there was absolutely no reason to rework sym or mercy 1.0. they could’ve done tweaks at mass rez like give her 55 or 50 hps or add LOS checks with mass rez but NOOOO they went away and deleted mass rez and decided to create one of the worst meta’s in overwatch’s history which led a large dislike towards mercy. and sym did NOT need a rework whatsoever. she was good in masters and GM, you just needed to know how to play her properly.
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What makes most heroes unique though in Overwatch is also what generally makes them badly - designed as well. And that for many reasons, either because said abilities are CC - infested, perhaps low skill - high reward, or they’re generally too frustrating to play against.
Honestly, I don’t really care if a certain “unique” mechanic makes a hero fun for the 2% that happens to main a hero, if it also makes them too unfun to play against for the rest of us.
And thankfully, the devs’ actions throughout these past years only paint them as in agreement with the majority - rule philosophy, as almost every single rework they’ve delivered has been successful in its one - sided purpose of rightfully removing mechanics that don’t have a place in Overwatch, such as Mass Rez, old Sym TP ULT, Sym lock - on gun, Mei’s Freeze, Doom’s Rocket Punch etc. or fixing other design mistakes via heavy modifications, such as the old Bastion Sentry mode, etc. There are more reasons why reworks have been carried out, being just OP though as a hero isn’t one of sid reasons, though.
Whether these reworks also introduced other design flaws or not is certainly a statement that’s true, but what’s also true is that, in the case of Symmetra 3.0 for example, an otherwise successful overall rework was unfairly overshadowed due to the horrible numerical balance surrounding it.
Overall though, I would say most of the reworks in Overwatch have been successful… Either way though, the quicker those who believe otherwise finally understand that so many of Overwatch’s mechanics are flawed from the very core and will require drastic changes and may involve collateral losses, the faster Overwatch will be saved.
Time to drop the ““muh originality”” argument…
As it has unfortunately been proven so many times by Overwatch,
uniqueness =/= good design (and isn’t the former what video games are all about at the end of the day?)
Would love to see what metrics you use in order to measure “positive responses” here.
Overall I think this gimmick can work but the current problem with it is mostly too many punishments for too little value.
Torb turret for example does work as an ability while being stationary as well since it the hero experiences much less punishments.
Sure Bastion does 4X the damage as most other heroes but it has spread, the damage is consistent and require some aim (something I know a lot of people may not agree with but especially with the spread reduce buff the hero is more than point and click) all while having MASSIVE body.
At the end of the day when you play a hero you want to feel like you have impact on the game, you provide more help than punishment, something Bastion currently doesn’t do too well…
I really think that before reworking the hero completely they should first test reducing its punishments a bit for testings. It wouldn’t change a lot for lower ranks where the hero is already strong but will help a lot in higher ranks where the hero is weak due to the skill being higher and people would be able to use these buffs.
- Reduce Bastion’s size by 15% like in the april’s experimental. People tend to have very easy time hitting a standing target, especially one that big, and it’s not like it has a head this body covers… Reducing its body by between 10%-15% would make it a bit easier avoiding random spam shots that shouldn’t even it it…
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During transformation Bastion should keep its passive. During transformation Bastion stays in one place and can’t shoot. How is it fair to give hero so much down time for free?
The least they can do is keep its passive in order to make sure enemies do not completely destroy Bastion that only change from one form to another… It’s not like it changes for something too powerful anyways. - Cut transformation time by 1/2 1 second to get into sentry is wayyy too much. People complain about Reaper’s shadow step and this ability is no different. It’s a fast paste game that require a lot of instant reactions. I don’t expect them to remove transformation completely but 1.5 just to reposition is way too much… 0.25 sec for recon and 0.5 to sentry would still give enemies an opening to shoot while allowing Bastion to avoid death by an attack it spotted way before it started.
- Increase damage of tank form to 255 damage or at least increase first rate This one is less about punishments and its really not that important but it doesn’t help, Bastion’s ultimate does way less damage than its normal sentry form in exchange for more burst, it’s pretty much a clean up ability after you killed the tanks, currently too much squishies can survive it making the ultimate useless a lot of times, I do think a small buff to the ultimate would only help without making it op. btw right now 225 hp heroes can now survive the attack by simply standing there which is not something good if you ask me…
Sorry if it was a little bit long 
I just really feel like people tend to jump into rework too fast a lot of times…
If a hero is too weak or too strong we first need to understand the problem, then trying to fix it and only then go for rework. Currently the devs gave Bastion less spread, tried more passive and that’s about it… When a hero is so bad it’s not even a good niche pick it means some serious buffs before trying a rework. And for Bastion it had so many punishments they could have tried to reduce before going for rework or ignoring the hero completely.
These are also the only developers I have seen that are willing to sabotage the core concepts of their heroes for balance.
And the game suffers because of it. Literally no other game suffers from this. 
Because in other games devs aren’t so spineless and know, that some unfun is intentional and should stay.
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