Long story short - buff the Steady augment (21% increase to deployables’ health) up to 30%. The rest of this post will just be my reasoning for why this should be done…
Bushwhacker’s most popular and effective loadout, by far, is the C41 (which has a KEK-10, M9, Lock On and Spares).
However, his other loadouts are all lackluster in comparison, despite showing some interesting dynamics and potential - those loadouts are the BL81 and the SM82.
The BL81 has a Blishlok, Lock On and Steady. This makes an interesting dynamic where you can swap out your KEK-10 (from the C41 loadout) for a much less effective primary weapon (Blishlok) but instead be rewarded by making your turret even stronger than before by giving it both Lock On AND Steady. However, the problem is that currently the Steady augment’s advantage is much less useful to Bushwhacker as it is for him to have a KEK instead of a Blishlok. As a result, this interesting loadout is barely ever used in game.
The SM82 has an SMG-9, Steady and Tough. This makes another interesting choice between having a better primary from C41 (KEK-10) and getting Lock On, or getting a slightly worse primary (SMG-9, which is in-between the KEK and the Blishlok) in return for getting Steady instead of Lock On. However, this loadout is also barely used in game as the Steady augment is far less effective than Lock On to begin with, so there’s no point swapping out a better primary weapon to be given worse augments in return.
So basically we have two loadouts that rely on the Steady augment as a part of their uniqueness and potential viability, but they are always overlooked due to Steady’s ineffectiveness, both of which could be simultaneously buffed by buffing the Steady augment.
It is important to note that ZERO other mercs or loadouts have the Steady augment, so giving the augment a buff wouldn’t possibly cause any other loadouts or mercs to become overpowered (since only these two loadouts on this one merc would be effected). Also, C41 is most likely still going to be more effective than BL81/SM82 even with a buff to Steady, so this buff would be unlikely to make Bushwhacker overpowered in any way.
Therefore, it seems very simple (in terms of balance), logical, and easy to implement for the devs to buff the Steady augment, to buff these two loadouts and give Bushwhacker more than just ONE loadout as a viable one in competitive play.
On another note, instead of just buffing the % health bonus that is delivered by having Steady on your turret, there are some other ways that the augment could be buffed that could potentially make the loadouts much more viable:
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The Steady augment could be given a secondary clause/ability, where it essentially also gives the same effect as Extra Supplies, meaning that the cooldown for you to replace your turret would be decreased significantly (by 20%). This would mean that the SM82 and BL81 loadouts could both have a different kind of advantage over the favoured C41 loadout. (Obviously this secondary clause/ability should not necessarily be added ON TOP of an increase to the Steady’s health buff - at least not immediately, to avoid over-buffing).
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The Steady augment could also be given a different secondary clause/ability, where it not only gives that original 21% health increase to the turret, but also gives the turret a 20% resistance to explosives (just like Unshakeable, but for the turret only, obviously). Currently, Bushwhacker is incredibly weak to mercs like Fletcher, Nader and Fragger due to their ability to quickly dispatch the turret with explosives, without exposing themselves for more than half a second. This explosives resistance would plug up one of Bushwhacker’s weaknesses for those underused loadouts. This would not, however, leave Bushwhacker with no merc weaknesses, as Phantom and Thunder are still incredibly effective against turrets (due to invisibility and concussion grenades).