Why Are You So Angry!?

With Overwatch’s newest season in full swing, now’s the perfect time to brush up on your skills. Lucio is one of the most effective heroes in the game currently and a strong addition to any team comp. He can be good or great depending on how effectively you’re able to play him. Here are some helpful tips for any Lucio newbies or even people familiar but looking for a better understanding of the character.

Remap Your Buttons

Remapping your buttons makes one of the biggest differences for playing Lucio (on console at least). Jumping with X (or A) makes little sense when you need to be both highly mobile and accurate. The best solution I’ve found is to change jump to L1 and switch Lucio’s boost skill to X. This allows you to spam the jump button and switch between speed and healing with both shoulder buttons, while boosting as needed with the X. Since boost is needed much more infrequently, this setup will allow you to keep a steady focus with aiming on the joystick while being an annoyingly hard to hit target.

Be a Sensitive Lucio

This tip can work for all players, but upping your sensitivity to max, makes you all the more deadly because you can see your enemies quicker. For someone as quick as Lucio, this can make him all-the-more agile. It may take a while to get used to, but once you do, the results speak for themselves. Make sure to practice in Quick Play though. Never try things out for the first time in Competitive if you don’t want to drop a few tiers!

Line of Sight

Lucio works on line of sight. For some people, this may be clear, but I’ve spent hours trying to both shoot teammates like Ana and thinking anyone within a few feet of me would be receiving my goodies.  That’s not the case. The number on your HUD lets you know how many of your team are being affected by your abilities, so if it’s 1 or none, you’re not doing much of anything for anyone. Instead, try to keep that number as high as you can, especially before you use your Ult.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (Moving)

If you stop moving as Lucio, you’re doing it wrong. This includes wall riding. Good Lucio players are tiny Brazilian butterflies fluttering in and out while opponents attempt to shoot them. Jump constantly and wall ride any surface you can to make you more unpredictable. No matter how good your aim is it’s hard to shoot a fast target that moves unpredictably. If you need any tips or ideas on how to move as Lucio, check out DSPStanky’s channel for some god-like Lucio-ing.

Don’t Waste Your Sound Barrier

Sound Barrier is one of your strongest abilities (it’s your ult, after all!). It’s a literal lifesaver and best used as such. Like Mercy’s Resurrect, it’ll do more good if you use it on as many players as possible. You can use it to counter other Lucio ultimates or to give your team a fighting chance when Soldier 76 gets you in his sights, but you do need to make sure you use are using it effectively. Think of it as a momentum keeper. What’s the best moment to prevent half your team from dying during a hard push, or what’s the best moment to make your team nearly invincible as you close in for a team kill? And on that note, it doesn’t make you invincible. Ults like Mcree’s and D.Va’s can and will still kill you as you are ulting, even if you think you activated Sound Barrier at the perfect time.

Stay With Your Team

As Lucio, you are a healer. You don’t do your team any good if you’re following around a stray D.Va or trying to surprise the opposing team only to get crushed. Lucio can heal the whole team at once, so even if you have another healer, you’re invaluable as long as you are near the highest concentration of teammates. Heal when they need heals, and if no one does, switch to speed boost to give your team a speed advantage. Just make sure you’re there for them because a team without a healer is mucho dead.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Aggressive

That said, Lucio doesn’t have to be a total back lines player. He can also be a disrupting force. His speed gives him a huge advantage allowing him to do things like running in, booping Reinhart to disrupt his shield, and then quickly falling back to start healing the team again. He can harass the opponents to distract their focus while your team goes in and picks them off. Offensive Lucio is definitely second to healing, but don’t discount him as just a support hero, because when you can play both facets you’ll never have more fun. 

Here’s a good example of a Lucio play when he disrupts the team then quickly reforms to provide support his own team.

Kill The Healers

Another tip that also applies to any hero—Kill the healers. You’re only special as a healer when you can give your team an advantage. If the enemy team is getting boosted by a Lucio, it pretty much cancels you out. Instead, if you use your ability and damage to take out the squishy healers, you pretty much double your effectiveness. Plus it’s dumb to try and kill a tank as Lucio so just don’t do that.

Boop Boop Boop

For the final tip, always remember that you have the power to throw people into the line of fire. If your team’s D.Va or Mcree triggers their ult and the enemy is hiding behind the payload or in a doorway, use your alt-fire to boop them out into the open, ensuring their demise in a way they weren’t expecting. The other team will hate you, and that hate will feel so sweet.

Were these tips helpful? Finding any luck as Lucio or have any awesome Lucio moments you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below.