Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third Bastion megathread.
Bastion is, and has been for most of the game’s history, much weaker than most heroes. There is always some other hero that can do his job better than he can, and with less risk.
A lot of people say he needs a complete rework, and that his design is fundamentally flawed. There is a possibility this is correct, however we need more testing before this course of action is taken. They need to really try making his current form function before moving on. A rework is acceptable, but making his current state function is preferred. Of course, if a rework is inevitable it needs to keep the core design of Bastion intact. We want an improved Bastion, not a new hero. He needs to stay with that design if you want Bastion players to still like him.
If they try amd work with him as he is now, these are the problems each ability has and need to be addressed:
Recon
Recon is Bastion’s default form, but should not be his defining one. Bastion should not be a different Soldier 76.
This mode should be used for positioning, and for skirmishing before a team fight breaks out. Currently it does that job pretty well, and not change is needed.
Sentry
Sentry is Bastion’s most defining form. Ideally any change should keep sentry form as stationary and high damage.
Last time he was reworked, he was given a passive called “Ironclad” that reduced damage taken while in sentry. He was also given faster transformation times.
Theses four things can be used to balance sentry. The tradeoff of immobility for high damage, with damage resistance and transformation speed adjusted until he balanced.
Currently the tradeoff is not worth it. Why use a clunky stationary hero when you could instead pick someone else and do comparable damage from a safer position? Sentry either needs less risk, or more reward.
Self Repair
Self repair is what helps keep Bastion alive while he does his job. It has received many adjustments over the years, but still has a few issues.
It’s primarily problem is that the cast time was adjusted so that it always had to play out, increasing the amount of time it takes for Bastion to heal himself to a consistent .25 seconds. This means that if you want to reconfigure out of sentry and start healing yourself while escaping, it will take you .75 seconds before you receive any, and for most of that time you are stuck standing in one place.
This cast time also interferes with his ultimate. Before this he was able to maintain a consistent pattern of healing a little bit between shots. Now he needs to spend more time repairing, reducing the effectiveness of his ultimate.
This is however, the only problem with his healing currently. All other changes made to it have improved Bastion’s gameplay immensely.
Tank
Bastion’s ultimate ability is configuration tank, where he combines high damage and mobility. I already talked about the healing nerf, but it has a few more issues.
The first is the extreamly long cast times. Bastion needs to spend 1.5 second standing still to use his ultimate, over twice as long as earthshatter. During this time, he will lose his ultimate if he is stunned or killed. After he ultimate is over, he then needs to spend another 1.5 seconds transforming back into recon, and this time you are likely in a much more dangerous position.
The second is that it it’s survivability has been severely nerfed by his last rework. Before this, he received 150 armor as soon as you hit the button. When he was reworked, the armor was replaced by a 35% damage resistance, which was roughly equivalent. However, when ironclad was nerfed to 20%, it was also nerfed on his tank form making it much weaker than before. On top of that, ironclad, unlike the armor, only activates once the full cast time is over. Pre rework Tank got more protection earlier and wasn’t a problem. Post rework gets much less protection much later.
All of these are issues currently plaguing Bastion. He, like all heroes, deserves to be viable. He doesn’t need to be meta, but he needs to do his job well, and his job needs to be useful. Breaking barriers is hardly an issue these days, and there are many heroes better at it than him. Bastion needs to be able hold and area, without 5 players pocketing him.
Many of the changes Bastion recieved since the rework have need improvements. Shrinking spread and not draining his meters when on full health are great. I hope we can use this thread to discuss solutions to the problems presented here, and that the devs may find helpful, and hopefully Bastion gets the help he needs in Overwatch 2.
A Thank You
I just want to thank all the people below for making the last two threads so great.
Chibifox
Terranguard
Pharahəntoi
Bliztdreams
Astrobiology
DeigoDC
Pelgaphil
GrantMan
Zaydar
Jaredmnstr
Quizzybunny
AlphaVI
Shadowdarter
ZeoDraconoid
DerGreif2
Inky
Wilkham
Treb
Thank you!
