Lucio, people and unwilling to switch

General Discussion
1 
            <This is not an attack on lucio he is a well designed character and there>
                   <will always be situations where he's good and where he's bad>

I want to start off by saying I think Lucio is a good healer in situations. He is a good hero in terms of design, Good ult, boops are great for anything really and his damage is mid but good enough for him to do something.

However, I’m so tired of everyone picking him. In my opinion his heals are not good enough in certain situations. If you’re running a heavy dps team, then lucio should be fine, your dps and tanks should be good enough to kill enemies before taking tons of damage and be able to heal nicely with the mixture of lucio and any other healer(not zen). If you’re not running a nice dps heavy team. for example, “Lucio, Mercy, widow, hanzo, hammond, hog” in my opinion this comp doesn’t not have enough damage outgoing to counter the damage incoming. So when everyone starts taking tons of damage Lucio cant heal very well which often leaves the mercy to heal actually everyone to full health

with that being said Lucio also cannot save a mercy being targeted. even with the boost the mercy will usually end up dying. Sure you could do speed boost and try to escape but this rarely works considering the enemy will probably just chase us anyways, or its a solider or like a mccree shooting from far so you’ll be shot down anyways.

I guess my point really is overwatch is based around countering your opponent, if you are unwilling then you’ll probably lose. But the majority of Lucio players I encounter are one-tricks, rude, dps lucio, or unwilling to switch. Honestly this really isn’t an attack at the actual hero its rather, an attack at stupid players playing a team-based game but not willing to play as a team, that also centers around countering your opponent. Like why? This is just a question, Why do people play overwatch the team-based game if they are unwilling to play the game how its suppose to be played? Wouldn’t it be horribly unfun? “Oh let me go play overwatch but let me play it as if team play doesn’t matter!!11!”

Anyways, all my examples are simple and obviously I’m fine with lucio on my team if he’s working. When i play mercy, and realize im not doing much, I switch off to moira or a different healer better for the situations.

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2

I just don’t enjoy duo supporting with him. He goes off and does whatever most of the time and the teams healing is on me

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3

As a “support main” that is actually just a dps lucio OTP, every other hero in the game can not really give you the same feeling lucio gives you. When you know how to use his mobility well it feels so fun that it’s worth the L. At least I’ll take the L while having fun

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sometimes people blame Lucio when it isn’t his fault though. Sick of mercy players not swapping off mercy when our team is running rein zar and the Lucio speed is beneficial.

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You want to play mercy so you don’t like lucios on your team. Didn’t have to use 3 paragraphs to say that.

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There are usually two reason to pick lucio above and beyond any real desire to win and play some kind of meta comp. That is generally to be a lone wolf Lucio playing more like a DPs looking for kills, usually far away from any one one your team.

The other is your team is garbage and spread out, so you pick one of the AoE healers to try and make the best of it.

I will admit in situations where Brig won’t work Lucio is often the better option when your team has no shields and 2 flanking DPS that will never be any where near any one else. The need for heals will be constant, people will be all over the place and you will have little to no cover.

Lucio works as he can heal himself fairly well, escape or deal with people trying to kill him etc. If you pick brig, ana etc in the same situation you will just die constantly as the enemy team focuses you down.

Moira might work better in healing, but again if your team won’t play together most of her healing is wasted on single targets and will often run out if your Dva/hog/ball etc is just constantly eating dmg.

In general other than the fore mentioned DPS wannabe lucio’s the other reason is basically to try and make the best of a really bad team.

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his design worked well in some metas but most of these 222 comps are zzzzz. 2much struct 2much script 2boring ttk 2slow or suddenly 2fast onto tank not enough hps to stop burst etc. great in duels great in degen or great in brawl which is bad for fps 6v6. get into open comp or tdm and he is fine.

honestly the changes u want aren’t balance ones they’re game format, main accnts vs. mains, and matchmaking ones.

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The counterpoint to “the other guy won’t switch” is “so you switch instead”. It’s a circular argument and the ultimate cause is that people just do what they want.

That mindset goes beyond hero choice, mind you. If you have a lucio as your support and you keep playing as though they were a bap or an ana, you’re just as guilty for the situation as they are.

Are you really surprised that people brought up being told they’re special and unique don’t tend to make good teammates?

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9

I see what you’re saying, however for me personally I switch whenever it’s not working. I’m just confused why people would play a game but not play it how it’s intended. I also never berate someone to switch it’s also “hey bro (or something similar) would you mind switching” or something like that.

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10

I’d say most people play to have fun, not to honour the game devs’ intentions. If someone wants to play a mobile support and their co-support has already picked Mercy, then the only remaining option is Lucio. Really, it’s a problem with having such limited support and tank rosters. There are times I force Bap when I really shouldn’t because I want to play as a rapid-fire hitscan, or I play as Ana despite getting dunked on because I want to play as a semi-auto hitscan.

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This was a lot of text to basically say you like playing Mercy and don’t like Lucio’s on your team.

I’m not a Lucio one trick, but generally speaking I’d rather have a competent DPS Lucio on my team vs a Mercy who’s going to follow some DPS around the whole match hoping they land their shots and has no defensive ult so we’re going to struggle hugely if the enemy is running nanoblade etc.

This is a game that people play to have fun, after I’ve had a day of dealing with work, life and my toddler. I don’t want to deal with more small children whinging into their headset about how they want to play X and I should really play Y because it works with THEIR hero choice.

You want someone to swap to something that works so badly? Learn Bap/Ana and stop relying on Moira/Mercy who have very low carry potential and cannot adequately heal teams taking heavy poke damage.

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I pick Lucio when my team is trickling or feeding, to speed them back into the meatgrinder.

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13

Your examples cite Mercy specifically; Mercy/Lucio is notoriously one of the worst duos in the game. They counter each others synergies. However, with the tanks you mentioned in your example…Lucio really isn’t an awful pick. A Bap and an Ana would be free kills for the enemy team, Zen is the same low healing and fragile, and Moira would be the same problem as Lucio in that case; independent. In your example, Mercy has self-heal and is intended to heal up the two DPS (Mercy, in mid to high SR, if the game is well balanced, should ideally only be useful to pocket a standard Mercy pocket pick, otherwise she is the bad pick in that scenario). Hog is self sufficient, and WB has to be self sufficient, because any other support choice that could viably heal him is going to get decimated with this team comp…so Lucio really wouldn’t be a bad pick.

I actually find a lot more games where Mercy players refuse to swap than Lucio players, and -though Mercy’s PR is higher right now -and has been for some time- across most SR (which I think is an example of poor balance), Lucio is generally more valuable to a bigger variety of team comps, and often enjoys a higher WR -while generally letting the player have fun also. I’m a GM support player and playing Mercy is literally awful. Not everyone is going to feel that way of course, but I would rather not play the game at all then be forced to play Mercy. That’s the sentiment of a lot of non Mercy-main support mains, from my experience.

So if you discount the Mercy/Lucio duo…Lucio actually synergizes really well with a lot of the cast. You mentioned Lucio is ideal for DPS heavy teams…that’s not true, actually. It depends on the DPS, but Lucio is often considered the tank players support, because he is very valuable for tanks (Rein in specific). But he is useful with flankers as well; basically just not hitscan heavy comps.

And in terms of Lucio and counters…Lucio counters a lot more, in general, than most of the other supports do. He is useful as a flanking DPS to get rid of enemy hitscans, and he is powerful in the front line to disrupt enemy tanks, he drives away flankers (not as adept at it as Brig, but is more useful besides just that), and has a defensive ult on top of that. He’s super useful without being hard countered by much…Torb/Cassidy/Sombra and maybe Pharah/Echo are the really only enemy heros thats I think give Lucio a difficult time…and even then, I wouldn’t say they counter him in the same way a lot of the other supports get countered.

And I feel like I have to defend this on the forums every month but here it is again for the people in the back; Reddit/DPS Lucio is the intended playstyle for the hero. He was specifically reworked in 2016 to encourage this playstyle more and offer less reward for passive Lucio players. In lower SR it is easier to get value out of sitting back and being passive…but Lucio has a really high skill ceiling; the higher in SR you go, the more you can get out of his complicated kit -high risk/high reward plays are his intention. That means taking 1v1s out and disrupting the enemy team. That means you are not always glued to your other support. Scenarios differ of course, but as a whole Lucio should not be just sitting behind his team the entire game. That being said, Redshell’s way of playing Lucio, which takes it a step further, is obviously different. It works for Redshell, but he’s a T100 Lucio player. The value he offers through his plays makes sense on paper, and in his games, but unless you are also a T100 Lucio player, you probably will lose the risk/reward dice roll there. It’s a different way of playing…so berating a Lucio on your team for being a ‘Reddit Lucio’ for going after the enemy Widow or something is totally wrong. He’s playing his hero as intended. Whether he is getting value may be different, but the idea is correct.

Generally, the game does not work well when you run two ‘off healers’ (which is different from ‘off supports’). This isn’t as a rule, of course, but for the most part, you are making the game harder for yourself…this being if the rest of the team is a decent comp to begin with. So Lucio/Mercy is, usually, doomed from the start anyway…but it sounds to me like your complaint -and this is something I notice a lot in comp games, from plat all the way through GM- is that you’ve got a Lucio and a Mercy, and no one ever thinks that Mercy is a poor pick -even when it definitely is-.

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I common issue mentioned is that feeling of needing to pick up the slack because the other support is playing Reddit Lucio who may or may not get value.

Your right that that could work but the feeling of being the sole healer for the team obviously bothers people.

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its crazy how popular he is in this new fun x-card experimental. i swear he has been in EVERY GAME i have played lol

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But that is the job of the ‘Main healer’ in almost every scenario. I’m used to high SR play, so this I think does not play out the same in lower SR…but basically, and Ana or Bap (the only viable ‘main healers’) are practically intended and able to solo heal a team. The ‘off healers’ main use is their utility. In higher SR, if you get Ana/Mercy or Ana/Lucio or Ana/Zen…Ana is doing the lion’s share of healing. In fact, in higher SR, if you directly compare Lucio and Mercy’s healing in otherwise exact scenarios…I would assume Lucio would have more healing than a Mercy (when paired with an Ana), because Mercy should be pocketting a DPS. For the Ana player, the difference is negligible -that is, if everyone is playing and preforming decently on their hero.

This is a complaint specifically about Lucio the character, which is why it does not apply in terms of the main healer pulling more weight; that would be the same with any off-healer. The difference should, on average, be pretty negligible when split among all the off-healers. Anything beyond that would be a problem with the player, which could happen on any hero, really.

This is my experience, anyway.

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Yes I know Bap and Ana can, but personally I like when both supports are working together.

The best Lucios I have in my games blend going off flanking and healing or speed boosting. The worse ones are the one that are off alone offering no utility.

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I assume you mean good support, because calling Lucio a good ‘healer’ is a little bold considering his 16 base HPS.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, what you’re trying to say is that Lucio supporting with speed and heals are only good with very specific tank line ups (Rein/Zarya brawl mostly), and that’s because you’d be right. Nobody really uses speed outside of brawl compositions, and his healing is god awful.

This raises lots of questions. What’s targeting the Mercy in the first place? Why isn’t Mercy using GA to essentially ignore them if they’re a flanker? Why are they able to focus her if they aren’t a flanker? What flanker is being played that Lucio can’t bully away?

Also, Lucio is an amazing peeler. I don’t know if it’s because people have gotten used to Brig but Lucio was considered to be the best peeler in the game back in the day, and still is pretty good at it.

If Mercy is able to be focus fired by Cassidy and Soldier, then something is very wrong, and it’s not necessarily the Lucio. Cassidy and Soldier don’t sneak up on your backline very often because they don’t really have an escape, so if your team has allowed them to get in your backline and harass your Mercy with impunity, that’s not the Lucio’s fault.

Depends on who you ask. Me personally, I think Overwatch is about outplaying your opponent, because if it’s all about countering then both teams should just stay in spawn all game and constantly swap heroes depending on what the opponent’s line up currently is.

Lucio one-tricks tend to favor the ‘distraction’ play-style because that’s the playstyle that tends to work in most situations. Nobody likes playing Rein’s speedbot because when you stop having a Rein you no longer have a purpose. ‘Distraction’ Lucio is by far the most consistent way to get value as Lucio, so long as your team can do basic math.

Flanking Lucio is far more team oriented than you think.

When a Lucio flanks, their job is to pick a high value target that won’t be able to kill them super fast (snipers and supports) and bullies them. The Lucio should be able to win any prolonged 1v1 as long as they are good at picking targets, and so his target needs to be peeled for. When someone comes to peel for the target, the Lucio is allowing his team to take a 5v4. Assuming the Lucio’s team has enough brain cells to see that 5>4, they should immediately engage and win the fight easily.

In short, the Lucio is supporting his team by giving them better engagements, and relying on them to take the 5v4 so that his inevitable death in the 1v2 won’t have been in vain. Unfortunately, people who don’t understand how Lucio works are all too quick to just see the situation and say “Lucio is feeding” and get super angry at the person who is actually doing their job.

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Lucio is great in all situations if your team knows how to avoid damage altogether.

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This post is under the assumption that the lucio needs to swap to cater to the team composition. When you could make the same argument that the DPS should make the swap to accommodate the lucio or the Tank.

Learn to use natural cover or make the swap yourself.

That’s all you can do