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Overwatch has a serious Lucio problem

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Is the audio medic too strong for his own good?

Over a year after Overwatch’s release, we all know how cool Lucio is. He is a fun, easy to play hero that is always useful to his team. He’s a great pick for both veteran players and those who have rarely touched a controller. However, Lucio currently faces a problem: he is too strong for his own good.

Lucio’s ability to constantly output heals to everyone around him means that he has the highest healing potential in the game. In order to put out higher healing numbers, a Mercy must constantly be healing her teammates with her beam. With Mercy though, this comes at a price: one teammate at a time. Lucio’s heals per second may be far lower than that of Anna or Mercy, but it is spread to everyone around him equally. This can cause problems when trying to diversify team-comps.

Lucio is a very cool and interesting hero, which is why this problem is fairly easy to ignore. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. There are almost no downsides to ever picking Lucio. Sure he does less damage than Zenyatta, has less utility than Ana and cannot directly heal like Mercy can, but he has an unhealthy mix of everything that makes a good support. He is a great pick in almost any scenario, regardless of map or team composition.

The audio medic is Overwatch’s universal donor; he can help any team composition regardless of the situation. Is this really a problem? When building a successful team composition is so core to Overwatch, it is. Overwatch needs a few more healer characters in order to truly diversify the picks, but Lucio should certainly not be the safest pick in all situations.

There is a frustrating part of building a solo queue team comp right now for support mains. Popping into a game, hoping to play Ana or Zenyatta, you may feel as though you are forced to switch to Lucio if nobody else picks him up. This hurts all involved, and it leads to dissatisfaction in the player.

Lucio isn’t a must-pick in competitive partially due to the level of communication that those players display. However, Lucio is almost always the safest and smartest pick when you aren’t in constant communication with your allies. He allows for weird line-of-sight mess ups and can quickly patch a multi-teammate mistake.

Sadly, this issue lies within Lucio’s kit itself. The ability to effortlessly heal all those around you is just so powerful. Maybe we will see changes to Lucio’s abilities in the future, but for now a balance check around some of the other healers may be warranted.

The Lucio situation right now is a bummer on all fronts. Lucio is an incredible hero that feels fantastic to play. The problem is that the other supports are all awesome too. If you only have two healers on a team and one of them is always Lucio, the Anas, Zenyattas and Mercys of the world are all competing for the same spot.

Spread the love, Lucio. You deserve a break.