Earlier this year, it was hinted that Bastion will be receiving major buffs to make the robot hero an interesting character to use in Overwatch once again.
However, the development team may have gone too far with powering up Bastion, as testing on the Overwatch PTR revealed that the robot has become nearly unkillable and unstoppable when in the right team. The patch that launched Season 4 of competitive play also brought over the PTR version of Bastion into the main game, and the complaints against Bastion have now skyrocketed.
Welcome To The Bastion Meta
The buffs that were given to Bastion drastically increased the robot hero's survivability, which would have combined with Bastion having the highest DPS in the game outside of ultimate skills to create a formidable character.
However, Blizzard is said to have gone overboard with improving Bastion's survivability. The combination of a new Self-Repair heal skill that now utilizes a resource system similar to D.Va's Defense Matrix with the new passive Ironclad skill, which reduces all damage received by 35 percent, has made Bastion almost unkillable. Using these skills, Bastion can survive a long list of otherwise fatal attacks, and when targeted with Ana's Nano Boost ultimate, that list grows even longer.
Bastion has become such a major stigma in Overwatch matches that players have started utilizing the new server browser feature to create games with normal Quick Play rules, but with Bastion restricted.
'Overwatch' Game Director Responds To Fans
In a post on the official Overwatch forums, game director Jeff Kaplan responded to all the criticism being launched against Bastion.
Kaplan revealed that the development team will be making a significant change to Bastion, with the change immediately put up on the Overwatch PTR. The change drops the percentage of damage that the passive Ironclad skill reduces, going down from 35 percent to 20 percent.
"My perception is that he is a little too powerful right now," Kaplan said, through his personal experience while playing Overwatch every night both as and against Bastion. Kaplan noted one case wherein he was using Bastion and went up a player that he knew to be much more skilled than he is who was using Tracer. Using Bastion's Self-Repair skills, his Tracer opponent was never able to finish him off, with Kaplan then able to take out Tracer while in recon mode.
"This part felt wrong to me," Kaplan said but then added that a lot of the feedback being given on how overpowered Bastion is feels "wildly blown out of proportion" to him, with "a high amount of hyperbole" currently surrounding the issue.
Is Bastion Really Overpowered?
Kaplan's statements may have an inkling of truth to them, as players may simply be exaggerating some of the incidents against Bastion. According to Kaplan, enemy teams can still be brought down by a well-coordinated team, as he can still be countered and focused on.
However, the question is whether games will be fun if every match with Bastion in it becomes a tug-of-war between the robot's allies protecting Bastion and his opponents trying to take him out.
Nevertheless, the Ironclad nerf should make handling Bastion easier, though it remains to be seen whether the Bastion meta will be scaled back once the change is brought into the main game.
