Hello friends,

My name is PMAJellies and I have over 900 total hours (over 37 days Yikes) on Lucio throughout my accounts. I enjoy playing Lucio for both his fast play-style and ability to be played aggro or defensively. First I want to bring up some statistics of where Lucio is currently in the meta compared to other healers. Source for all of this is self-found using Overbuff. Also, these stats are looking at the GM level play over the passed month. Let’s get started.

First, the stat which I believe shows the most is win rate. Lucio has an average 52.95% win rate in GM. This may seem good because it is positive, but compared to other heroes in GM this would make Lucio’s win rate the 5th worst, including the lowest in the support category. His pick rate over the past month is 1.38% which I believe is only that high because of King of the Hill type maps. These maps show Lucio’s potential in getting to an objective before the other team in order to have the advantage. These two statistics show the lower pick rate and low win percentage due to his uselessness throughout the game, which I believe justifies a small buff.

Before we talk about buffs, lets see how top tier Lucio players are playing him. I will be using the top 3 Lucio’s I know in the game: FDGod, FunnyAstro and Kruise. The average healing done on Lucio by these players are shown in order: 7.8k, 6.9k, and 5.8k. This numbers show the type of style each player uses with Lucio with FDGod playing more defensively with the team while Kruise is probably using speed and using a more solo aggressive play style. Let’s look at damage averages, in order again: 9.6k, 9.8k, and 9.4k. This show’s that in top Lucio tier play, players are finding that Lucio is most useful in dealing damage over healing (not saying you shouldn’t heal) similar to Zenyetta. However, Zen this season has a 12.9% pick rate with a 55% win rate. So what is the difference, what needs to change with Lucio so he is seen more in competitive games?

Buff Idea 1: Lucio benefits most when he works with his team and keeps them in his aura. When playing and especially when leaving spawn I often hear “Hey Lucio come back and taxi me.” This happens because Lucio’s wall riding gives HIM speed boost so he will go faster than his team, so its a choice to go for a roll out or stay on the ground next to your teammate to taxi them. Roll outs are a great skill that requires tons of practice and improvisation. However, they do not help teammates who want the speed from Lucio to get to point fast like him. So here comes my idea for the first buff:

-Lucio’s speed boost only when amping copies Lucio’s current speed and gives that to his teammates.

This will give advantages to high skilled Lucio players who know their roll outs in order to have the advantage in both team fights and getting back to point. This encourages his aggro play style with working with his team because he won’t leave them behind.

Buff Idea 2: Sound Barrier is by far, in my opinion, the most useless support ultimate. It can counter only tracer bomb and Junkrat tire, (if timed perfectly), can be stunned and lost, and is the hardest support ult to gain. I believe his ult should be used mainly for pushing rather than defense, but even that brings up problems. If I want to push with sound barrier I want to be on speed in order for my team to get most of the 500 shield (that only lasts 6 seconds assuming no damage is taken). There are really multiple changes I want for his ult because I believe it is his weakest part of his kit. Here are a few:

Increase the passive generation (which currently is 1% for every 5 seconds making it the slowest in the game)

Increase max shield to 1000 that slowly decreases over 10 seconds (100 shield/second decrease)

[This may seem like a lot but remember zen does 300 hps for 6 seconds with his ult that is easier to get]

-Have landing near and enemy while using sound barrier deals damage

[Not sure how sound waves deal 20 damage but a giant blast of music deals 0]

These changes can be used to help Lucio’s aggro play style to get him into fights without worrying about healing his teammates for a while. Also, using a sound barrier mid fight could help with dealing damage to the other team while trying to keep the team alive.

Of course I don’t except Blizzard to implement all of these buffs, these are just my different ideas for improving the hero that I enjoy playing but is now seen as a troll pick in this current meta.

Thanks for reading, PMAJellies

TL;DR:

Lucio has a low pick rate and low win rate in GM over past month

Buff Ideas: Shared Speed or Buff Sound Barrier to 1000 shields decaying over 10 seconds, have SB deal damage, increase charge rate.