So I started playing Lucio a few days ago, and looking at Overbuff I’m top 1-5% in most stats including elims, medals, critical hits, healing, damage, obj time and kills, sound barriers etc. My weapons accuracy is only bottom 18%, but that’s to be expected until I get used to the slow projectiles and burst fire as I tend to move the gun before all the shots have fired.
But where I’m really doing extremely bad is in deaths, I’m in the bottom 2%.
I know that I do very little wall riding, so that may be part of it, or maybe I’m just too hyper aggressive, but I often have to be as my teams seem to not know when to push. So if I’ve got 3 or 4 teammates in my range I’ll launch sound barrier and lead the charge when the time is right.
I could switch to speed boost and disengage when low, but I don’t like leaving my team with no healing. I’ve tried hanging back more, but then I’m often shooting blind as my teams keep obstructing my view. Bouncing troublemakers away is very useful, but I need to see them coming.
I know from stats Lucio’s overall healing goes down the higher up in ranks you look. Maybe you’re not utilizing speed boost enough or are doing far too risky plays for little reward
I suggest watching Lucio coaching videos, they’re far more knowledgeable on a hero
Hey, kinda okay-ish Lucio here: h ttps://www.overbuff.com/players/pc/MccKaay-2761?mode=competitive
The best way to stay alive is using wall riding and AD spamming.
When wallriding, you want to be constantly moving up and down walls, while still keeping your team in your radius. So if you can be somewhere where the enemy can’t see you but you team can, be there. (That’s a pretty simplified version)
AD Spamming: Whenever a hitscan (or sometimes projectile) hero starts shooting at you, you can spam crouch, A and D which makes you incredibly difficult to hit. Any time you think you’re vulnerable to any kind of attack, you should be AD spamming or behind some sort of protection.
Extra thing: always be moving, always call your speed boosts in VC (tell them to engage, usually just yell it) and never touch the floor.
Work on your wallriding and abuse the hell out of speedboost. Until you hit plat people seem to have an inability to aim up (which is why pharmercy is so powerful in lower ranks) and speed/wallriding makes you much harder to hit. I don’t know what the options are for PS4 controllers (I play on Xbox and use an elite) but if you don’t have a controller with back buttons/paddles, try remapping jump to one of your top buttons to make wallriding a lot easier. Also, don’t feel like you have to commit to dying on the point. If it looks like the fight is lost, speed boost yourself and anyone that’s alive with you out of there and regroup. You’ll keep your deaths low and get your team back into the fight together much faster.
Other than that, work on your positioning. Try to anticipate where a widow might position, a doomfist or tracer might flank, stuff like that. Oh, and make liberal use of your boops to create space, redirect a charging Rein or ulting Hog away from teammates. Boops are useful for so much more than just environmental kills.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Overbuff isn’t accurate until you have like 100 hours on that hero to get a real average of your stats.
As for staying alive… Believe it or not Lucio needs to play with his team in close proximity (shocking i know) only leaving the safety of his team to either assist someone in getting back to team or booping someone away. Riding walls on top of your team is fine just as long as you are in close proximity of them. Also use your speed boost either to engage or disengage but be close to team. That’s what is most important.
There’s not much to it, just try to wallride and use your speed to get away from the fight with your teammates if your main tank/main healer is killed. Wallride can get you places a lot of other heroes can’t, so the key here is being able to master it.
Also, don’t use the healing aura so much, it’s so minuscule it doesn’t make a difference a lot of the time. Other general tips for Lucio are:
Chase for kills. Low health targets are very easy to get to and to finish off.
Contest snipers. With your mobility you can get to spots snipers/S76 would be, so try to contest them and you’ll be able to kill them most of the time.
Last tip is to remember this 200 HP insta kill combo Lucio has. Lucio doesn’t have much ammo, so you have to make the most out of it. If you can land all 4 of your shots as headshots, then you boop + melee, it insta kills a 200 HP hero. For the record, if you land all 4 headshots on a Tracer she instantly dies.
Watch Eskay if you want to see how to survive as Lucio in action, he’s pretty good.
Lucio has different play styles, honestly the biggest thing you can do to avoid death is to always play with your entire team, your frontline, or your back line, depending on the enemy comp. your team will protect you just by existing, as you will protect them.
I’ve got jump remapped to L1, but haven’t much used wall riding as I try to cover as much of my team as possible, and that often means staying off the walls.
And I don’t typically use speedboost much other than to get my team back in the fight or to try to escape an ult. Other than that I’m on healing most of the time.
Widow hasn’t been a major issue so far, more like Rein charging me when I’m up in his face trying to push him away, or junkrat and doomfist targeting me with their ult, as I’m often the only healer I know I’m a prime target. I’m using boops at every opportunity, redirecting bob and rein, pushing Orisa out of her shield, disrupting tracer etc.
Abuse wallride. Keep bouncing from wall to wall. DOn’t just stick on a predictable path, throw some zigs and zags in there. Wallride is easily the strongest passive movement ability in the game, but only if you use it well.
Lucio’s healing isn’t great. A lot of times it is better to speed your teammates out of the line of fire so another healer can top them off.
Play in FFA and practice being slippery. That helped me a lot. Don’t play for the win in FFA. Play for the lowest death count you can while still fighting.
Turn on backwards wall riding. Practice passive wallriding (staying in a general area while still wallriding). Practice your movement, A-D spam is inconsequential if you do it too fast and predictably. Mash crossfade, but remember which song you are on. Sometimes touch ground (unless there are melee heroes) and crouch to mix it up sometimes. Stay near your tanks, most DPS will think twice before engaging you next to your speed boosted rein or monkey.
Improve your Wall-Riding. You should habitually be skimming and gaining speed to position yourself. It’s the fastest way to move as Lucio and his best escape option.
Also, learn when to disengage. The moment a team mate is picked off and it becomes a 5v6, your chances of winning drop significantly (unless someone manages to clutch a trade or two kills.) Sometimes you need to abandon folks to save yourself- a little bit of self-preservation goes a long way.
Speaking of which, be a lookout for flankers. You’ve got an aura, so you don’t need to stay looking forward and tunnel visioning all the time.
Learn to wallride, but be careful, as wallriding can be really predictable to characters such as hitscan. I recommend watching Eskay, DPStanky (retired, but you could watch him on Youtube), Rammy, and a few others streamers to see how they abuse AD spam and wallride. ABUSE wall-ride to catch DPS or healers out of position, but don’t be a Reddit Lucio and never stick with your team.
This isn’t really a Lucio problem, as much as it is a team problem. Just overall learn to shot-call to help your team.
I don’t recommend watching DPStanky actually. He played Lucio at a time where his aura was so big you could stand at spawn and still be useful. The shortened aura has changed what we think of as Lucio’s basic play style, so if anything I’d watch any modern streamer instead.