OverwatchOverwatch Bastion Guide and Overview

Basiton is the tanky Tank-buster of Overwatch who can be incredibly frustrating to play against due to a combination of high damage and high survivability. He can quickly shred through the large health pool of any Tank, or rapidly destroy their barrier health. When his team can protect him and sustain him through enemy damage, Bastion feels unstoppable as he takes over lobbies. Grenade jumps give him the flexibility to reposition and go for creative surprise attacks. The disparity between the damage output of Recon and Assault Configurations is Bastion's main weakness. Both teams attempt to outplay the other by minimizing or maximizing the value he can get from each turret use.

TLDR

Playing As

• Use allies and cover for protection during Configuration: Assault. Bastion deals incredibly high damage but is not invincible.
• When you see an enemy is going to be hit by A-36 Tactical Grenade explosion, be ready to track them during the knockback for easy kills. 
• Always pause after firing the first shell to see where the enemy is trying to escape to. Use the 2nd and 3rd shells to follow their movement and trap them to confirm the kill.

Playing Against

• Turret form only lasts for 6 seconds. Most of the time, your best play is to hide and wait for a few seconds. Don’t peek or else you’ll be killed or have to waste resources to not die.  
• Attack aggressively after his turret mode ends. His damage is low in Recon so you can ignore him and target his Supports during his Configuration: Assault cooldown.
• Heroes with damage mitigation to shut down his turret form, or the mobility to outrun him, are the best counters. The key to beating Bastion comps is to minimize the value he gets from each Configuration: Assault use.

Strengths

Tank buster

Bastion is the best hero in all of Overwatch when it comes to deleting Tanks. He can melt through a Zarya bubble and kill her before she gets another or can run away. Many tank players feel forced to swap to Bastion-specific counters and off their mains. The team with Bastion will always win the tank duel because his damage is too high to heal through without ults.

Tanky DPS

The most health in the DPS roster, armor health, passive damage reduction, and he hides his head hitbox behind him while in turret form. In standard modes, he also has access to two self-sustaining abilities. This survivability helps Bastion be a good dive counter because dive heroes simply can’t kill him fast enough.

Area lockdown

Grenade, Assault mode, and Artillery ult all excel at taking control of areas and sight lines. Grenade’s large explosion radius forces enemies to run away, and the high damage of Assault mode makes standing in Bastion’s LoS too dangerous. Whenever the enemy is trying to contest the objective, his ult is excellent for blowing up anyone who wants to stay on point.

Weaknesses

Dependent on a single cooldown

The enemy team only has to plan their strategy around Configuration: Assault. If they have the means to deal with Bastion during his turret form, winning the team fight becomes rather easy. Bastion players who waste the cooldown leave their team exposed and at a major offensive disadvantage.

Large and slow

Turret form is a double edged sword. Bastion deals high damage but moves very slowly which makes him easy to kill. Even after his size reduction in Season 17, he still has a larger hitbox than most non-Tank heroes. He has the survivability needed to make up for it, but he can also end up feeding enemy ult charge, and get burst down by projectiles.

Ultimate is easy for most heroes to avoid

Other than heroes with no escape abilities like Ana or Zen, most heroes have the necessary tools to avoid Bastion ult after they hear the audio cue. Unless you combo with an allies stun, his ult is difficult to get kills with against many team comps.

Primary Fire: Configuration: Recon

Tips for Configuration: Recon

• Be proactive
• • Just because you aren’t in the high damage turret form doesn’t mean you should passively wait around. While in Recon mode, still focus on poking and pressuring the enemy.
• Stay with your team and near cover
• • While Configuration: Assault is on cooldown, you are more vulnerable. If you are in Recon only because you don’t have turret available, stay further back with your team because the enemy will be looking to suddenly attack.

Secondary Fire: A-36 Tactical Grenade

Tips for A-36 Tactical Grenade

• Nade Jump
• • Shoot the Grenade at Bastion’s feet, and the explosion will launch him into the air.
  • Useful to take high ground positions, run away from the enemy, or to get into attacking position with Assault mode, 
• Use the Knockback
• • Purposely use Grenade’s knockback for easy follow-up damage. The enemy will briefly be locked into an aerial movement arc, which makes them easy to track.
• Cut off Backline
• • Shooting Grenade at the enemy's backline forces them to move away because of the AoE damage. 
  • Landing a hit will damage them and cause them to retreat for healing. 
  • Even if you miss, the threat of the Grenade still makes space. When trying to kill the Tank, a Grenade at their Supports trying to heal them is the best way to get the Tank kill.

[SHIFT]: Reconfigure

Tips for Reconfigure

• When to Transform into Assault
• • Counter enemy approach
  • • When the enemy has committed to trying to move into your team, Assault mode can push them back.
  • Exposed target to kill
  • • Anytime an enemy is far from cover or has no way to quickly protect themselves, transform into Assault mode and shred them.
• When to Transform into Recon
• • Start Assault cooldown sooner
  • • After transforming, the entire enemy team falls back and you have no targets, you can cancel to transform back into Recon and get the cooldown started faster.
  • To run
  • • When you are being overwhelmed by enemy pressure, go back into Recon so you can run away faster.

(During Reconfigure) Primary fire: Configuration: Assault

Tips for Configuration: Assault

• Tank buster
• • Tanks either need to use up all their damage mitigation abilities to survive a turret-ing Bastion, or they die.
  • Assault mode is your best anti-tank tool, because of how easy it is to hold down fire and unload high damage into Tanks.
  • Especially against Tanks who don’t have multiple damage mitigation abilities.
• Control sight lines
• • While Basiton is in Assault mode, the threat of instant death makes every enemy hero hesitant to peek.
  • Whenever your team needs to take over a sightline, go into the turret and suppress anyone who stays in your LoS.
• Stay near cover
• • Just because you have incredible damage and decent survivability doesn’t mean you're invincible. The most important key to being a good Bastion player is staying alive. Always keep a corner partially covering your body or close enough to dip behind when your life gets low.

Ultimate: Configuration: Artillery

Tips for Configuration: Artillery

• Combos
• • The easiest way to guarantee value and elims is to combo your ult with any type of ally stun. Graviton Surge, Gravitic Flux, Earthshatter, Terra Surge, and Blizzard are all good examples of ults that CC the enemy and give Bastion guaranteed Artillery hits.
• Shot placement and timing
• • The first shot alerts your target and forces them to move. Use the next two shots to track and predict their movement.
• Target selection
• • Two outer ring hits will kill any DPS and Support, so they should be your choices.
  • Heroes like Zen and Ana never have escapes, so they are always a free target.
• Bait out escape abilities
• • When targeting a hero with an escape ability like Moira’s Fade, either wait until you see their ability used or bait it out.
  • Ex: Use only one shot on Moira to bait out Fade. Once you see where she moved to, you can then use your 2nd and 3rd shots to get the kill.

(Passive): Ironclad

Tips for Ironclad

• Between Armor Health, 20% damage reduction, and no frontal head hitbox in Assault mode, Basiton can tank a lot of damage for a DPS hero.

Minor Perks

Smart Bomb

• More aggressive Minor Perk
• • Select Smart Bomb when you want to play more aggressively and go for high-risk, high-reward turret plays.
  • Bastion can more effectively Grenade Jump into Assault mode to set up surprise attacks.
  • Some new high ground areas can be accessed if you experiment on each map.

Armored Artillery

• Good against dive
• • When multiple heroes full dive you and you can’t run away, the overhealth can save your life and force the enemy to retreat. 
  • Activate ult and instantly drop one on your body and on your attackers. If allies are nearby, this should buy them enough time to peel for you.

Major Perks

Lindholm Explosives

• Even better for pressuring backlines
• • The splash damage forces Supports not only to retreat, but also hide way behind cover where they won’t get hit by the splash damage. This extra space often allows your team to kill the other enemies that are not outside of their Support's LoS.
• Damage difference
• • Lower single-target damage per second output, in exchange for AoE damage.

Self-Repair

• Greatly increased survivability
• • Bastion is already quite tanky and with Self-Repair, he feels impossible to kill for many heroes. Primarily use to heal yourself to help out your Supports and get yourself back to full health quicker.
• Increase uptime
• • During Assault mode, the enemy will target you if they don’t run away. Alternate between healing and firing so you don’t have to fully disengage. 
• Counter dive by pairing with Armored Artillery
• • Against full dive comps, running these two perks give Bastion the self-sustain required to survive dive attacks by multiple enemies simultaneously.

Best Maps

The best maps for Bastion favor medium-ranged fights. Bastion doesn’t want flankers and melee heroes to get close to him, but he also doesn’t want long-range heroes like Hanzo to have the advantage at long ranges. He wants to position on high ground whenever possible, and can access most areas with Grenade jumps. Map areas with multiple flank routes are difficult for Bastion since he’s best at firing in a straight line down one sight line. Maps with long, narrow hallway-like sightlines are the perfect spots for Bastion to set up in Assault configuration.

• Rialto
• Eichenwalde
• Midtown

Worst Maps

• Busan
• Ilios
• New Junk City

Team comps built around Bastion keep him alive and attacking throughout his Assault mode. Tanks who can directly protect him with damage mitigation are the best fit. Supports with high amounts of burst healing or some form of invincibility enable Bastion to play turret super aggressively. For DPS, Bastion benefits most from heroes who can flank and pull attention in a direction opposite of himself. His team should look to play around his turret form just as the enemy team does. When Bastion goes into turret, the entire team presses the attack.

Individual Hero Synergies

Sigma

• Sigma’s Barrier and Grasp can be cycled to protect Bastion from damage and crowd control. He can also use his shield to cut off the enemy Tank from their Support’s healing to make it easier for Bastion to kill the Tank. When both heroes have their ults, place all shots just before Sigma slams everyone down and you’ll instantly kill everyone caught in the Flux.
• If Sigma lands an Accretion stun while Basiton is turreting, that enemy is basically guaranteed to die.

Genji

• Genji flanks and dives the backline while Bastion stays with the rest of their team and pressures the attack from main. The split attention is very difficult for enemy teams to deal with. Genji easily kills Supports if they don’t get peel, but Bastion will delete the frontline if everyone is turning around to help with Supports. Additionally, Genji’s deflect can be used to protect Bastion if he’s turretting while boosted by a Support ult like Nano.

Baptiste

• Bap is the perfect Support for Bastion because Bastion’s large body and slow movement make it easy for Bap to land direct hits with his healing projectiles. When Bastion gets into danger, throw lamp on him and he’ll likely kill the enemy before they have time to break the lamp and kill Bastion. Also, Bastion utilizes the Amplification Matrix better than any other hero. Assault mode through the window melts anyone who can’t instantly escape.

Coming Soon!