Blizzard is once again looking to stir things up, this time around with Overwatch’s support character, Lucio. Easily my favorite support character in the game, Lucio can turn the tide of a game with his speed boosts, heal area of effect heals and his health booster.
However, major changes are coming!
Currently, live on the PTR, several changes have been made to the healing speedster.
- Sonic Amplifier
- Projectile speed increased from 40 to 50
- Alternate fire now considers vertical orientation when knocking targets back
- Crossfade
- Song’s area-of-effect radius decreased from 30 meters to 10 meters
- A temporary in-game visual has been added to illustrate this radius (it is only visible to Lúcio and his teammates)
- Heal Song
- Healing-per-second has been increased by 50% (also applies to Lúcio’s Amp It Up ability)
- Song’s area-of-effect radius decreased from 30 meters to 10 meters
- Sound Barrier
- Radius decreased from 30 meters to 20 meters
- Wall Ride
- Movement speed increased by 30% when wall riding
- Lúcio now receives a burst of speed when leaping off a wall
So while the Sonic Amplifier (useful for knocking people off the map) gets a buff. As does his healing per second, meaning bigger heals. The downside is that his area of effect heal/movement speed has gotten nerfed. But how much of a nerf is that? Consider for a moment that Mercy’s current range is 15 meters. Meaning that Lucio will basically have to be considerably closer someone to heal or provide a speed boost.
To compensate for that, Blizzard has implemented a visual tool that lets Lucio players see who is in range. While I haven’t tried it out on the PTR yet (I plan on doing it soon) I ‘m not sure I like these changes. But what brought these on, you be wondering?
Simple, Lucio’s popularity. Blizzard feels that he gets picked way too often, due to his raw healing output and his speed boost. Oddly enough, another character was in the very same shoes and Blizzard ended up buffing him (Bastion). I get it, but I feel that perhaps even a 15 to 20-meter change might be better. Thankfully, this is only live on the PTR, so this isn’t permanent and is subject to be changed.
Are you a Lucio player and if so, how do you feel about these changes? I’ll update this post after I give the PTR a try.
Source: Official Overwatch Blog