Lúcio may not be a good choice for solo-healer, but he has some great healing abilities, a marvelous speed boost, and he can pack a punch when taking out the enemy. Once you learn everything this guide has to offer your team will be thankful to have an amazing Lúcio among their ranks!
Strengths:
Wall Ride:
When holding down the jump button and facing a wall Lúcio can jump onto the wall and skate along it at a 20% speed increase, as long as the button is held down or until you hit an obstacle. If you go into the settings you can enable a setting to allow backward wall riding, which will improve mobility and add more options for use in combat. You will gain a burst of speed from jumping off of the walls.
Sonic Amplifier:
Lúcio's weapon and primary fire, a pinpoint linear projectile with 20 ammo, 4 rounds per shot, 20 HP damage, a projectile speed of 50 meters per second, reload time of 1.5 seconds, and it shoots 4 rounds over 0.5 seconds, 1 shot every 0.125 seconds. It may be a low-powered weapon, but Lúcio packs a punch when you know how to use him!
Soundwave:
His secondary fire, it gives Lúcio the ability to knock enemies back with a wave. It deals 25 HP damage, has an 8-meter maximum range, reload time of 1.5 seconds, and a 4-second cooldown. Genji is unable to deflect it, it doesn't use ammunition, and it can even be used during reloading of the Sonic Amplifier!
Crossfade:
Lúcio continuously plays music, unless he has been hacked by Sombra, that aides himself and his allies. He can switch between two songs, one for healing and one for speed. It has a 10 meter radius of effect, casting time with a 0.8 second animation duration, when healing it will heal allies 16.25 HP per second and it will heal himself 12.5 HP per second, it will charge his ultimate 19 points per 15 HP healing, and when on the speed boosting song it will boost speed by 30%.
Amp it Up:
Lúcio has the ability to boost the volume of his speakers, therefore also boosting the effect of his song. It has a duration of 3 seconds, a cooldown of 12 seconds, improves speed by 70%, and boosts healing to 46.8 HP per second on allies and 35.1 HP per second on himself.
Sound Barrier:
When Lúcio pops his ult he will jump into the air and slam his amplifier onto the ground, releasing a wave that will briefly protect himself and his allies. It is one of the strongest ultimates in Overwatch, but it is also the highest costing ultimate. Sound Barrier gives all allies in line of sight within 30 meters temporary armor that quickly decays. It adds 500 HP barriers, has a 6-second duration, casting time of 0.8 seconds when on even ground, and has a charging requirement of 2,625 points. Once fully cast there is about a 0.5-second window where it can be applied to allies who come within range. Sound Barrier cannot be applied to allies on the other side of an enemy barrier.
Weaknesses:
Low Healing:
Lúcio, tied with Brigitte, is the lowest healer in Overwatch. He is incredibly powerful and lacking many weaknesses when you know how to use him, but if you aren't familiar with him you won't get much out of him. He should never be a solo-healer or as a two-person healing team with Brigitte.
Low Damage:
While dealing only 20 HP damage Lúcio's Sonic Amplifier is a semi low-powered weapon, so if you don't know how to use it it won't make much impact. With it being a projectile it can also take a bit of forethought into how your enemy is going to move, especially against fast moving heroes such as Tracer.
Being Hacked:
When hacked by Sombra Lúcio is especially weak. It slows down his speed, stops his healing, prevents him from wall riding, and of course prevents him from using his ultimate. Sombra's EMP can even cancel Lúcio's Sound Barrier.
Strategy Overview:
There are many things that are important to Lúcio gameplay, however, some of the most important are to keep moving, peeling, 1v1 combat, communication, awareness of your surroundings, and calling the shots. In this portion of the guide, I will teach you how to use these to win more games, be a better teammate, and overall a top-notch Lúcio.
Keep Moving:
It can not be overstated how important it is for Lúcio to keep moving. This is what makes him such a hard-to-hit hero with a high survive ability rate. You want to constantly be wall riding, jumping, and crouching to gain speed and move in unpredictable patterns. You want to rely on Lúcio's ability to slip through the enemy's grasp.
While you want to stay moving, make sure you are positioned properly. You want to generally stay around the back line with your other support heroes or a bit behind the tanks. Lúcio's speed allows him to move back and forth between these two locations smoothly and quickly.
It will take practice to learn how to keep moving, but it is well worth the time you invest in it. Try practicing around the practice arena, in custom games, and in Quick Play. You won't get good at it overnight, but if you practice it will soon become second nature, especially if you set up the settings and controls to work well for you.
You can find some great videos to help you set up your controls, such as:
Peeling:
Peeling consists of protecting your other support heroes, such as Mercy or Anna, and stationary DPS, such as Bastion. As an off-healer, it's not only Lúcio's job to do damage to the enemy team and heal your own, but you need to protect your main healer. While Lúcio moves around in position more than the other support heroes, you still need to keep an eye on your main healer and make sure you are close enough to them that if they are in danger you can protect them.
If you see your main healer or stationary DPS are in danger, put yourself in the line of fire so they can escape and try to defeat the enemy using all the tools in your arsenal.
1v1 Combat:
With his mobility and self-healing, Lúcio can really excel at 1v1 combat when done correctly. Watch for the enemy to overextend or get separated and go after their weak link. When trying to decide if you should risk 1v1 combat ask yourself a few questions: is the enemy out of position? Are they at full health? Do you have an escape route? It will also depend on what hero they are playing as. For instance, a Sombra would be much more dangerous to go up against than a Doomfist. You have to decide if the benefits out weight the risks.
Learn to kite. This means keeping out of range of the enemy while you attack, being able to wall ride smoothly greatly helps with this.
Practice 8v8 Deathmatch, this will help you improve at fighting enemies and will also help you know what situations you can and can't win.
Prioritize targets who are low on health that you can finish off, you don't want to give them the chance to heal or disengage.
Awareness of your Surroundings:
As a healer, it is your job to constantly be aware of what is going on. Your allies positions and health, where the enemy is and whom they are playing, the map surroundings and where the health packs are located, escape routes, you need to be aware of everything.
You especially need to keep an eye on your fellow support heroes, to protect them, and your tanks, to keep them healed up so they can take damage for the team.
Also watch closely for enemies who get close to the edge of the map or holes that you can boop off with Soundwave.
Try to keep track of how long it has been since each enemy has used their ultimate so that you can prepare for when they use it next to protect your team.
Communication/Calling the Shots:
Since the healer has to be aware of everything that is going on this also makes them the ideal person to shot call. The DPS is often focused on flanking and the tanks are at the front line, so the support has the best visual on everything that is going on.
Try to learn good game sense so that you can make better calls. For instance, if you see the enemy is grouped up and you know your team has their ultimates you can ask Zarya to use a Graviton Surge and then ask Pharah to use Rocket Barrage to wipe them out. Or ask Mei to use Blizzard and then D.Va to use Self-Destruct. You can also suggest positions where to group up or ask your DPS to flank in a certain way. It can really help you learn better game sense if you watch the pros, so try to watch the Overwatch League matches and take note.
It is important not only to stay calm and level-headed yourself, if you start getting upset you'll get tilted and play badly, but you want to make sure your team is also staying level-headed. If they hear you yelling, cursing, or sounding stressed it can impact the mood of the whole team. Try to be encouraging, telling your teammates when they make good plays and help out if your team fails let them know you can try again, and try to make sure that while you want to take it seriously that you aren't letting the emotions affect you and others negatively.
Taking Advantage of Lúcio's Strengths:
Wall Ride:
Learn to ride precisely and consistently jumping from wall to wall. If you can jump frequently and smoothly from one surface to another it gives you a speed boost and makes you a harder to hit target.
Practice jumping and gliding around the point and payload, if you make yourself a hard target to hit you can dodge around keeping the enemy from taking the point or moving the payload.
You can jump to a higher area if you keep the camera focused all the way up.
When wall riding randomly switch between healing and speed, jump, crouch, anything you can do to break up your pattern and make yourself more slippery and harder to hit.
But, make sure you learn how to target your enemies while you are jumping and wall riding.
If you go into settings you can enable backward wall riding, this is essential, so make sure you turn that on.
Sonic Amplifier:
The shots from Sonic Amplifier can seem a bit slow, watch your shots closely and learn to guide them with your enemy in the direction they are moving.
Headshots cause more damage, so when possible target the head. However, if you can't hit the head it's more important to just get the damage in, so sometimes you just need to target the torso where you have the largest hit area.
Try to spam the turrets so that they don't hit your teammates.
Put pressure on the enemy support, if they lose their support or get tilted your team will have a big advantage. When possible take the enemy support out, but even if you can't take them out just try to send a few shots at them every few seconds so they feel more pressure. In general, you will want to troll the enemy team to make them anxious so they start making bad moves.
Soundwave:
Obviously, the most flashy way to use Soundwave is to boop people off of the map and into holes, however, there are many other uses for it.
Soundwave can be very versatile both in causing damage and in protecting yourself and your team. If an enemy who uses close range, such as Reaper, gets too close you can use it to back them up. It's also great to give yourself some distance from enemies you are particularly weak against, such as Sombra, Mei, McCree, and Brigitte.
If a Winston jumps in and places a barrier you can boop him out of the barrier with Soundwave so that your team can then focus down on him.
When battling 1v1 it can be helpful to boop an enemy into a wall, into corners, or into the air so that you can then use Sonic Amplifier to finish them off.
When possible try to boop enemies into Graviton Surge, Pulse Bombs, or any other ultimate.
While Genji can deflect Sonic Amplifier he can not deflect Soundwave.
Crossfade:
Whenever your team is fully healed switch to your speed aura so that your teammates can more quickly move around, dodge, retreat, and chase after enemies.
Lúcio's speed is often underutilized when it is the most important part of his pack. Remember, while he is a healer he is an off-healer, and his speed is just as important. When possible allow your main healer to take care of the heals while you speed up your allies.
Whenever you die pull up the scoreboard menu and if you aren't urgently needed and another teammate has died wait for them to respawn so that you can speed them back to the rest of your teammates. You can also go back to the spawn room and taxi allies back towards your team when your team can spare you.
Amp it Up:
When battling on control point maps make sure to use Amp it Up on speed to get your team to the point as quickly as possible, as whichever team gets to the point first will have an advantage.
Don't waste Amp it Up, only use it when your team legitimately needs the speed or healing boost.
If the enemy team is about to use an ultimate such as D.Va's Self-Destruct or Mei's Blizzard use Amp it Up on speed to quickly help your team retreat. It can also be used to help your team quickly and efficiently move through a choke point.
Make sure to tell your teammates to group up with you when you're about to use it.
Sound Barrier:
If you are eliminated before Sound Barrier hits the ground it won't take effect, so make sure you watch out for enemies nearby, especially snipers.
Some people will jump from a high point when using Sound Barrier because it looks cool. But, you don't want to do this, as it gives the enemy a chance to kill you before you activate it. You want to activate it as soon as possible, so it's even better if you're on the ground and when Lúcio jumps to use it you turn in the direction of something higher, such as a car, this way it will activate sooner.
If timed just right Sound Barrier can negate the damage of Pulse Bomb or Rip-Tire, but the timing can be a bit tricky so it takes practice.
Combating Lúcio's Weaknesses:
Low Healing:
Never use Lúcio as a solo-healer, or in a two-person healing team with Brigitte. You really need a main healer, either Moira, Mercy, or Anna. Zenyatta can also work, however it depends on your team, their abilities, and their communication.
Make sure not to waste your Amp it Up or Sound Barrier when they aren't needed.
Remember that teammates on the other side of an enemy barrier will not be healed by your aura.
Low Damage:
Make sure you don't just randomly spam Sonic Amplifier. The damage Lúcio can do all depends on your aim. Practice in the practice range, in custom games, and in quick play to be able to hit enemies even when you're riding along walls and jumping. While you only need to be sure to hit the enemy, you want to work on getting headshots to get in more HP damage, so practice, practice practice.
Being Hacked:
Lúcio is especially weak when hacked, so when there is a Sombra on the enemy team always look out for her. If she is a good Sombra she'll most likely be targeting the support heroes. Stick with your teammates so that you always have someone watching your back and in return watch theirs.
Tips and Tricks:
- Try binding your “jump” key to something other than space on PC, “X” on PlayStation, and “A” on Xbox. You want to change it to something you can smoothly push and hold down continuously. You can change this in the settings.
- Use your microphone. This is a team based game, and communicating with your team is vital.
- Learn when to retreat. If your team is staggering out of spawn one after another and you keep dying because you aren't grouped up retreat and wait for your full team before continuing to fight the enemy.
- Call out when you die, so that your team knows it will be a minute before you can continue to heal them, speed them up, or watch their backs.
- You can time using your Sound Barrier at the same time Pharah is using Rocket Barrage so that the enemy can't easily shoot her down.
- Practice moving around each map. Try to find all the ways you can move around them as quickly as possible and learn all the nooks and crannies you can get into. You want to learn each map like the back of your hand.
- If the enemy team has a Sombra keep an eye out when using Sound Barrier, as her EMP can cancel it.
Thank you for reading this guide! If you practice hard and remember everything I have taught you I know you can become a top-notch Lúcio that your team loves and the enemy hates to face. If you enjoyed this article check out these others from Gamers Decide:
- Mercy Guide: How to be the Best Mercy in the World
- Zenyatta Guide: How to be the Best Zenyatta in the World
- Kim 'Geguri' Se-yeon Begins Her Overwatch Career With Rox Orcas On August 11th, For Season 4 of OGN
