothing from the devs on it. We don’t hear about Widow and Junk because they really are viable, but when talking about the likes of Sym, Torb, Mei, Hanzo, etc, it’s odd to leave out Bastion.

6

I think Bastion definitely need something. I’m pretty sure he isn’t being looked at by the devs since they’re looking at hanzo right now then symmetra but maybe at the end of this year? idk. It takes WAY to long for hero changes to happen.

3 Likes
7

that I don’t know, possibly after their current list, they will look at bastion, but not right now

2 Likes
8

Given that they are doing 3 reworks in a row, it will take time

1 Like
9

Fair enough. I just wish they would TELL us that. I have much less problem with waiting when I know that what I’m waiting for is actually going to happen eventually.

Currently, that is not the case.

10

Again, they probably are seeing if some characters will do better based on other heroes changes first or if introducing new characters will help them also

1 Like
11

Another good point, but considering the current state of Bastion, I would consider it a flimsy crutch to base its entire viability on factors outside of its own kit.

12

Yeah, but for a team game, it makes a bit of since that a character does better when working as a team

1 Like
13

Again, true, but there’s a difference between a character in a team game who very strongly benefits from team play, and a character in a team game who is rendered pretty much useless without team play.

Even Mercy can at least function somewhat independently, but Bastion is literally completely subject to its team giving a second thought about it.

That’s the reason I sympathize with Mercy players so much lol

14

Yeah, but if bastion was strong on his own, think what he would be behind a team?

15

I wonder what Bastion would be like if they swapped tank and sentry.

So Bastion would regularly roam around as a tank. Doing less damage per shot for balance reasons.

Then his ult transforms him into a turret. Maybe with more health. Like 800. As a “hold the line” kinda ultimate.

I feel like it’d be easier to balance him that way and would create a better distinction between using recon & sentry.

16

No he is not, at least not officially.

Bolding text doesn’t work very well on the new forums so read through it, Bastion is not on the list of heroes they’re focusing on right now.

2 Likes
17

I’ve used this analogy before but it feels like I’m talking at a wall with the Blizz logo on it when I speak about Bastion. There aren’t enough of us to keep threads alive and those that do and get a lot of attention are just kind of ignored. To my knowledge, only the Bastion threads out of all the F tier heroes have not gotten any dev attention. I don’t want to sound like a toddler crying out for attention but that’s all we can do now. Our threads are ignored so we can only talk about that and they’re still ignored.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759286904?page=1
This is a post on the old forums about giving back old sentry with a butt load of likes even while downvotes were around. It has 272 likes and 40 dislikes.

3 Likes
18

They’ve said he’s a hard hero to balance, it’s the same reason Mei and DF only got the slow time buff, less ammo on alt fire, and reload speed buff instead of anything impact-full. There have been a lot of good suggestions on changing Bastion

I’m not trying to plug this thread but in the possible changes, possible rework, and the recent threads section in that post it has a ton of change/rework ideas across all of them. I put my favorite in the main post (the possible rework section).

2 Likes
19

I do, and he does.

The biggest hesitation I have is when people start looking at him from an above-perspective. Bastion does require skill, and thinking that he doesn’t is what lead him to become OP when they reworked him.

He needs adjustments, and not overloaded buffs. I don’t expect everyone to have a high about of playtime on him, but I do expect that they have a mutual respect for the hero and know that it’s not just spray-and-pray when playing him.

This problem comes into play when anyone wants an F-tier hero buffed. They don’t acknowledge the skill that the hero needs and sees them as easy, then any buffs they get break them and it does no one any good. So yes, rallying everyone up to help support Bastion buffs is needed, but we need to streamline what we want buffed so that he doesn’t become stupidly, brokenly, OP again.

Same :sob:

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2 Likes
20

Oh believe me I’m aware of this. I don’t think Bastion needs a conventional “buff” as much as a thorough review by the Devs. I would personally just like to allow Bastion some moderate vertical mobility outside of Sentry at regular intervals (aka not while using ult).