Which character is best for killing Bastion from behind Reinhardt?

Often, at the start of a game, the defense has a Bastion set up in sentry mode near the objective, aimed at a chokepoint. When this happens, one of the best strategies is to have a Reinhardt stand in front of Bastion with his barrier up, and have someone or someones shoot the Bastion from behind the barrier. Obviously it would be best to have the whole team shoot it, but this can be hard to organize in a random lobby.

Which character can kill the Bastion fastest in this situation? Can they kill it before the barrier goes down?

Assume:

• The Bastion is reasonably far away. Say 20-40m.
• The person shooting is fairly skilled, but not an aimbot. Hitting the Bastion with every shot from Fan the Hammer is not realistic.
• There is only one person behind Reinhardt shooting, not the whole team.

Bonus: What other characters can kill the Bastion before the barrier goes down, as the only shooter?

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6 Answers

Bastion fires 35 bullets per second which deal 15 HP damage per each in a close combat, which translates into 525 damage per second. This means Bastion alone will melt the shield in approx. 3.8 seconds at an ideal situation. (My information may not be accurate, however. If that is the case, then just modify the numbers written here.)

However, the real situation is not that ideal. On our plus side, Bastion has damage dropoff which degrades their absurdly high damage output at a range, but the bad news is that Bastion probably has friends around them. I'll assume one standard hero such as McCree or Soldier: 76 would be around them, who has less damage output than Bastion but a significant threat against that gargantuan shield, anyway.

Thus, assuming that Reinhardt's shield lowers after three seconds, these are the heroes who satisfy the DPS bar:

• Pharah. Her rocket deals 120 damage at a direct hit and fires slightly faster than 1 round per second. Passes the damage check by taking less than 2 seconds (from the first rocket fire) for destroying Bastion.
• Bastion themself. Even without math, it is obvious that taking down an enemy Bastion would take less time than breaking Reinhardt's shield. Do note, however, that the offending Bastion might require a delay (which is one second) before stapling themself into the Sentry mode. They could consider installing themself onto a moving object beforehand (e. g. the Payload), or perform the mode switch while falling from a ledge to minimize the effective delay.
• Junkrat, if he can directly hit the target. Same damage as Pharah, with slightly faster fire rate. Note that, however, using him exclusively for this scenario is not an optimal strategy because of his trajectory.
• Hanzo. Each fully charged arrow deals 125 damage, and takes slightly more than 1 second to fully charge and fire. Thus, surprisingly, Hanzo can also pass the damage check when the enemy counterattack is thin aside from Bastion's.

Bonus point for Mercy amping anyone mentioned here, or Zenyatta attaching an Orb of Discord.

Special cases worth a remark:

• Roadhog actually has no means of getting through the DPS bar via shots. However, a test from the training room revealed that he can Chain Hook an enemy as far away as 20 metres, which means he can pull back Bastion safely if they are close enough. Although Hooking alone has minimal impact on Bastion's health, it forces them out of Configuration: Sentry, and pulls them into the close quarter where Reinhardt and Roadhog can shred them with maximum efficiency. Worth noting if your team is close enough.

8

Pharah can kill a Bastion with three direct rockets at any range (doesn't even need the Reinhardt if she peeks around a corner!), Widowmaker can do the same with three fully charged shots, and Zenyatta can kill a Bastion in 5 normal shots if he uses his Orb of Discord beforehand.

These are probably the three fastest kills, and they work at any range thanks to their lack of damage fall off, and their lack of spread and projectile drop.

11

Whenever I run into a Bastion + Reinhardt setup, I switch to Symmetra. (And the situation you mention is a subset of this)

There are a few good reasons for this:

• Symmtra's Alt-Fire travels through enemy barriers like Reinhardt's shield, and can deal 125 damage when fully charged (2 seconds). This will kill Bastion in 3 shots. (Assuming no additional healing)
• In addition to the previous point, the Alt-Fire will travel through players as well. It's fully possible to hit Reinhardt's shield, Reinhardt himself, and Bastion if they're all lined up.
• The Alt-Fire is normally hard to hit with because it travels so slowly, but if Bastion is in Turret mode, he can't dodge. And if he leaves Turret mode to avoid your projectiles, you've succeeded at your objective.
• The Alt-Fire doesn't require LOS to charge up; you should line up your shot, duck into cover, then repeatedly charge, duck into sight, fire, and then return to cover while starting to charge up another shot. Repeat liberally.
• Symmetra has shields, so even if Bastion damages her while peeking out, she can simple wait another few seconds to recover from all her damage.

If you're able to ignore the barrier, the Bastion + Reinhardt combo loses a lot of its potency, since both heroes are relying heavily on the barrier to survive -- their entire gameplan is to have Bastion kill your team before your team breaks the barrier. As soon as one or both of them crumble, you've succeeded.

Against a lone Bastion, this strategy is just as good -- without a barrier or healer to back him up, the slow-moving photon balls can often force a Bastion to move -- which resolves the problem all the same.

5

I'd say widow is your best option: 3 shot with widow, but after first shot bastion can be reactive and try to run out because he know that if he wait 2sd shot to go back to recon form (which take 1 second (0.5 to go sentry)) you'll have charge the 3rd hit.

To rephrase, bastion HAS to recon once a widow shot him once, or his dead (same go with phara and hanzo) but if he do so he can survive, (especially if he placed himself next to a wall). So if he recon after first shot you need the headshot. It's really easy to headshot Bastion from long distance with widow because of his big head and slow movements. With hanzo it would be a little harder if distance is really big. And phara... well headshot, you know..

So definitely, for me widow is the best option to kill bastion -> 3 shot if he don't recon, 2 shot if he recon and you get the head. You don't even need a reinhardt if you have a wall you can hide behind after each shot, you kill him first, but even behind reinhardt I don't see a better option.

EDIT:

Remember that bastion shot 30 bullet doing 15 damage each second so 450 damage per second, reinhardt shield has 2000 hp, it will take about 4.4 sec to destroy reinhardt shield, if they have a second bastion or phara or something doing huge damage to reinhardt shield, it won't last enought time for you do destroy it, or even if you kill him, reinhardt won't have more that 650 hp (assuming only one person try to kill bastion, it will take 3 second, for widow phara and hanzo) So you'll be in a bad position even after killing one of them. So you'd better kill it with widow or make him go back with phara or hanzo without reinhardt but hidding behind a wall after each shot, so you save reinhardt shield.

Assuming you really want to be behind a reinhardt, I think (sorry for mistaking earlier) you'd better go for a bastion which will destroy him in 1.2 sec ( 0.7 sec of damage + 0.5 sec to get in sentry) so here you save your reinhardt shield at at least 1400 hp. You can even forget about the 0.5 sec to get in sentry because you can do it while jumping and reinhardt can shield you once you are in sentry mode (assuming you won't die in a jump of 0.5 sec getting sentry, since bastion need about 0.7 sec to damage you enought + you have some movement). So behind a reinhardt, Bastion is the best because you NEED TO think about your reinhardt shields hp. Still you'll have to attack with a bastion after that, I still think widow without reinhardt shield's is the best option.

I main Genji and recently found a decent tactic if the Bastion and rein are fairly isolated (usually happens since if he's at the front line, Rein can't risk lowering shield to recharge). I first find some height advantage over the bastion so he doesn't immediately notice you as he focuses on your team, then I literally dive through the reinhardt shield with the dash, and deflect right after. What happens next depends on whether the Bastion panic fires at you. If he does, which usually happens because the Bastion knows he's buying minutes of time by being set up, he'll eliminate himself. Don't try to take out the rein after, just dash and run. If he doesn't panic fire, you're probably dead (start running while your deflect is still up). However, your team should immediately take the opportunity to rush in since their main defensive formation is down; ideally someone will eliminate the now out of position Bastion and send him back to spawn.

First did this on temple of Anubis and eliminated a bastion within seconds of noticing he was there. Climbed up on the main arch, dashed down, told the team to push hard, and deflected into the Bastion.

1

My pick would be genji or roadhog because roadhog can hook bastion out of his sentry form and genji can deflect any bullet that are shot and roadhog can heal the damage

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