It’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it? During Blizzard’s early beta tests for Overwatch last year and even following the official launch, the shooter’s resident robot Hero Bastion was often singled out for being too overpowered in comparison to his peers, with the majority of complaints usually aimed at how powerful he was in Turret Mode. Since then, the character has undergone several tweaks to ensure he can’t mow down endless waves of Heroes without repercussion, but it appears as if Blizzard’s changes have led to him being used less and less as time has gone on.
In a colossal thread over on the official forums, fans have been asking Blizzard to address the character’s current state and perhaps make a few improvements. Principal designer Geoff Goodman responded to the feedback yesterday (thanks, VG247), confirming that he’s currently working on changes to the character, but doesn’t know when they’ll go live or in what shape. Goodman says that Blizzard is still “testing different things internally,” so by the sounds of it, no final decision has been made as to how they’ll be reconfiguring Bastion’s playstyle.
Having remained largely untouched by the nerf bat since his initial rebalance, it can only be assumed that the bird-loving bot has fallen out of grace since then due to other characters receiving considerable tweaks to how they operate. For example, D.Va, Roadhog and Symmetra have all received quite drastic changes to their abilities, the latter in particular having been given a second Ultimate ability in order to restore her appeal. Considering Bastion is generally considered to be an entry-level character that’s easy to use for newcomers, though, we can’t imagine Blizzard will want to make any potential buffs too drastic, but we’ll see.
In related news, Overwatch‘s current event – Year of the Rooster – is now live on all platforms. For the full rundown of what’s new, check our previous post here.