The newest Overwatch hero to enter the Nexus, Lúcio brings his unique blend of style and positivity to the Support role. In his home game, Lúcio’s kit brings such team-wide utility that he’s been a mandatory pick throughout Overwatch’s competitive history. Despite repeated nerfs, Lúcio remains a fixture on teams no matter how the rest of the metagame shifts.

Time will tell whether Lúcio becomes as necessary in Heroes of the Storm, but his first week has him off to a strong start. Lúcio’s win rates have been fluctuating dramatically with skill level, ranging from 48-57% in Hero League depending on the MMR bracket. At every level, his Quick Match win rates are even higher than Hero League win rates, peaking at 60% for Master-tier QM. It’s likely Blizzard will turn down the volume on some of his numbers, but after a long dominance of Malfurion and a recent shift back towards double-healer compositions, Lúcio has definitely rocked some life into a stale Support draft.

Now let’s break him down!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Abilities

Like Tracer and Zarya before him, Lúcio has a direct port of his Overwatch kit, giving him a familiar and comfortable feel once you adjust to the different control scheme. If you haven’t played Overwatch, don’t worry—basic Lúcio play is relaxing and simple, as your Crossfade songs will passively benefit anyone within their range without any extra effort on your part. The Wall Ride Trait will probably take the most adjustment for either experience group, being a very different movement style. Its movement speed bonus lasts for a brief window after leaving the terrain, so practice hitting the walls even for brief flashes to keep up Lúcio’s speed on large battlegrounds.

Lúcio’s two Crossfade tracks are We Move Together As One for accelerating and Rejuvenescência for his healing beat. Activating W will toggle between them with no cost to either mana or cooldown, so key Lúcio play revolves around knowing which song to play at which moment. Healing Boost provides a small, steady regeneration between engagements completely free of mana. Speed Boost, on the other hand, helps your team avoid damage altogether, and a burst of movement speed somewhat mollifies his lack of Cleanse. You’ll use a mix of both tracks to get your teammates out of danger, and the songs can be switched even during Amp It Up.



On its own, Speed Boost’s movement speed buff doesn’t override the faster mount speed of Lúcio’s teammates. But completing the level 1 quest talent Maximum Tempo increases the boost during Amp It Up to 60%, so allies will zoom across the map with Lúcio. Note that this speed boost does not stack with mount speed, so it's better to avoid mounting when Lúcio pops the 60% speed boost.

Soundwave feels the most different from Overwatch, as there’s no environmental kills to be had by pushing people off battlegrounds. It still remains Lúcio’s best form of soft CC. As it turns out, wall-riding past an enemy and booping them backwards into the middle of your team is just as lethal. It’s not as hard of a crowd-control tool as Malfurion’s roots or Uther and Tyrande’s stuns, but with Lúcio’s ability to ignore bodyblocks, it can provide peel for your teammates as you switch from one song to another in an emergency.

Both Heroic options are strong and viable, with Sound Barrier being the more popular of the two. Reverse Amp requires more aggressive positioning to receive maximum benefits but has a greater win rate in the higher levels of play. In addition to its activated ability, Reverse Amp passively buffs the duration of Amp It Up, giving it an edge outside of teamfights when compared to Sound Barrier, which is simply a very impactful, 80 second cooldown. Creating build diversity, Reverse Amp’s passive enables synergy with other talents that further strengthen Lúcio’s E, increasing their value when taken with that Heroic.

Talents

Lúcio’s talent tiers all focus on strengthening a specific aspect of his kit. Level 1 is themed around various ways of modifying his mobility, and Level 4 is filled with Soundwave options. The most noteworthy tiers come in at Levels 7 and 16, the latter being his greatest power spike.

All of the Level 7 talents provide ways of increasing the area affected by Lúcio’s music. Sonic Amplifier is the easiest to use and gives the most immediate and controllable results of the three. Party Mix provides no effects until its quest has been completed, but becomes permanent afterwards; it’s an investment into the later game, and in practice it doesn’t take at all as long to complete as the tooltip might make you fear it does. Boombox is the final option of the three, an active talent that gives Lúcio a placeable ward that can be either a healing or movement totem. The boombox plays the same song as your current Crossfade track, and while there’s no benefit to overlapping its radius with your own, it can let Lúcio’s aura be in two places at once.



The 16 tier, with an outlier that gives Soundwave a Blind ability, provides ways to significantly increase Lúcio’s healing output; once reaching this level, Lúcio can put out truly enormous numbers. The standouts here are Rejuvenescência and Bring It Together, and which provides greater benefit between the two will depend on your team comp. As a rule of thumb, Rejuvenescência will benefit your tanks while Bring It Together helps squishier mage-dependent teams, but this helpful Reddit post gives detailed mathematical comparisons between the talents available here.

After reaching level 20, Lucio’s options for Storm Talents are jaw dropping. It’s here that he finally gets a Cleanse option in Synaesthesia Auditiva, and while that talent can pull off some amazing feats, it comes so late in the game that the need for it might have already passed. Many games have already been decided by this point, for better or worse. But still, not many Support heroes can cancel a successful Apocalypse/Ring of Frost combo with a single button push. Outside of Synaesthesia Auditiva, Bossa Nova lets Sound Barrier be cast multiple times in a single teamfight, while Nonstop Remix can feel outright oppressive. Bonus Track requires some finesse, but is a strong choice to cap off an E-centric Reverse Amp build.

Professional Opinions

On Kit, Design, and Implementation

On Professional Play and Meta Changes

On Map Composition and Viability

Final Thoughts