Transcendence can counter so many things in this game AND provide huge value after the ult ends by topping off everyone’s health. Sure, it can’t stop grav/dragon/damage boost, but one hero shouldn’t be able to single-handedly counter three.
I feel like a lot of the reason Lucio isn’t a viable pick is because sound barrier is just so horribly weak in comparison to transcendence.
Tactical Visor and Dragonblade can both still cut through sound barrier and kill at least one target, while they cannot do this with transcendence. Sound barrier against a grav usually doesn’t work, even if the enemy doesn’t have a Hanzo.
Problems with sound barrier:
- Huge wind up time that often results in dead teammates or a dead/stunned Lucio before the animation ends
- Has no lasting effect after the shields end, unlike with Valk/Coalescence/Transcendence that also heal
- Shields diminish too quickly, making it a poor counter for the burst damage it’s supposed to counter
Suggestions (please offer yours as well):
- Make it so shields do not rapidly decay, but instead all remaining shields after 6 seconds disappear.
- Make ult charge slightly faster or the animation faster so it’s more reliable - This will help make up for the fact that it’s so easy to cancel
- Make sound barrier temporarily increase Lucio’s song distance
58 Likes
Lucio was seriously crushed when they made him lose sound barrier if he gets stunned or dies. Zen’s ult is instant.
The devs should really consider doing some proper rebalancing of sound barrier as it’s never been the same since the ult changes.
I feel like Mei suffers similarly from the changes, in that her and Lucio are two of the easiest heroes to make lose their ult. I like the idea of making the shields not diminish slowly over time, but all disappear at once as soon as the ult ends.
54 Likes
SB, in theory, is fine - it counter burst damage where Trans counters damage over time.
The application seriously sucks though.
20 Likes
Sound barrier is weak
Though sound barrier is more for countering instant damage ults(Tire,Self-Destruct,etc.)
And Zen more for overtime ults(Dragons,Other Dragon,etc.)
11 Likes
That’s a false dichotomy, there is no connection between Transcendence and Sound Barrier.
A single Ana grenade negates Transcendence but not the Sound Barrier shields. Is Sound Barrier too strong or is Transcendence too weak?
See? It doesn’t work that way. If you feel something needs a change, argue for that - but not by comparing apples to oranges.
10 Likes
But what is an ana? Never seen one of those.
26 Likes
Sound barrier is very weak. Too easy to shut down and doesn’t last long enough to be overly beneficial. It’s much worse than Rally or Trans.
22 Likes
Yeah, because you usually don’t have enough time to react to quick burst damage like pulse bomb. Using it to counter Junkrat’s tire isn’t reliable either because Junkrat can just wait a few seconds and then kill everyone when it ends. Removing the “rapidly diminishing shields” part of the ult would really help.
6 Likes
Sound barrier is counterproductive to its intention. Having a cast time to something meant to stop burst damage ults is what makes it weak imo
31 Likes
Transcendence is a necessary evil to combat the plethora of overly powered offensive Ults. They need to tone down those down first, and then they ought to consider making changes to Trans.
Sound Barrier on the other hand is much more fair and appropriate power-wise. It’s not as huge a determining factor in picking Lucio as Transcendence is a determining factor in picking Zenyatta.
In general, when heroes are picked more for their Ultimate Ability than their base kit there’s a problem with those heroes’ design.
2 Likes
Well you wouldn’t use it the same way. I don’t actually think there’s an ultimate like Lucio’s in the game, so it’s very hard to judge if it’s truly “weak” even if it does feel that way.
Sound barrier sucks. Every time I play Lucio and think, “hey this isn’t so bad.”
Then I die trying to ult, thanks to the unexpected airtime while on a sloped surface or I accidentally end up traveling from a low roof to floor.
Tilting.
2 Likes
As far as team saving support ults go it’s the worst. Trans is flat out better.
The cast timer is the biggest problem. Trans is instant but Lucio is too easy a target when ulting. He can be stunned immediately and lose all charge or simply be killed instantly because he stops being the slippery, unpredictable eel he is.
I’d speed up the cast time and see what that does for him.
1 Like
Trans would be useless if they just fixed Ana (her nade destroys his ultimate)
sound barrier can’t be stopped like that unless people are behind enemy barriers or out of los. My personal peeve with sound barrier is that it decays extremely fast for an u,timaye. Why use a sound barrier that doesn’t need last through a genji balde when you can get a Brigitte ult which provides armour (halving damage) in a constant stream and lasts longer than a lot of ultimates.
Sound barrier is flawed in that aspect
4 Likes
Trans can’t be EMP’d but SB can. They just have different counters and counter different attacks, that doesn’t change the fact they function very similarly. The comparison is certainly appropriate.
Sound Barrier needs to have at least a faster wind-up.
2 Likes
Zen doesn’t take Lucio’s place in the pro meta. Mercy is the only other main healer in the game.
1 Like
Ana and moira are main healer but are considered irrelevant because 1) Ana sucks in general plz help her and 2) why play moira and keep running out of resources when bam mercy can heal constantly at the cost of like 15 hps less
My point is that it doesn’t matter that they have similarities. It doesn’t matter that different things can counter them. What I took issue with and addressed was that his entire argument starts with “IS TRANS TOO STRONG? OR IS SOUND BARRIER TOO WEAK?” - there is no connection, one is not dependent on the other.
Which is why I called it out as a false dichotomy and why I suggested he argue for the change he wants instead of based on comparisons to things it is not.
1 Like
While I’m not going to suggest that Sound Barrier is typically as effective as Transcendence (though I’m not sure why these two are expected to be the same thing regardless), there are a lot of comments in this thread that are… short-sighted.
It’s true that, in theory an ulting Soldier/Genji or Junkrat tire can stay there and wait until Sound Barrier is gone to get a kill. However, for that to work requires that the Lucio and his entire team spends their 3-5 seconds of safety just staring at that Genji/Soldier/tire and waiting to die instead of killing them.
Meanwhile, while Transcendence is going on, Zenyatta’s teammates might just be getting picked off anyway by Widow/Hanzo headshots or an Ana grenade, or Zenyatta can get hooked/booped away from his team so it does nothing but keep himself alive.
They’re different abilities with different advantages.
1 Like