Overwatch's Lucio Heads to Heroes of the Storm

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Overwatch's Lucio Heads to Heroes of the Storm

Overwatch's audio medic wall rides to Heroes of the Storm.

Blizzard has announced that another Overwatch character will be joining Tracer and Zarya in Heroes of the Storm - healing DJ Lucio. Not too much was revealed - Blizzard made the announcement on Twitter [https://twitter.com/BlizzHeroes/status/827577788743835649], shared a brief video, and said that Lucio will be available on the Public Test Realm "soon."


You can check out Lucio's abilities below:

Trait

Wall Ride (D): When moving alongside impassable terrain, Lucio can walk through other units, and his movement speed is increased by 20%. This effect stacks with other movement speed bonuses.

Basic Abilities

Soundwave (Q): Deal damage to enemies in a cone-shaped area and knock them back.

Crossfade (W): Play one of two tracks that passively provide allied heroes with either a Speed Boost or a Healing Boost in a large radius around you. Activate Crossfade to swap tracks.

Healing Boost: Restore a small amount of Health every second to Lucio and nearby allied heroes.

Speed Boost: Increase the Movement Speed of Lucio and nearby allied Heroes by 15%.

Amp It Up (E): Raise Lucio's Crossfade track volume for three seconds, amping Speed Boost to 45% increased movement speed, and significantly increasing the healing rate of Healing Boost.

Heroic Abilities

Sound Barrier (R): After one second, Lucio and nearby allied heroes gain a massive Shield that rapidly decays over the next six seconds.

Reverse Amp (R): Blast Lucio's Crossfade track at enemy Heroes for four seconds, causing Healing Boost to inflict damage every second, and Speed Boost to Slow Movement Speed by 45%.

Passive: Increase Amp It Up's duration to four seconds.

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[Hawki]

...a non-Warcraft support?

Well, that's something.

 

[American Tanker]

Images no. 7 & 11 seem to have 404'd for some reason.

 

[laggyteabag]

Awesome! We needed another support character, seeing as the last one was Auriel, who was released in August '16, and before that was Morales, who was in October '15. HotS has pretty much always had a Support drought; we only have 10 support characters, which is less than half the amount of Assassin heroes.

Im glad to see Lucio show up in HotS, and hopefully he will mix up the Support roster enough until the stars align, and Blizzard gives us another.

Gotta say, though, I was kinda expecting Stukov, next.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

...a non-Warcraft support?

Well, that's something.

Still lame because its an Overwatch hero

 

[WindKnight]

Awesome! We needed another support character, seeing as the last one was Auriel, who was released in August '16, and before that was Morales, who was in October '15. HotS has pretty much always had a Support drought; we only have 10 support characters, which is less than half the amount of Assassin heroes.

Im glad to see Lucio show up in HotS, and hopefully he will mix up the Support roster enough until the stars align, and Blizzard gives us another.

Gotta say, though, I was kinda expecting Stukov, next.

Was kinda hoping for Mercy, though hopefully she'll be in soonish.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Awesome! We needed another support character, seeing as the last one was Auriel, who was released in August '16, and before that was Morales, who was in October '15. HotS has pretty much always had a Support drought; we only have 10 support characters, which is less than half the amount of Assassin heroes.

Im glad to see Lucio show up in HotS, and hopefully he will mix up the Support roster enough until the stars align, and Blizzard gives us another.

Gotta say, though, I was kinda expecting Stukov, next.

Was kinda hoping for Mercy, though hopefully she'll be in soonish.

Sorry to burst your bubble but most of her kit is already used by Morales (Healing Beam) and Auriel (Resurrection) so it's unlikely they are going to add Mercy.
Hell, even "YOR POWERED UP! GET IN THAR!" is already in the game with Morales's Stim Drone Ultimate.

 

[laggyteabag]

Awesome! We needed another support character, seeing as the last one was Auriel, who was released in August '16, and before that was Morales, who was in October '15. HotS has pretty much always had a Support drought; we only have 10 support characters, which is less than half the amount of Assassin heroes.

Im glad to see Lucio show up in HotS, and hopefully he will mix up the Support roster enough until the stars align, and Blizzard gives us another.

Gotta say, though, I was kinda expecting Stukov, next.

Was kinda hoping for Mercy, though hopefully she'll be in soonish.

Sorry to burst your bubble but most of her kit is already used by Morales (Healing Beam) and Auriel (Resurrection) so it's unlikely they are going to add Mercy.
Hell, even "YOR POWERED UP! GET IN THAR!" is already in the game with Morales's Stim Drone Ultimate.

Im still just kinda salty about how they just turned Widowmaker into a skin for Nova. Sure, they both use Sniper Rifles, and I imagine that their Q's would be similar, but other than that, they play entirely different.

 

[Borty The Bort]

AW YEAH!

 

[RedDeadFred]

Lucio is one of my favourite characters in Overwatch, but a lot of that comes down to his wallriding. The video of the MOBA version looks really weird and underwhelming.

 

[Chronologist]

Well, looks like Blizzard has officially decided to throw Brightwing under the bus. Her one unique trait among Supports is that she constantly heals nearby allies without spending mana. Lucio now does her job better thanks to Amp it Up, which is functionally the Gust of Healing Brightwing talent from the Beta. A talent that Brightwing lost because it was deemed far too powerful.

Lucio seems to do everything Brightwing does, only better. His passive gives him better lane swapping and roaming than Brightwing does, especially given the current meta of roaming 4-man gank squads. Soundwave is probably a better damage tool than Arcane Flare and has knockback, which is killer for a Support. Crossfade and Amp It Up invalidates Brightwing's passive and the move speed bonus is like her Pixie Dust but vastly better. Sure, Brightwing still has Polymorph for point-and-click crowd control but that was recently nerfed along with her 'mount' teleport and her healing ult.

I think that one of two things needs to be done. Option #1, Lucio's passive healing is very weak at its baseline compared to Brightwing; Brightwing heals 100 + 4% per level every 4 seconds, Lucio should not exceed 15 + 4% per level per second. This will make him more of a mobility and positional-oriented Support instead of raw passive heals. Option #2, Brightwing needs a rework. If passive healing is no longer her forte, Blizzard needs to figure out what her new unique role should be. Every Support should excel at something unique; Tyrande has global vision and sets up killer focus fire, Uther brings raw stuns and healing even if he's killed early on in the battle, Auriel builds healing through inflicting damage and excels at extended teamfights.

Perhaps Brightwing should have her own niche. My recommendation is making her extremely flexible with multiple build paths so she can specialize in damage, healing, crowd control, buffs, or mobility. Make her a jack of all trades who can adapt to the map and team comps better than anyone else, but she lacks depth and focus on a single aspect of 'Supporting'.