Introduction

Lúcio is a fun character to play. One of the most fun but people just don't realise it. It says Support, so why would anybody in their right mind pick him? Killing people is the most fun way to play the game, of course! Well, it isn't just the only way to play and sometimes having to pick a Support is necessary. If you haven't realised by now, Lúcio can run up walls. Not just slide across them like you see most people practicing but jump up them to reach great heights. If played correctly, you can be an almost invincible to the enemy team. His abilities also make him a must have character, meaning that he's used in almost every professional team. Let's check out his abilities first and then move onto his movement so you too can become a wall riding maniac.

Abilities

Sonic Amplifier is Lúcio's weapon of choice and it has two different firing modes. The primary firing mode is a burst fire of sound waves. It has a slow firing rate and travel time. The gun only fires 4 rounds per second, so hitting the target is necessary. Even though it's not your job as a Support, doing damage is always helpful for your team. Although it may be small the damage is 16 per shot so hitting all 4 can be great for taking out a low HP enemy. The secondary firing mode is a knock back ability that is one of the most fun and rage-inducing abilities in the game. The ability can push back enemies a distance making it easier for you to escape or if you're feeling cheeky you can push enemies off the side of a map completely killing them. This is particularly useful on most Control maps like Lijang Tower, as there are huge areas in which you can push people off and give your team an advantage.

Crossfade is an ability that is unique to Lúcio. It means that he can switch between healing and a speed boost. By simply pressing the ability button, the two auras switch between one another. The difference between Lúcio and Mercy is that he can affect people in a radius so it can heal multiple teammates at once. It also doesn't matter about how many teammates are in said radius as the healing will stay the same for each individual teammate. The healing isn't as much as a Mercy, but because of the radius healing it means that he is useful when in a massive team fight at keeping teammates HP up. The healing of Crossfade is 25 health per 2 seconds meaning he is not an effective solo healer if a teammate is very low HP. His speed boost increases your teammates' speed by 30%. This is useful when chasing a low HP enemy down to take them out.

Amp It Up is used alongside Crossfade. This ability pushes Lúcio's healing or speed boost to the max, which in turn makes the radius healing a lot more so his team heals up faster. This ability is used at the start of a round as well. Amp It Up also affects Lucio's speed boost. So at the start of a round on a Control map, using Amp It Up allows the team to reach the middle point first and gain a lot of control of the map early on. With the speed boost ability selected on Crossfade, it makes teammates speed +110% of their normal speed making this a crucial ability when gaining map control early. When Crossfade is on healing mode, this ability should be used when a teammate or two are low HP and you need to get them to full HP fast. By using Amp It Up Lucio's healing increases to 120 health per 3 seconds but the effect of Amp It Up only lasts 3 seconds itself.

Sound Barrier, the ultimate that is most annoying for the enemy in a teamfight, is also Lúcio's. The ultimate creates a massive shield on teammates in the same radius that Crossfade hits and you can see how many there are through a notification in the middle of your screen. The ability creates an overshield of 500 on teammates, giving them incredibly high HP if they're already full or saving them from death if they're not. Some tanks can get over 1000 HP just from this ability, making them almost impossible to kill. This ability is best used when initiating a fight to capture an area or if your team is in a sticky situation with all of them being low HP and needing some health during a fight with the enemy team.

Wall Riding

Now onto the part that takes some practice and skill to learn. If you've previously played games like Counter-Strike and have played the Surf or KZ modes before, you may catch onto this one pretty easily. If not, don't worry. It may take some practice but once you've learned it, you'll feel like a master. The first thing you're going to want to do to make this work is go into the options menu and change a keybind. On the secondary bind for jumping, make it 'Scroll down'. This makes it easier for you to get correct timings when landing on surfaces. You may want to go into a private lobby and practice or you can hop right into a casual game and see how it goes. If you are completely new however, I recommend a little bit of practice to get the timing correct.

First thing you want to do is get enough momentum to actually travel up the wall. Of course, Lúcio has his Crossfade and Amp It Up, and these two together should get you enough speed to start jumping up that wall. Once you jump and grip onto a wall, scroll down again and you will jump off. Try and land back onto the wall using your A or D keys depending on which side the wall is on, while always holding down the W key as this will keep you going forward and not just standing still. If the wall is to your right, use the D key and vice versa. You will begin to climb the wall if you keep scrolling and landing while hitting the correct key in time. Once you've got that part down comes the harder part of turning corners. You're going to be using a mechanism known as strafing. When turning a corner hold the A or D key with W, again depending on which way the turn is, while doing so move your mouse in-sync with the turn, making it as smooth as possible. If you turned your mouse and pressed the correct buttons, you will turn the corner and keep all of your speed. This is quite difficult to get the hang of, but if you keep practicing you will get it in no time.

Conclusion

There's a reason he has a frog skin. It's because he sticks to walls just like one while being almost impossible to swat away. Lúcio is a completely viable hero and one that should be seen in most lineups at a professional and casual level. Once you've got down the wall riding part, he becomes really fun to play and an annoyance to the enemy team.

I hope this article helped in some way with playing Lúcio and that you become the ultimate wall rider soon!

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