Bastion
Bastion initially proved to be a troublemaker simply because players didn’t know how to deal with such a character. His bullets would easily unload into heroes and eliminate them before they could even react to where the damage was coming from. Once players started finding ways to counter him, however, he proved to be a less viable hero. After all, one good deflect from Genji would leave him in pieces. He needed a rework that would make him a little more viable in the game so Blizzard went to work.
In the beginning of February, Bastion’s transformation time from sentry to recon mode was decreased from one second to .5 seconds. This allowed him to make the transition quickly in case a players wanted to opt for flight instead of fight. At the same time his weapon spread in recon mode was set to recover more quickly, which helped him better defend himself when trying to escape the fray. His reload speed was also dropped by half a second. His offensive kit was impressive so Blizzard attempted to balance him out by having his vulnerable core exposed when in sentry mode so players who managed to sneak up behind him could really punish the dastardly robot.
Before the end of the month, however, Blizzard essentially pressed the undo button on all of his bullet changes. At the beginning of March they decreased the damage multiplier for his core and removed aim restrictions that used to be in effect while he was transforming. These two changes made Bastion a little hard to deal with yet again. Unfortunately, Blizzard wasn’t done with him yet. Bastion’s most recent changes are the most controversial yet. While he used to only be able to heal while in sentry mode, Bastion can now run around the map and heal himself at the same time. Along with the reduced damage multiplier for his core, Bastion’s survivability has skyrocketed and he can even take multiple slashes from Genji’s Dragonblade ultimate without crumbling apart. He also now has the passive Ironclad ability which gives him a 35% reduction in damage while in his most powerful form—sentry mode. Bastion is now a certified problem.
We will likely be seeing some more changes for Bastion soon. Well, we hope we do anyway.
