Balance changes to Lúcio on the Overwatch PTR aren’t working as intended

A recent adjustment to Lúcio’s Speed Boost and wall-riding speeds on the Overwatch PTR doesn’t seem to have quite the desired effect.

On the current Overwatch Public Test Realm (PTR) patch, changes have been made to Lúcio that are designed to reduce the effect of his Speed Boost on teammates, while maintaining his own mobility.

While Blizzard don’t seem to want to nerf Lúcio’s own capabilities, they appear to be targeting his role in the notorious ‘GOATS’ composition, as the triple-trank, triple-support line-up leans on the speed boost to make up for the fairly short effective damage range of the composition.

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The following changes have been made on the PTR in pursuit of this end.

Amp It Up

• Speed Boost’s amplification reduced from 70% to 50%

Crossfade

• Speed Boost’s effect reduced from 30% to 20%

Sonic Amplifier

• Soundwave now counts towards Offensive Assists

Wall Ride

• Speed buff increased from 20% to 40%

Developer Comments: The knockback on Lúcio’s Soundwave is a great tool for pushing enemies into situations that get them killed, so they should be rewarded an offensive assist for doing so. Lúcio’s ability to increase his teammate’s speed was too strong, especially when used on high health/low range heroes. We’re decreasing the overall power of Lúcio’s Speed Boost but increasing the speed bonus he gets from using Wall Ride so his mobility isn’t impacted too much.

While the Speed Boost nerf certainly does reduce Lúcio’s impact on his teammates, Lúcio players have complained that the Wall Ride buff doesn’t actually make up for the effect on his own movement.

The nerf to Lúcio’s speed boost should reduce the effectiveness of the much-maligned GOATS composition.

In practice, good Lúcio players don’t actually spend much time riding on walls, which is what the buff affects, but instead constantly jump on and off to take advantage of the burst of speed that he gets from leaving the wall.

The result of the changes, then, is that while his first jump might feel a little faster, Lúcio is subsequently slower than he is on the live servers due to a lower maximum speed as a result of the Speed Boost nerfs, which not only slows him down slightly but also impacts which jumps he can actually make, as u/jabbathefrukt demonstrates.

This isn’t the first time that Blizzard have tried to balance Lúcio with a wall ride speed change that ultimate failed to achieve the desired the result. It remains to be seen whether these updates will be adjusted, but Lúcio players can remain hopeful that some further adjustment will be made before he update goes live.