I’ve been getting on a bit of a role with Bastion, and I’m not even sorry. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “I could dominate with Bastion with my eyes closed!” I’m sure you do, but your strategy is probably flawed.
If you really want to kick ass and take names, here’s how to utterly dominate with Bastion, and really piss off the other team.
I’ve gone through some pretty lengthy stretches of domination playing as Bastion. He’s my character of choice when playing defense, because he offers the sort of perimeter defense your team needs to protect the objective. I didn’t play the closed beta, but going by some reports it seems as though he has been significantly nerfed since. I don’t think he has been since the open beta into the final game.
Understandably, some people still think he’s overpowered, but I disagree: I think he’s perfectly balanced next to the constant barrage of attackers coming to claim an objective. Further to this, he’s no where near as invincible as some make him out to be: he’s easy to flank, and has a relatively weak health meter. Sure, he can self-heal, but he can’t repair if he’s being hit. In fact, the self-heal ability makes him incredibly vulnerable, and if opponents play their cards right, they can attack and take him down at the moment he repairs himself. I’ve died many times trying to repair because I understated his vulnerability in such a state, but sometimes it’s worth the risk to stay alive and in the match, especially considering how far away spawns are from the objective.
Playing As A Team
Overwatch being a team-based game means that if you do actually play as a team, your chances of success increase substantially. Lone-wolfing around the place hoping to rack up a kill streak does little for your team, and actually gives the opposition the leg-up. Now this article is obviously about taking the objective, but when you’re defending, killing the other team is actually the key goal, because so long as the opposing team is alive, they can capture the point. Your underlying goal is to protect the objective, but you can’t do that without taking out the other team. Attackers can bait the defenders and pull them away from the marker, so have less of a focus on kills (although it’s still pretty important).
Bastion is the key perimeter defender for any defence. If you’re protecting the objective, Bastion is an absolute necessity. No character is as important to either side in a match as Bastion is to the defenders. And using him effectively takes more than just one player with good turret positioning and aim. It takes a team to defend, and Bastion needs a sidekick to be the ultimate defender.
Bastion Loves Mercy
Mercy has two important abilities: using her beam she can either heal a teammate or increase the damage they deal. In collaboration with Bastion, they form a powerful one-two punch for any defense.
As you can see in the video, Bastion and Mercy team-up for what eventually becomes an absolute domination: the attackers simply can’t get past Bastion. Now of course this is as much a matter of the attackers just not working well as a team, but you can tell that they’re still trying to mix things up to progress forward. Continually moving around the objective as Bastion, and forcing the attackers back towards the spawn point is a key strategy to help protect the objective. If you stay in one place too long, you’re giving the attackers the ability to strategically place themselves in a position to flank and attack Bastion.
It’s a fairly simple strategy, but in 10+ hours with the final game, I am yet to see two characters work so well together as Mercy and Bastion. Bastion’s turret deals significant damage, and while he is much easier to take down than many players realise, he’s near-impossible to kill so long as he has a steady stream of health and damage increase aimed in his direction.
This takes team work and solid foundations of collaboration to pull off. Much like Reinhardt, focusing on your character’s strengths — as well as the strengths of your teammates — means you can win more often than not in Overwatch.
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