A big Lucio buff is coming in by the looks of things from the Overwatch PTR update on April 18. Tom Powers, community manager for Overwatch posted some news on the forums regarding changes to characters and one of the big changes coming in is to do with Lucio and it’s a Lucio buff.
The Lucio buff changes are as follows
“Wall Ride
- Wall riding is less likely to be interrupted along a single surface
- Can now go around corners (both outside corners, and inside corners) without having to leave the wall
- Can now land back on the same wall after leaping away, provided his leap takes him far enough away from the original jumping off point.
Soundwave
- No longer consumes ammo
Developer Comments: Wall Ride has been significantly overhauled to allow it to function more smoothly across more areas of every map. Lúcio players should instantly notice a huge improvement in where and how Wall Ride can be used. In addition, Sonic Amplifier’s Soundwave ability was unnecessarily controlled by both a cooldown and an ammo cost, so we’re removing the ammo cost.”
One of the main reasons this is a big Lucio buff is due to the changes to the wall ride. The ability to go around the corners without having to leave the wall and also the ability to just in general being able to more easily wall ride will allow the character to be a lot more nimble on the battlefield. It will also give Lucio new ways to approach team fights and different positioning capabilities that were maybe just too difficult to pull off before.
There are many Overwatch players, particularly in the lower levels who do have some trouble shooting down a wall riding Lucio as he is, so making him able to stay up there much easier will be a massive buff for the character in the lower tiers of play. In the higher tiers, it should help Lucio mains to stay alive a little longer against players who have much better aim than most.
The changes to Lucio are interesting as the character has maybe not been as popular since the addition of Moira, with all the Moira/Ana team compositions people are running lately. How his pick rate will go after this changes is yet to be seen, but next season (which is soon) we’re also getting Brigitte put into competitive play so the pick rate of Lucio will be an interesting one to keep an eye on.
Are you a Lucio main? What do you think of the changes to the character? Will they be enough? Or did they go to far with it?
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