For months now, some Overwatch players have insisted that one hero is too strong, perhaps even overpowered. Now that the game is officially out and the hero balance is more or less set, however, I hope we can all agree that the bellyaching is all bunk.
Meet Bastion, an automaton capable of turning into a sentry turret at will:
In the right hands, Bastion is a monster capable of wiping out entire teams, often stopping the payload in its tracks, or preventing enemies from getting a foothold on the objective. Bastion, in turn, has gained a reputation among less experienced Overwatch players who don’t know how to counter him:
Bastion practically became a meme for disgruntled Overwatch players, thanks to how often Bastion players get the ‘play of the game’ at the end of a round:
The sense that I got wasn’t just that players hate that Bastion is a good character. Rather, players dislike the idea that it is easy to be powerful with Bastion, even if you’re completely new to the game. Bastion is basically considered like the noob tube of Overwatch.
Blizzard is well aware of how players feel about Bastion, of course. The poor Overwatch support team has found itself endlessly repeating the same advice to frustrated players on Twitter, as you can see in the GIF to the left here.
Blizzard’s advice is pretty good, actually, as it acknowledges that Bastion isn’t overpowered — he’s just a hero that needs to be dealt with in specific ways. Basically, you need to change heroes midmatch to deal with Bastion, and that’s something that new players have trouble with, because it’s easier to stick with characters you already know.
If you go sniper, for example, you can easily pick Bastion off from a distance. And Genji is the closest thing that Bastion has to a hard counter, thanks to a deflect ability that can send Bastion’s bullets right back. Hell, smart players have even turned Genji into a counter meme against Bastion:
With teamwork, the possibilities to counter Bastion open up even further. A Reinhardt’s shield can help pave the way toward Bastion, and characters like Zarya and Winston also have useful shields in this regard. D.VA can boost around Bastion and get up close. Pharah can go up high and use vantage points to her advantage against a stationary Bastion. There are probably a bunch of other more creative solutions to a Bastion, too, but the point is that he’s not unbeatable. You just have to be smart and tactical.
I’ll be honest: when I started Overwatch, turrets kicked my arse. I would get angry at myself and the game for my poor performance, over and over again. So, I get it. But one of the biggest keys to success in Overwatch is familiarity and understanding of all the characters, not just the ones you think look cool. Every character is capable of being a powerhouse, and you need to be able to dynamically react to whatever people throw at you, not just Bastion. Unless you learn how to be flexible, you’re going to get stomped repeatedly in Overwatch.
The funny thing about getting comfortable with a game is, once you know how everyone works, every trick in the book will become slightly annoying if it is being used against you. Here’s a small sampling of the embarrassing thoughts that have crossed my mind recently while playing Overwatch:
Ugh, there goes Mei freezing everyone again.
That Reinhardt shield is the worst.
Fuck, that Widowmaker won’t stop sniping me!
That fucking dragon was nowhere near me, what the fuck!
WHY CAN NOBODY KILL THIS TRACER BY THE SPAWN, OH MY GOD.
Bastion is no longer the bane of my existence, but really, that terrible robot has just gotten replaced with damn near everyone else. Guess I better git gud!
Comments
34 responses to “It’s Time To Stop Being Salty About Bastion In Overwatch”
Bastion’s easy. I’m fucking salty about Mei!
I’d have to agree… Admittedly I only played in the beta a few weeks back so it might have changed, though I doubt it, but Mei was absolutely way more annoying what with being able to freeze you nearly instantly (“But it takes a few seconds!” my ass) simply because you had the audacity to be anywhere near her.
Bastion is easy enough to counter with some simple flanking, I got far less enraged by a Bastion killing me than I do Mei… I’d actually argue Mei killing someone takes less skill.
Bastion actually has some sort of setup time for his turret, then he’s stuck there twiddling his thumbs until someone actively walks out for him to murder.
Mei can round corners spamming her gun and you’re frozen before you even know what’s going on.
I also think there absolutely needs to be a cap on how many players can be a certain hero… I saw some games at times with like half a dozen of the same hero running around and it was just ridiculous. If that was changed for retail, which I also doubt, someone let me know.
Mei on a payload that you are trying to move is really really frustrating. Her invulnerability cooldown is too short in my opinion. Two of Mei on a payload and you may as well just gg.
Bastion is a sitting duck. When ever I play hanzo I just peak out from a corner, shoot him, and repeat the same process until he is dead. Scatter arrow also works well when he is behind a corner or something.
I’ve been Bastioning on full health and one-shot by Hanzo before… dude literally only poked his head out of cover for a fraction of a second, I didn’t even get a chance to move the reticle to him. Same is pretty close with widowmaker, too. If she double-taps after the first shot lands, you’re done. A sniper only needs to take a fraction of a second to see where the target is, then start charging, and pop back out from invincible cover for the fraction of a second that it takes to loose the shot and win against Bastion.
Hanzo doesn’t even need line of sight – can just fire a noclip dragon in the general direction for a free bullshit kill (seriously, that AoE is a LOT larger than the visual). Genji can reflect-murder or simply climb the walls and drop down behind, Roadhog can yank-dislodge and one-shot shotty, Soldier can fire from behind cover in the general direction, mccree can high noon, any of the mobile characters can drop behind a firing Bastion without making a single damn noise and point-blank murder from behind with the increased crit damage done in Bastion’s back rear spot. Mei can drop a wall to let anyone flank, Ruskigirl can fire a black hole that forces Bastion to move or die, junkrat can lob grenades with no line of sight necessary which can kill him almost before he’s done transforming into mobility mode, and a single Reinhart charge and follow-up thwack will 2-shot a full-health bastion before the turret can DPS the tank down. Pharah can jump up into the less-observed and harder-to-track sky and rain down a hail of rockets that will kill Bastion in a second – WELL before Bastion can convert into mobility mode to get out of the way. If Bastion wasn’t already preparing to fire at Pharah before he heard her announce her ultimate, it’s already over for him.
If people complain about Bastion, what they’re really complaining about is that they don’t know their character’s moves, or that they LIKE walking into obvious meat-grinders over the corpses of their team-mates, or that they’re playing one of the maybe three characters who can’t automagically hard shut down that one specific character in particular. (What… did they want their favourite to be able to hard-counter EVERY character? That’s not how this works. Get used to it).
Hanzo’s dragon is another one of those ‘fuck that bullshit’ moments I tend to have.
Zarya works great as an anti-turret character.
When her shields absorb damage it boosts her attack, meaning you can stand in front of a turret, shield yourself, and they’ll inadvertently BOOST you damage.
I just played a payload round against 4 defending Trobjorns (spelling) and straight up murdered all of them. My gun was almost constantly at 100 damage due to shielding myself and shielding others under fire.
Could one shot all low level turrets, and murder anyone I saw. It was great.
I wanted to object to two of these.
1. Reinhardt’s shield collapses in seconds to Bastion’s stream of fire. It’s only really useful if you’re already quite close to him in the first place.
2. D.Va I have the most experience with. Her weapon is not nearly strong enough to deal with Bastion faster than he can kill her. Her weapon is short range and at that distance every one of Bastion’s bullets hit. Her defensive is only useful if the Bastion is dumb and empties his clip on her while it’s up, otherwise it buys a stalemate for a few seconds at best. Even sneak-around attacks don’t work because he has infinite turning speed and angle on his turret, unlike earlier in the beta when one or both were limited.
You don’t counter Bastion by getting close (unless you’re Genji), you counter him by killing him from a distance where the hit chance of his own weapon is lower. Widowmaker and Pharah both excel at that when played well.
Kotaku ate my comment, so I’ll just say I’ve had some success with D.Va against Bastion but it relies on misdirection – boosting past him obliquely and then doing a flank/rear attack when he’s distracted. Even if you attract his attention to you at least he isn’t firing at your team mates 😉
I agree with you on those two points. I’d actually pick Bastion specifically against rheinhardt. As long as you set up well you just mince his shield and his face. I don’t really get D.VA TBH, maybe she needs good team play like Winston does, because she feels bloody weak whenever I play with her or against her.
I disagree a little about getting close though. Wild hog kills him ded if he gets a hook off. If you get the drop at close range as mcree he should be dead before he can turn even with the full speed. Tracer can actually be pretty great to harass him. You can’t really kill him solo, but you can keep him from being able to tear down allies if you have a room to duck into. I’ve often been able to then sucker 1-2 people away from camping with him and either take them down or keep ’em busy long enough that others can overwhelm Bastion.
The trick with D.Va is getting into people’s faces. Even at medium-close range she will get chewed up. You need to make full use of boost’s short cool-down to do a Reinhardt-lite charge on the target and keep on boosting against the target when possible to knock them back. This works particularly well on Roadhog.
With d’va you can boost whilst your reflect is up and unless bastion is miles away thats generally more than enough to close any gap. Up close d’va destroys bastion.
She really doesn’t. Bastion tears D.Va to shreds at close range. I’ll see if I can get a friend to help record a video of both firing at each other point blank to demonstrate but I’ve had that particular one-on-one encounter many times to date and haven’t come out on top once.
Really? i use d’va all the time to hunt bastions. Never had to many problems with it. Maybe the bastions i’ve faced panic and stop shooting – maybe my reflect is still up when im shooting them. Don’t know never really paid to much attention to it.
EDIT: Not that there is really a right or wrong way – just go with what works for you and your team!
I mean, if I get the jump on them from behind where their weak spot is I can drop them in most cases, but if Bastion’s aware of my position, he gets me every time in straight up damage. It’s one of those occasions I feel like D.Va’s health pool is low considering she’s designed to be a disruption tank with little-to-no support healing behind the line.
It should be said that I’m not a very good player at all, but I tend to be good at knowing when I’ve been outskilled vs when I’ve been outdone by mechanics. Long time progression raiding does teach you a few things!
I found bastions pretty easy to kill in pilot mode, the pistol does so much damage & you can kinda snipe with it too, or use the boost ability to sneak up on them, also a pretty easy target for her ult, not to mention that if the bastions far enough you can still freak the player out by shooting long distance with the infinite shotguns & at the very least distract them so team can kill them
I mean d.vas shotguns are basically just zoning tools since they have unlimited ammo
road hog can also use is chain to pull him out of turret mode
All I know is Junkrat/Roadhog=<3
They are my two favourites as well.
I have barely seen him on pc since actual release. Quite surprised.
Haven’t had any Bastion Issues yet but I’ve had a Hanzo or Pharah on my team nearly everytime. I’m loving this game though, quick fast paced matches, different tactics for offense or defense and if one approach doesn’t work it’s time to switch characters and try a new one.
Despite that functionality I often go to Symmetra as my Defense player and Junkrat or Soldier 76 as my Attacker
Yeah, Soldier 76’s sprint and healing station are just so good for repositioning and staying in the fight longer. His assault rifle may not be the strongest DPS out there but it isn’t bad at all. The quick cooldown on helix rockets is also cool.
76’s homing-bullets ultimate can murder a Bastion from behind cover, too.
To be fair it is pretty frustrating when a Bastion gets POTG for holding down left click.
POTG is supposed to be exciting, and cool – but Bastion’s are always lame.
I quite enjoy support characters and thus am always salty towards a Bastion POTG. You have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting POTG as Symmetra.
I will always up vote the support character at the end over a Bastion.
I’ve gotten those a couple of times, but not very often. Having a bunch of turrets in choke points is often a great way to score those, if they all rush in at once while focused on someone else.
I’ve had more than my fair share of Bastion kills with Pairah and Tracer. Sitting duck is sitting duck.
I usually dispatch Bastion easily with Hanzo but he’s still annoying.
Also, while we’re on the subject of counters, Mcree’s stun grenade combined with his alternate fire mode where he unloads all shots from his pistol is a satisfying way of dealing with those really quick characters.
Ah man, now Kotaku is posting CAD comics >:
I have no problem with Bastion
Learn to counter noobie
I’m firmly in the ‘Bastion is a fucking fuck’ camp. It wouldn’t be so annoying if he wasn’t in every single game.
Is this ever actually the case?
Mei and Symettra are pretty dang annoying too.
I do believe that there are some things that need to be changed about Bastion. I speak from my experience as a Bastion main. He needs damage drop off. His attacks do too much damage at range. He also needs a nerf on either his health or his healing ability. If I get hit by a Hanzo or Widowmaker, I can just round a corner for a couple of seconds and I’m back at full health.
Bastion is too absolute. You either counter him straight up or you literally cannot progress. This is radically different from every other hero save Trobjorn.
You won’t ever go “oh, they have a Tracer, I MUST switch to…” or “They have a Widowmaker, we HAVE to HAVE X…”. Countering these heroes is a bonus, and is mostly done in cases where the player on the other team playing them is particularly skilled and needs to be stopped. With Bastion it is not so. At every skill level, you WILL need a hero dedicated to removing him or not be able to progress at all.
In video game balance terms it’s called “overcentralization”. Basically the focus is entirely on removing him to proceed, hence the entire game is halted by him.
If every hero were like Bastion in that regard then Overwatch would require you to switch to a hero every 10 seconds to counter theirs, then they would do the same ad infinitum. It is unhealthy.