Hey y’all, k0nduit here, and today we’re covering Lucio in Heroes of the Storm. We’ll be diving into his general playstyle, talents, and advanced gameplay strategies for the freedom-fighting DJ. Without further ado, let’s get right into it:

- General Thoughts on the Freedom Fighting DJ
- Talenting Lucio
- Gameplay Strategy, Tips, and Tricks
- Synergies, Counters, and Drafting
- Wrapping Up

General Thoughts on the Freedom Fighting DJ

Lucio is a Healer that offers team-wide sustain and can manipulate battlefield positioning through persistent movespeed advantages for his allies along with well-timed displacements on enemies. His own personal mobility also makes him adept at applying steady and reliable damage, dismounting to disrupt rotations, and even chasing down low-health foes. While Lucio finds it difficult to heal a single target that’s heavily injured (he instead excels at healing up AoE chip damage and general poke), he offers other ways to mitigate pressure and get teammates out of harm’s way. However, playing Lucio optimally involves understanding the game state and applying yourself offensively as much as you can. Lucio is strong at peeling and getting his allies out of sticky situations, but it’s his aggressive capabilities that differentiate him from many of the other supports/healers on the HotS roster. As we’ll see, there’s a breadth of offensive opportunities that arise when you’re moving much faster than every other Hero in the game!

Lucio’s a powerful Healer, and I feel comfortable picking him into most matchups. He’s an interesting Hero in that his base kit isn’t particularly complex, but there’s a deceptively vast area of both mechanical intricacy and judgement/game understanding needed in order to play him at maximum output. As we’ll get into, staying back and passively healing is not the way to play Lucio! Finally, I find Lucio to be one of the most fun Heroes in the game to play, and I think you’ll have a blast piloting the Freedom Fighting DJ as well... that is, if going fast is your cup of tea.

Talenting Lucio

Level 1

Party Mix - Quest: Play Lucio’s Crossfade tracks to nearby allies for a total of 8 minutes. Multiple allies provide additional time. Reward: Permanently increase Crossfade’s Radius by 20%

Party Mix is a solid talent that will provide consistent value for you, albeit after a delay as you need to complete the quest first. On maps like Infernal Shrines that involve big teamfighting set pieces, Party Mix can shine by helping your reach all of your allies with your Crossfade.

For how solid Party Mix is though... I still find Accelerando more impactful. Only on teamfight-centric, rotation-minimal maps will I even consider picking up Party Mix (and even then, I often still don’t!).

Accelerando - Wall Ride’s Movement Speed bonus gradually increases to 40% over 4 seconds while Lucio maintains its effect.

Accelerando was Lucio’s bread and butter level 1 talent before his rework in March 2019, and I think it still is after the rework. It just enables everything that Lucio wants to do: it helps keep you safe during your dismounting endeavors and repeated damage harassment, aids in rotating around the map, and ensures you can more quickly reposition to share your Crossfade aura with allies. Keep in mind that Wall Riding with Speed Boost will only put you at 130% movespeed, which is the same as the standard mounted speed for other heroes - this means that you can’t naturally catch up to mounted heroes without using Amp It Up on your MS boost. Accelerando keeps you above the 130% MS breakpoint (pushing you to 150%, specifically) without expending any cooldowns and allows you to continue to be faster than everyone else, at all times.

It’s tough to overstate how impactful Accelerando can be. The extra speed is excellent, providing safety, aggressive chasing potential, rotation superiority, and everything in-between - it’s a key part of what makes Lucio, Lucio.

Smooth Moves - While Wall Ride is active, Basic Attacks heal for 30% of the damage dealt and restore 0.5 mana. Passive: Increase Wall Ride's duration by 1 second.

While the lifesteal healing number adds up with the passive Healing Boost to create some respectable in-combat healing, the reality is that the self-sustain is rather small (it won’t save you from the situations that are actually threatening for you, namely dealing with CC and/or burst damage) and, though it may enable some slightly more aggressive trades with sustained/non-burst damage dealers, the additional movespeed from Accelerando opens up more options for you both in terms of aggression and defense and will usually provide more value. The mana return isn't great, and the 2 second baseline Wall Ride duration is more than enough to do what you want to do. For these reasons, I find Smooth Moves less desirable than Accelerando, and generally avoid it.

Level 4

Subwoofer - Enemies within the first half of Soundwave’s range are knocked back 75% further. Quest: Hit 3 enemies with a single Soundwave. Reward: Increase Soundwave’s arc by 50% and its range by 20%.

Subwoofer is a talent that creates higher-impact displacements from your Soundwave. For defensive purposes, I don’t like this talent much - if you’re mostly predicting defensive Soundwave usage in the matchup, Off the Wall excels at that role as it provide more consistent peel. Now if you’re using it for offensive displacement, Subwoofer becomes a more interesting talent. You can, with your intrinsic movespeed advantage or by using Push Off, get behind an opponent and “Muradin Haymaker” them backwards into your team. The quest part of this talent will usually be doable at some point in the match, but the area increase isn't important for Subwoofer to get value.

Push Off allows you to reach enemies from surprising angles. Here, Push Off and a Subwoofer-empowered Soundwave set up a kill on Ana.

The extra knockback distance Subwoofer grants is particularly potent against heroes with no mobility skills or against heroes like Medivh (to deny portal entry). If your opponents are vulnerable to Haymaker plays, and you feel like the map facilitates finding those opportunities, then consider this talent. The competing interest in this same situation though is Supersonic, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Generally though, you should should go with Off the Wall!

Off the Wall - Hitting an enemy with Soundwave while Wall Ride is active reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds.

This is your go-to talent on the tier. Soundwave’s normal cooldown is 7 seconds, and a 42% decrease in cooldown on a really annoying ability (for your opponents) is amazing; it helps you peel more consistently (for your teammates as well as for yourself when you’re dismounting and being a nuisance), disrupt ability casts/interrupt more consistently, and aggressively boop opponents more consistently. And if you’re piloting Lucio with the map layout in mind, you should be Wall Riding more often than not, so meeting the talent’s condition shouldn’t be an issue. Remember that your Wall Ride duration lasts for 2 seconds after you leave a wall, so you can proc Off the Wall a good bit of time even after you’ve left the wall.

Supersonic - While Wall Ride is active, Push Off’s cooldown recharges 100% faster.

If you’re in a matchup where you're almost always on the aggressive, then Supersonic will easily double the number of Push Offs you can output in a fight, which means much more CC for your team to follow up on (remember, the 1 second 75% slow from Push Off is basically a root). Similarly to Subwoofer, Supersonic should be considered when your opponents are vulnerable to your Haymaker combo. However, Supersonic allows for more frequent usages of the combo, rather than a more potent combo that can only be used once in a fight. The question, then, is whether you value higher frequency (e.g. to wear out defensive/mobility skills) or additional potency more in the matchup. Finally, the lower cooldown on Push Off makes you a consistently slippery target, as you’ll almost always have the additional mobility available to escape from sticky situations.

Level 7

Good Vibrations - Hitting an enemy with Soundwave grants Lucio a 35-point shield for 7 seconds. Hitting enemy Heroes grants 3 times this amount.

A self-sustain/anti-burst defensive talent, Good Vibrations will help keep you safe in all sorts of situations. While you’re off harassing the enemy team, you’ll be taking some damage, and Good Vibrations will help manage your health pool. Good Vibrations is particularly good if you’re doing Haymaker plays/putting yourself in harm’s way regularly, as you can get a massive shield if you hit multiple heroes. With Good Vibrations, you can take more aggressive trades with opponents. Always keep in mind that damage mitigation (healing, shielding, etc.) is not just for defense - it enables greater offensive commitment as well. In other words, you can press forward and go more ham knowing that you have shields coming for extra survivability. This talent also has fantastic synergy with Off the Wall. Not only do you get more Good Vibrations procs because the cooldown on Q is almost halved, but also if you use Soundwave again before the first shield expires, it both adds to the prior shield value and refreshes its duration. In summary, I pick Good Vibrations almost all the time, even when I don't go Off the Wall - it's just that good.

Reverse Amp - Blast Lucio’s active Crossfade track at enemy Heroes. While Amp It Up is active, Healing Boost deals 50 damage per second and Speed Boost slows by 20%. This ability is unaffected by Crossfade talents.

My main issues with Reverse Amp are that sometimes it’s tough to get value from the healing/damage portion (as your positioning might be more defensive if you’re healing), and the speed/slow component can end up being unnecessary (as +30% movespeed for your team will often be sufficient to disengage or chase as needed). The damage portion itself is also rather minimal - while admittedly you are affecting an AoE, you’ll deal more single-target damage than the entire Reverse Amp duration’s damage if you get off two more auto attacks. Though it looks flashy, I’m really not a fan of Reverse Amp in its current state.

Boombox - Place a boombox that plays Lucio’s active Crossfade track for 30 seconds. Its volume adjusts with Amp It Up. Crossfade tracks do not stack. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)

Boombox can provide some wider Crossfade teamfight coverage, but it also has some other, more subtle applications: using it as a ward for vision, placing it to heal your offlaner while you're with the team, and tanking enemy tower shots. Overall Boombox is a good talent, but you have to be creative with its usage and plan ahead. Simply placing it down for wider Crossfade coverage in a teamfight isn’t a great use of the ability, and if you’re looking for higher combat impact then Good Vibrations or even Reverse Amp (which again, I’m not a fan of) will serve you better. Coordinate and communicate with your team about your Boombox to get maximum value from it.

Level 10

Sound Barrier - After 1 second, Lucio and nearby Allied Heroes gain a 1296 point shield that rapidly decays over 6 seconds. (Mana: 100, Cooldown: 80 seconds)

Sound Barrier provides burst damage mitigation for your team, and a lack of burst damage mitigation is Lucio’s primary weakness pre-10. It will often be your go-to Heroic option. Sound Barrier is excellent when you’re dealing with comps that are looking to deal damage in large quantities, usually in an AoE. It’s a great Heroic to counter other high-impact offensive heroics: Genji’s Dragonblade, Fenix’s Purification Salvo, Maiev’s Warden’s Cage, Leoric's Entomb, etc. can all be effectively mitigated with a well-timed Sound Barrier. Additionally, you can use it to soften the blow of difficult-to-cleanse AoE CC like Kerrigan’s combo or provide a health buffer when your team is going on the offensive and chasing down your opponents. Basically, when you want mitigation against threat potential that’s either tough to cleanse or outright uncleansable, raw teamfighting power, or are looking to counter a specific Heroic on the enemy team, Sound Barrier will be the pick.

There are a few things to keep in mind when using Sound Barrier. The first is that, generally, you usually don’t want to use Sound Barrier to just block ambient damage. Use it to specifically counter an engage or threatening ultimate from the enemy team, or to save an ally in dire straits. Using it randomly (rather than with a specific purpose in mind) can diminish a great deal of your teamfighting contribution. If you use it too early, experienced opponents can simply disengage from the fight for a few seconds, leaving your team down a Heroic cooldown with little value gained. In essence, you want your opponents to be committed to a fight in some way. Regarding using the Heroic to specifically counter an enemy Heroic, experienced opponents will often hold onto their ability in question until you use Sound Barrier. In these situations, it’s critical that if you do have to use Sound Barrier for something other than ‘answering’ that Heroic, it should be a high-value usage.

In this clip, Lunar Flare almost interrupts Barrier, which would've been disastrous - keep allies in your radius, but space out from them. Here, you can also see the power of Barrier, Speed Boost, and Soundwave in a successful retreat from an enemy engage.

Think ahead about what can interrupt your ultimate: Sound Barrier’s windup is non-trivial (it’s a full second), and getting it interrupted will often be catastrophic for your team’s chances of winning the teamfight. Figure out what the relevant abilities are on the enemy’s side that can interrupt you, and then position with those in mind - most of the time, this will involve staying a distance away from your teammates rather than shoulder-to-shoulder with them, so that you don’t get caught in the CC that’s being aimed at them. Additionally, like most shields, Sound Barrier is ideally deployed before the damage hits, so accurately and quickly reading the flow of the fight and understanding who’s going to be taking damage (and whether it’s damage that merits a Barrier) are critical. A final tip on Sound Barrier usage is that the range of the ability perfectly matches the standard Crossfade aura radius; this means that you have a constant marker that’ll delineate who’s going to be in range for your Ultimate.

High Five - Quickly skate to an Allied Hero. Upon arrival, the ally is granted Unstoppable for 1 second and is healed for 250. (Mana: 35, Cooldown: 15 seconds per ally)

As mentioned above, one of Lucio’s primary shortcomings pre-10 is that he doesn’t have burst damage mitigation. High Five can fulfill this role in a different way than Sound Barrier: the ability has a small burst heal attached to it of course (which you can also use for sustain if needed), but the real burst mitigation is in the 1 second of Unstoppable, i.e. the Cleanse.

A common cause of an ally dying is when they get CC chained and go down. With High Five, Lucio can Cleanse his ally and effectively ‘heal’ that potentially lethal burst damage followup. By preventing CC (and thus, preventing the followup damage that would be enabled by that CC), Lucio is essentially burst healing his ally for a much higher amount than what the talent reads for. CC putting an ally under kill pressure was a situation where you would use Sound Barrier before Lucio's March 2019 rework, so with High Five you have an answer to that situation on a much, much shorter cooldown. It's important to mention that the Unstoppable effect is best used to “pre-Cleanse” against incoming CC. This is a bit tough to do with High Five, as there’s a travel time for Lucio to get to his ally; you’ll need to be thinking a bit further ahead or be positioned relatively close to your ally in order to effectively pre-Cleanse.

I’ve got a couple more notes on High Five usage. High Five is also an excellent self-defense tool: you can pinball between your teammates to get away from danger, providing a mobility option that’s not dependent on being near a wall. Another thing to keep in mind is that, unlike standard Cleanses, High Five can very easily put you in harm’s way; because you’re getting close enough to literally touch your ally, you can get caught in the enemy team’s AoE (e.g. Kerrigan’s combo) and general focus fire when you go for a High Five - so be careful about how and when you try to save a teammate. Against this kind threat potential that makes using High Five risky in and of itself, Sound Barrier can be a better choice.

If the enemy’s burst damage will usually be followup to CC, or enabled by CC, then High Five will be the pick for you over Sound Barrier. Think Ana’s Sleep Dart setting up kills, Deckard’s root combo, Chromie’s Time Loop, etc. If you’re in doubt/debating back and forth between the two Heroics, I would definitely err on the side of Sound Barrier, as it offers more raw teamfighting strength - it’ll always come in handy. I’ve never felt myself saying, “I should not have picked Sound Barrier here,” as it's always going to be applicable and provide value; but I have said to myself “I should have gone Sound Barrier,” because High Five can be difficult to get value from if you pick it into the wrong matchup and/or if you’re not on point in using the ability. But in the contexts where High Five is good, your allies will almost seem immune to enemy CC.

Level 13

All Together - For each ally affected by Crossfade, Lucio gains 5% Movement Speed that stacks with other bonuses.

The first thing to note about All Together is that it always counts Lucio himself, so by picking this talent you’re just getting a raw 5% MS added to your skates. It also counts Nova, Samuro, and the Lost Vikings who can all generate additional “allies”. Movespeed is good, but it's most valuable when you're away from your team and need the extra evasiveness. It’s an interesting talent, but overall I’m not impressed with All Together as it doesn't offer as much for Lucio compared to the other options on the tier.

Heavy Casters - Push Off no longer slows enemies, and instead stuns them for 0.5 seconds.

A 0.5 second stun is fine, but it's not often going to be better than a 1 second 75% slow, which is functionally a root on most targets. Of course, the stun does interrupt channels and ability casts, and that’s the situation where you want to pick this. You do have Soundwave to interrupt many channeled abilities, but note that it does not interrupt abilities that can be channeled while moving (Soundwave is what the developers call a daze effect, similar to ETC’s Face Melt). For example, moving-channeled abilities like Lili’s Jug of 1k Cups or Azmodan’s All Shall Burn won’t be interrupted by Soundwave, but will be interrupted by a Heavy Casters-empowered Push Off. If you’re in a matchup where you want more options to disrupt channels (allowing you to use Soundwave more liberally and still have an interrupt available), need to interrupt moving-channeled abilities, or if you simply want more interrupts for quick-succession disruption, Heavy Casters can be a good choice.

Slip - While Wall Ride is active, passing near an enemy Hero increases its Movement Speed bonus to 40% for 1 second. Passive: Wall Ride grants 20 Armor.

This is the default talent on the 13 tier for Lucio and accentuates his strengths while mitigating his squishiness. Your dismounting missions will be smooth as butter, as even if the enemies manage to close the gap to you, you’ll just speed away even more quickly. The armor isn’t to be underestimated either, as you’ll always be getting significant value from it. Remember that your Wall Ride buff duration (which now includes armor in addition to the movespeed) lasts for 2 seconds after you leave the wall, so you’ll also get the Slip speed buff if you pass through an enemy soon after you’ve left a wall. Pick this talent every time unless Heavy Casters is needed for the matchup.

Level 16

Rejuvenescencia - While Amp It Up is active, Crossfade’s Healing Boost heals for an additional 2.5% of the target’s maximum Health each second.

You can’t really go wrong with Rejuvenescencia, it’ll always do work for you. High-health Heroes greatly benefit from this talent, and it’ll still provide good value for your squishy allies as well. While it doesn't put out the raw healing numbers that Up the Frequency can do in its optimal case, Rejuvenescencia does provide a number of other benefits:

Rejuvenescencia is the only talent on the tier that bolsters your out-of-combat sustain healing. It also resides in a middle ground between providing overall higher healing (similar to Up the Frequency), but also better immediacy in terms of burst prevention (like Up to Eleven). Finally, this talent imposes fewer positioning constraints upon you: having to contort your positioning to Amp Heal your team less often is a plus. You’ll have dispensed your healing value up front, and then have more time to be where you want to be (e.g. helping a specific ally, being aggressive, etc.). If you don’t have a respectably high-health hero on your team, then I would definitely advise taking Up the Frequency. If you have a decently high-health tank and bruiser, then I would look to pick Rejuvenescencia.

Up the Frequency - Hitting enemy Heroes with Basic Attacks reduces the cooldown of Amp It Up by 0.40 seconds. Passive: Wall Ride increases Basic Attack range by 2.2.

First off, the Attack range that Up the Frequency (UtF) grants you is awesome. You’ll find yourself able to put out more damage and be safer while doing so. Next, UtF can provide the largest theoretical volume of sustain if you’re in teamfights (if you're constantly auto attacking and spamming Amp it Up on cooldown) - and that’s nothing to say of the increased flexibility you have in terms of Amp’ed Speed Boosting (which the decreased cooldown allows you to do more of, toggling between Amp'ed Healing and Speed Boost more liberally). This is also the best talent for when you’re off on your own harassing/dismounting; you can even 1v1 some heroes with help of the increased auto attack range and healing. However, mana can become a very real issue, so do keep your mana pool in mind. Be diligent about picking up regen globes, as you want to enter every teamfight with as close to a full mana bar as possible.

All that being said, UtF provides potent sustain and better damage output with the auto attack range increase. UtF has high 'optimal' healing numbers that you won't reach; but even short of the ideal scenario, UtF will still give you tons of healing value. You should look to pick it whenever you can, though if you have 2+ high-health heroes on your team note that Rejuvenescencia will provide good value and can make things easier on your mana and positioning.

Up to Eleven - Activate to extend the duration of Amp It Up by 2 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)

If you need your allies to be able to survive a particularly threatening kill pressure at the beginning of the fight, Up to Eleven is an option. However, if you don’t predict fights to be decided within five seconds (which, the vast majority of fights will not be; and even if they are likely to, Sound Barrier helps out in this circumstance), then the other options will be better - the cooldown on Up to Eleven is quite long, and the other options quickly outshine it in value as soon as the second cast of Amp it Up becomes available.

Level 20

Bossa Nova typically makes Sound Barrier a weaker ability with little upside in exchange. Playing with your normal Sound Barrier CD in mind and picking House Party will serve you better.

Bossa Nova - Reduce the cooldown of Sound Barrier to 30 seconds, but the shield now decays over 4 seconds.

I’m big critic of Bossa Nova. Even at a cooldown of 30 seconds, you won’t often be able to use Sound Barrier twice in a fight. And even if you do, the second usage will often be to simply block ambient damage, as most of the enemy's Heroics will be on cooldown. But, when countering those Heroics at the beginning of the fight, you now have 2 seconds less of the (even more rapidly decaying) shield duration.

In general, if you want to have Sound Barrier up for every fight, it’s often best to simply play around the cooldown - coordinate with your team to wait for your cooldown to be back up before you take a big fight. Oftentimes this will be in line with your team’s general strategy too, as they’ll want to wait for their big cooldowns as well. Picking Bossa Nova feels like I’m just lowering my power level after level 20, and so I would recommend avoiding this talent.

Mixing Fire - High Five can now be cast on enemy Heroes, dealing 225 damage and reducing all healing received by 50% for 3 seconds. Passive: Increase the duration of Amp It Up by 1 second.

This is a great talent, particularly if you’re on the aggressive or have a pick comp - now your team has healing reduction to better secure kills (I like this talent against Morales in particular). If the enemy’s healing potential is something that’s of concern to you, then Mixing Fire is a great choice.

House Party - For each ally affected by Crossfade, Lucio gains 8% increased healing.

In short, when you’re grouped up with your team you’ll be pumping out big heals. Similarly to All Together at level 13, this talent always counts Lucio himself when tallying up the allies affected by Crossfade, meaning that you can get a 40% increase in your healing output if you’ve got everyone around. This is your go-to talent on the tier - it’ll just help out whatever you do normally (your Amp it Up sustain as well as your standard Healing Boost passive sustain). It also interacts well with High Five, as the small burst heal is bolstered as well. Even if you’re not getting all 5 members in your Crossfade Radius, House Party will still give you consistent value and is the strongest option on the lvl 20 tier, aside from situations where Mixing Fire can shine.

Summer Anthem - Activate for all other allies affected by Crossfade to become Unkillable for 1.5 seconds. (Cooldown: 75 seconds)

This is an unprecedented support talent - a team-wide Zuljin Taz’dingo is not something to overlook. However, there are a few things to note that separate it from Taz’dingo. The Unkillable effect, particularly on such a short duration with this talent, is not very effective for purely defensive usages - your opponents can simply chase a bit and finish you off. Lucio can provide movespeed to his allies to help with the disengage, but even still it’s not a great use of your level 20 talent tier. The Unkillable effect is best when you’re getting some kind of offensive value out of it, particularly with sustained damage (as burst damage is often CD-based, and may not be available in the short 1.5 second duration). If your opponent must hard-commit into your allies in order to get a kill, then the 1.5 second duration can be enough to both save your allies and grab a counter kill against the assailant.

The Unkillable effect is interesting, but it’s not as great as it sounds because teammates are immediately going to be in a defensive position when they survive - you’d much rather take a talent which can help you win the fight, or prevent getting low on health in the first place (like using Sound Barrier + House Party’s healing), rather than stopping you from losing a fight momentarily but then getting put in a bad position right afterwards. Employing this talent to good effect will be difficult. Your default options are House Party/Mixing Fire, but keep Summer Anthem in mind for those edge case scenarios.

Gameplay Strategy, Tips, and Tricks

General Lucio Playstyle

Lucio has many qualities that differentiate him from the other Healers (and even the other Heroes) on the roster: he can attack while moving, doesn’t ever need to stop to mount, and will often have just intrinsically faster speed than everyone else even when they are mounted. In fact, he’s simply one of the most mobile heroes in the game and can execute every component of his kit without stopping for even a moment.

This mobility is a game-changing tool that every Lucio player needs to take advantage of. One application of Lucio’s mobility is in dismounting your opponents and disrupting rotations. Because you’re moving so fast and can attack while moving, you can reliably dismount opponents to mess with their movement around the map. Sometimes your opponents will make an attempt to counter-aggress on you, but you can usually get away with your speed in combination with Soundwave, and finally Push Off if you need to expend the cooldown. Skillshot-based CC like Thrall’s Feral Spirit or Kael’thas’ Gravity Lapse can usually be dodged if you’re paying close attention, so you can still be aggressive into these heroes as long as you’re cautious. Sometimes your opponents will have exceptionally scary or reliable CC (like Chromie’s Time Loop, Anub’arak’s Cocoon, Valeera’s Cheap Shot, etc.), and in these cases you’ll have to be more careful with your dismounting/rotation harassment - playing too aggressive and not respecting the enemy’s ability to punish you is a recipe for disaster.

After watching out for those sorts of considerations though, honestly the rest of the Hero roster is at your mercy. You can not just dismount, but freely harass many heroes and output tons of free damage over the course of the game without your opponents being able to effectively retaliate. Remember that Lucio can heal himself back up from trades - so if you’re tangoing with an opponent with no sustain, you’ll win basically every trade. Sustained damage dealers might attempt to stand and trade with you, but you don’t need to engage in extended trades with them - as soon as they realize that they’re not going to be able to mount without dealing with you, you can simply dip out with your superior movespeed - and then poke at them again when they eventually try to mount. Heroes like Nazeebo and Mephisto are essentially going to be unable to touch you with any of their abilities - you can endlessly harass them, and even exert kill pressure. Encourage your team to collapse on targets like these, as you’ll certainly get them somewhat low through your repeated auto attacks and harassment. Your goal when playing Lucio is to be a massive nuisance for the enemy team!

Lucio's mobility and consistent damage output enable takedowns that would be impossible for many Heroes on the roster, let alone Supports. Here, I know that Imperius nor Johanna have a reliable CC ability available to stop me, so I can stick onto the low-health Ana and slowly whittle her down for a kill.

Being aggressive as Lucio is critical to being successful with the hero. His defensive options, utility, and raw healing throughput (at least until 16/20) are below many of the other supports; his offensive application is a key component of his power budget. In the end, it’s all about getting value - if you’re simply sitting back, healing, occasionally Amp’ing it Up, and throwing out a peeling Soundwave every now and then, you won’t be accomplishing as much as a different support probably would in the same situation. When you’re playing Lucio, you can often be extremely brave - don’t be afraid to get in there and disrupt rotations, deal damage, chase down kills, and create opportunities for your team to gain and capitalize on positioning advantages.

Crossfade Usage

A common mistake beginning Lucio players make is overusing and overvaluing Healing Boost. When not Amp’ed up, the passive healing is really not going to be all that helpful when saving an ally in need. If you’re engaged in a fully-committed fight, then you can leave Crossfade on Healing Boost so you can get that healing flowing (and you usually want to Amp Up Healing Boost in teamfights), as it’ll add up over time and have an impact; Speed Boost sometimes won’t matter if you’re just butting heads in an all-out brawl. But if you’re ever looking to retreat, advance, reposition, or peel for an ally, you should, in the vast majority of cases, be playing the green track.

Move speed is an unassuming, but extremely impactful, hero statistic that can completely warp the way skirmishes, teamfights, and general hero interactions play out. If one hero is faster than another, then the faster hero has a slew of advantages, including better chasing potential (which means the ability to deal more damage) and better retreating potential (which is functional damage mitigation). Take for example, a Raynor chasing down your allied Kael’thas. As Lucio, you can either heal Kael’thas as he retreats, or speed him up by 10%. Think about it like this: if Raynor stays in range of Kael, he’ll be able to continue to get off about 3~ more auto attacks. However, if Kael can exit Raynor’s range of influence even just a few moments faster, Raynor will only be able to get off 2 auto attacks. Healing Boosts doles out 16 HPS, which even over 3 seconds (48 HP total) is much less than the amount Raynor would deal with that 1 additional auto attack (113.6 AD at level 1). By getting Kael out of range of taking damage more quickly, you’re essentially providing damage mitigation/healing.

This principle is why, in many cases, it’s often better to Amp Up Speed Boost rather than Healing Boost when trying to save an ally from danger. Letting their health dip low in the short term, but getting them to eventual safety is going to be better than prolonging their certain death by healing them while they’re still in range of danger! Even in non-lethal situations, taking your teammate out of danger more quickly might actually save more HP than Amp’ing up Healing Boost during the retreat - It was a big level-up moment for me when I realized that Speed Boost can be a more effective healing tool than Healing Boost. Finally, keep in mind that you can switch tracks to Healing Boost as soon as your teammate is out of danger. This is an optimization that you'll get a sense of with practice; sometimes, just a second of Amp'ed Speed Boost will ensure an ally's safety, then you can switch to Healing Boost and get value from the rest of your Amp It Up duration.

Push Off Usage

Push Off (a 1 second 75% slow) is simply a good CC tool in and of itself, not simply part of a Haymaker Combo. Think of Push Off as Thrall’s Feral Spirit - you can use it to set things up for your team, even without the usage of Soundwave. Now you do have to keep in mind that you’re the Feral Spirit in this use case - be sure to have a getaway plan/exit strategy ready to enact after you Push Off. One tactic I’ve found helpful is, when trying to Push Off for the slow to provide offensive CC, approaching your target from the side or behind (and in the latter case, leading with Soundwave) can keep you out of danger and give you the 1 second ‘root’ while still being near your team.

Putting it all together, Lucio's kit allows him to quickly reach and help allies in need. Push Off (used solely for personal mobility here), Wall Riding/Accelerando, Soundwave, and Amp It Up on Speed Boost all come together for a last-second save on Muradin.

You can also use Push Off as a simple mobility skill for yourself. Push Off allows you to get away from situations that your speed boost alone won’t save you from, and it also can function as an effective gap-closer to get in range for more auto attacks, heals, or even Sound Barrier or High Five! It’s easy to forget about Push Off in these kinds of scenarios (as oftentimes your speed boost will be sufficient by itself), but always keep in mind that it’s an extra mobility skill that you have available when you need it.

Synergies, Counters, and Drafting

As is often the case with Healers, there’s some good synergy between Lucio’s utility and the main tank’s utility. Garrosh in particular benefits greatly from the increased movespeed (whether passive or Amp’ed Up), allowing him to get in range to toss opponents he otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach. Lucio’s pseudo-Powerslide is great setup for ETC’s actual Powerslide, and Arthas becomes a real menace when paired with Lucio. Speed Boost always makes chasing easy, but with additional CC from allies it gets oppressive. Keep in mind that while Lucio can help set up allied CC application, he can also disrupt it with poorly-timed Soundwaves: be careful when you’re booping enemies, and coordinate with your teammates. Finally, providing additional movespeed grants repositioning options and defensive capabilities to low-mobility characters, allowing Heroes like Kael’thas, Kel’thuzad, and Gul’Dan to escape from situations that they would otherwise be unable to get away from.

Probably the most well-known Lucio counter is Diablo, as Lucio’s reliance on wall-riding is transformed into a liability when faced with the possibility of being Shadow Charged into walls. You can get around this with careful positioning (and Lucio is actually pretty good against Diablo if he Shadow Charges anyone but you, as Soundwave disrupts Overpower and Sound Barrier is a good answer to both of his Heroics), but the presence of Diablo can constrict Lucio’s playstyle, and it’ll be tough to get the value that you normally would be able to - he can turn maps like Battlefield of Eternity (one of Lucio’s best maps) into a difficult positioning minigame. On other maps like Alterac Pass, Diablo isn’t that scary, and I don’t mind picking Lucio into him. Genji is also generally problematic for Lucio, as Lucio can’t be as aggressive against him. Genji is comfortable trading with Lucio, can follow you with Swift Strike to continue chasing, and punishes Lucio's multi-hit auto attack with Deflect. Finally, Heroes that can apply a great deal of single-target poke damage (like Jaina, or even Nova) can be problematic for Lucio as he has a difficult time efficiently healing up one ally who is heavily wounded.

Abathur's Symbiote damage and Lucio's stickiness can be a nightmare for the enemy team, similarly to Abathur and Genji. Lucio's disengage and engage potential also supplement Abathur's play patterns - when Clone is down you can run away from the fights you don't want, and when it's up you can ensure you get a fight.

Lucio shines in matchups where his movespeed is valuable, either by providing critical mobility for his teammates against the opponent’s threat potential, or by enabling his allies to better apply their own CC. Lucio’s own CC can be quite potent against enemies that do not have great ways to avoid it: Push Off into Soundwave will compromise the positioning of many heroes, and Soundwave is generally a consistent, highly annoying CC that can mess up cast animations, disrupt channels, and generally keep melee foes at bay quite easily (e.g. Yrel's Avenging Wrath gets completely canceled if you use Soundwave when she's mid-jump). His healing is good at mitigating foes like Junkrat that deal primarily AoE damage, and Sound Barrier controls dangerous enemy Heroics well. Currently, I’m pretty comfortable picking Lucio in most matchups - he’s rarely going to be a poor choice (though other supports can certainly offer more impact in particular situations). He’s good on all maps, but I think Lucio’s favorite battlegrounds are Battlefield of Eternity, Cursed Hollow, and Infernal Shrines, due to the plethora of walls to Wall Ride on and the natural rotation paths that Lucio can easily disrupt (using the aforementioned walls).

Wrapping Up

A few seasons ago, I ran into a gentleman named Rafon in NA Hero League. Rafon was a Lucio enthusiast, and it was after watching him play (and getting absolutely styled on by him) that I started thinking about Lucio as less of a passive healbot character and more of an aggressive, disruptive force for the enemy team... that can honestly put out a surprising amount of damage. I hope that after reading this guide, you too can expand your perspective on Lucio and adopt this kind of aggressive playstyle.

When piloting Lucio, take the time to figure what can threaten you on the enemy team; figure out what you have to play around CC-wise and damage-wise, then you can just go to town on the enemy team when those considerations have been expended, are dodgeable, or aren’t present. Determine which of your Heroic options you need, and then plan ahead about what their use cases are and be ready for those use cases when they come up. Lucio is one of those characters that heavily rewards foresight and a solid understanding of the matchup. Devote significant energy to analyzing the texture of the game, and you’ll find yourself skating to victory.

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop