(Disclaimer - I have not played rank for a couple seasons, but I was diamond last time I did. As such, I cannot claim to be an expert or have any real weight on this subject, so anything said here should be taken with a grain of salt… or a bucket if you have it.)
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Now, as the recent Bastion Meta has shown, Bastion’s current design has a couple of… issues.
Whenever he’s good, he makes the enemy tank miserable… which is very bad, even more so when you consider how miserable they already are without us in play right now. I’m looking at you, Ana mains.
Whenever he’s bad, he’s usually Roadhog levels of bad. Meaning anyone who wants to play him is out of luck.
Sometimes he’s decent, but you usually need a support up the ass to not either immediately explode or be locked behind cover 5x the amount of time any other DPS is behind cover.
Seriously, not even snipers or actual supports feel this fragile, and that’s saying a lot when you have the health of an open-queue tank.
…But, as someone who actually mained Bastion back in OW1, I think I have a solution that may make a lot of people happy. Although a number of current Bastion mains may not like it as much, considering how it leans more on the survivability of his old recon instead of the glass cannon that was/is his sentry/assault.
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Part 1 - Bring back self-repair; Preferably as the same fuel-bar ability he had in OW1, but bringing it back as a “Support Roll-Passive” sort of thing could help current Bastion for anyone that wants to play him without being pocketed.
If you bring it back as the fuel bar version, he could easily stay out of cover a lot longer and tank a lot of damage. Potentially drawing more attention off of your main tank, much like the off-tanks of old, and turning a Bastion into something any tank wants to see… at least on their own team.
And it’s not even like you couldn’t counter this, since this guy would basically be like a budget Roadhog or Mauga and heroes like Ana absolutely demolish those two.
Part 2 - Either nerf the Assault, or make it his ultimate. This part is going to be very important if they go with the fuel-bar route like I’m hoping for, since having the fuel-bar self-repair and his current Assault would make Bastion even more overpowered than he was during the Bastion Meta.
If nerfed, as most current Bastion mains would probably prefer, you could probably do so with the standard cooldown, damage, or move-speed nerfs. Or you could him more of a glass cannon during it, through the removal of his passive or making his minigun a crit-able hitbox.
If made into his ultimate, they could swap it with his Artillery and have that be on a long cooldown. This would maintain or even increase the power of the Assault while still making it significantly less of a problem for the enemy tank because it’s an ultimate.
Part 3 (Optional) - Maybe revert the Recon primary back to its OW1 state of being a 76-Primary with spread. It’s not necessary for this rework, but I still prefer that version of the gun and the fact it has spread would make it fit the whole “DPS-Tank Bastion” idea better than his current primary.
I also liked how it paired with his Steambot skin, the faster fire rate paired with that to give it a powerful yet ham-fisted feeling… one that just isn’t replicated with the new primary, regardless of stats.
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Criticism and feedback are welcome and encouraged, and remember that I do not expect this to have a 100% chance of being the best solution… or even a good solution, considering how biased I am towards OW1 Bastion.
Again, take this with a grain of salt, or a bucket if you have it.
Assault needs to last shorter too. Right now its 6 seconds, which is way too long for the raw space making it provides through damage. It should be 4 or 4.5 seconds. MAYBE 5 seconds if you feel 4 is too short for him to get value (but consdiering his damage output, 4.5 seems fair to me)
I wouldnt want to see Assault as his ultimate since to me, Assault is the primary reason one plays Bastion. And thats okay. I’m fine with a Ramattra-like dps who shifts between huge burst damage and small but more precise longer ranged damage. I just think its a timing issue for Bastion’s balance.
Personally, I think the two sides of him should be Off-Tank recon and Glass-Cannon Assault, but aside from that I agree with you 100%.