Removing Iron-crap would help with this, as allied healing would be MUCH less effective when in any kind of Bunkers.
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I’m fine with this sentiment.
What I am NOT fine with is all the “reworks” that make him non-viable ANYWHERE! Such as make him into a fat and useless version of Soldier 76.
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Or ya know… something as crazy as making his health 200 overall.
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In my opinion balancing a hero simply to make teamwork less effective, is never a good route…
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Lots of ways,
Replace ironclad’s damage reduction with Nonrecoverable armour (NR). The community commonly refers to Nonrecoverable armour as “temporary armour” as if it has an inherent quality that it must time-out. That’s not its inherent quality. it can persist indefinitely until removed by damage.
The inherent quality of “orange armour” is that it cannot be “recovered” with normal healing. So health kits of mercy heal beams or whatever. But could be recovered by special means, such as only recovered by Bastion’s self-repair.
This allows Bastion to be much tougher on his own but healing from allies is now really ineffective.
Something like +100 Nonrecoverable armour for Sentry mode would make a big difference, Bastion would now no longer die to only 3 grenades (or 2 grenades and 1 mine) from Junkrat.
We’ve been going into exhaustive details on how any why such buffs like these are viable over on the Bastion megathread.
Testing spread against frozen bots of different hitbox sizes. Running the numbers and breaking it all down in detail.
You can start by giving Bastion the same respect that Widowmaker does.
No one disrespects Widowmaker with “how can you possibly let her keep the ability to scope in and deal 300 damage headshots with a zoom to help as well”
Bastion’s sentry mode is analogous to a sniper sacrificing movement for a much higher damage attack. Except he sacrifices movement to a far far greater extent.
No, even in Bronze he has one of the lowest pickrates in the game.
Bastion’s pickrate has been FALLING while Orisa’s pickrate has been rising over these past 6 months.
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Give him dis and we dont need to rework him
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I’d agree for the most part but in the case of some heroes in this game I think it could have potential.
Plus with my suggestion he wouldn’t lose any of his current strength in those heavy teamwork centric comps like bunker, but he would be able to be more effective outside of them. We would want to increase his strength outside his niche while not simultaneously making his niche overpowered right?
Bunker still exists outside of Bastion. The problem is Orisa.
First of all he doesn’t have tank-HP, because he is not a tank.
Second of all he shouldn’t quite have tank-HP, because he is not a tank.
That’s what’s so cool about the idea of nonrecoverable armour, it’s fundamentally different from a tank just having 400HP. For example orisa’s entire HP can be healed by healers. If Bastion had 300HP + 100 nonrecoverable armour, last 100 armour healers cannot help him with AT ALL. That’s what makes tanks… tanks! The synergy with healers. It’s why Overloading torb with 350HP isn’t anything like a tank.
This is why I’m against just giving Bastion straight 400HP.
Nonrecoverable armour in sentry mode IS your buff that weakens bunker and strengthens Bastion outside of bunker.
I’d allow nonrecoverable armour, as long as Sentry is fixed as well.
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I must be really unlucky then.
exactly. these two already cancel each other out.
so why the extra health?
Bastion has to be able to last against focus fire.
That’s not very hard to understand.
and he does, when he has a shield in front of him.
you want to balance him without factoring his whole team in, and that doesnt work.
hes not a standalone hero. hes a team dependent hero. like it or not.
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Another thing that would ‘Buff bastion outside of Bunker but nerf him in bunker’ would be to straight up move his ultimate to an E ability on a 30-40 second cooldown with two simple changes:
- Damage scaled down so direct hits only deal 150 damage
- no ironclad nor anything that would replace ironclad (like +100 nonrecoverable armour)
Why?
Breaking Bunkers
Bastion is likely to get his ultimate when in a bunker and one thing that limits breaking bunkers is how he uses his ultimate while the shields are broken. Now currently he keeps his -20% damage reduction in both sentry mode and tank mode. Such damage reduction means healing is effectively 25% higher when it comes to counteracting incoming damage.
And now at the moment 200HP heroes are pouncing on him they’re running into 205 damage rockets.
But Bastion can’t use his ult like this when out on his own as the 1.5 sec transformation time is too long, healing from healers along with ironclad hugely helps keeps him alive but not on his own. The transformation you cannot move, you cannot shoot, you cannot even look. It’s like being frozen by Mei.
Missed potential
If Bastion is getting a mini-tank mode every 30 seconds, that’s a huge incentive for him to use it or lose it. It has no synergy with staying behind a shield. You can’t even use it to clear out snipers any more as rockets no longer OHK them.
Here’s the very important distinction, the problem is not Bastion ever using a shield, that’s definitely a viable thing… the problem is him ALWAYS using a shield. Just routinely staying behind a shield. The thing is we can’t bastion players to be willing and able to help their team by breaking away from the shield and getting a cheeky flank angle.
Bastion players are clearly terrified of leaving the safety of the shield, they can use the cover of shield transform to get out there and ‘run the gauntlet’ to get to a safe area. And bastion needs safety at the beginning and end of tank mode as tank mode’s transformation time is so long.
1.5 sec to transform and in this time you cannot move
Orisa Can’t Jump
If bastion could routinely rocket-jump to high ground (even if he’s not dealt much damage or before the round begins) but Orisa cannot. Neither can Rein. This is going to hugely incentivize bastion getting to great ambush positions on high ground where he cannot get a shield. And also where most healers cannot get to him either.
Why 150?
Because if it was 154 damage or higher then Mercy’s damage boost could allow him to 1 hit kill 200HP heroes.
Yes, 150 damage means he could OHK tracer but landing direct hit rockets on Tracer is not easy on a 1.0 sec interval, long enough for her to mag dump. And it’s not made any easier by how there’s a 1.5 sec delay while you’re entering tank mode which gives her plenty of time to mag dump and/or stick you with her Pulse Bomb.
Remember, Bastion would just have 300HP, no ironclad damage reduction nor bonus armour. So a pulse bomb alone would kill even with Bastion’s armour as the bomb sticking does damage. So it’d be hugely risky for Bastion to try to use tank mode around Tracer if she had pulse bomb.
Why not change tank mode more?
Because there’s been a lot of tech already out there on Bastion, I don’t want to make dozens of youtube videos irrelevant overnight. Almost all thats said about tank mode still applies. You can still make the same rocket jumps, you can still have the same aim compensation tricks. It’s just that direct hits aren’t OHK on most squishy heroes any more.
Isn’t tank mode really powerful?
No, Tank mode right now is incredibly weak for an ultimate. The 1.5 sec transformation time into tank mode, 8 seconds of tank mode then 1.5 sec transformation time out of tank mode is 11 seconds. Max damage of 8 rockets, 1640 damage.
If Bastion had just stayed in recon mode, mag dumped, reloaded, and mag dumped he’s have dealt about 1638 damage (assuming about 17% headshots) in only 10.25 sec.
The entire impact of tank mode’s ultimate is OHK on squishy heroes when you land a direct hit.
If you can’t land those direct hits, it’s barely better than Recon mode.
There’s only one problem with this:
So if tank is on E, then what’s on Q?
To be honest, I have no idea.
All I know is what should NOT be there. It should not be any sort of base damage boost, we don’t need any more power creep in Overwatch. We don’t need something that will burn down shields quicker.
It should not be any sort of heal/survival boost like -50% damage reduction or bonus healing, that’s only going to beg for more power creep to try to compensate.
Okay, I realise Baptiste’s ult did that but we can’t have any more than that.
And it can’t be CC immunity either, that’s just a big FU to all the CC based heroes. I mean the idea of immunity to graviton or mei’s blizzard, it’s cheap. It’s boring.
There are other types of interaction in the game, things like Widowmaker’s wall-hacks but obviously not something as lame as just copy her ult verbatim.
And he needs to be playable in any situation.
You wont always have a team, and you wont always be perfectly protected.
I’m SO sorry you got killed that one time by a Bastion, but that’s no reason to balance the hero SOLELY on a potential for them to be played in a coordinated team, making them just that tiny bit stronger against you when you run in to 1v6 them.
and im very sorry that you cant fulfill your power fantasy by playing an overpowered robot that can easily mow down any enemy he likes.
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I’m talking about real game balance here.
Would you like to talk numbers?
If not, why are you replying any further?
Bastion isn’t even necessary for Bunker to function though. You’re off-base.
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as a bastion main i can say bastion doesnt need his team to live, he can take care of himself most of the time. bastion is fine as is