I don't like Lucio (in Heroes of the Storm)

I figured here would be a great place to rant about how much I dislike Lucio in Heroes of the Storm. He was recently added to roster, this week I believe. I'm actually annoyed that Blizzard is adding Overwatch characters into Heroes of the Storm when they clearly don't fit in a moba (massive online battle arena games, like League of Legends and Dota 2). I figured it was okay to have Tracer because she's a killing machine in Heroes but when they added Zarya I figured that they've gone too far.

Well now they've added Lucio. When I found out I wrote about his kit (which you can read here) and was excited to see how he would turn out in moba form. Then I finally got around to playing him and I was not pleased. I actually haven't been upset about a video game in a super long time. Yet, here I am. I should go to Blizzard HQ and protest. People are out here protesting the Muslim ban and Trump and I'll be protesting against Blizzard for terrible game design. Jokes aside I do think Lucio is a complete bore to play. Definitely a failed attempt at innovative character design.

It's not the fact that he's bad at what he does. He passively heals okay, and he can speed boost the team out of fights quickly. Not only that, but his sound barrier can even win team fights. However, my biggest complaint (and the most important imo) is the fact that his sound wave gun is a freakin' pea shooter that can barely kill an enemy hero with hardly any health points left. There are times when you'll be chasing any enemy hero with a sliver of health, only to find out that they got away because your gun is just so pathetically weak.

That's my main problem with him. If they gave him more damage I'd be cool with his design and that would be that. The fact that they gave him no damage is a mystery to me because in Overwatch he is a killing machine support like Zenyatta. You can even shoot Pharahs out of the sky once you get good enough with his sound wave gun.

Just a short little rant. Usually I love everything Blizzard touches and creates. Here, they messed up big time on one of my favorite characters. Shame on a gaming company!

Enter the second circle of elo hell

After two days of continuous play and farming wins I made it out of the first circle of elo hell and got promoted to silver. I've got my old rank back. It's a great feeling when you're playing well and winning games consistently in solo queue. I've finally got it figured out and now people always want to play with me because they say I'm a great healer. I usually add these randos (randoms) I meet through these pubs (public games) and grind games with them. Some of them talk a lot but we communicate well as a team and win mostly every time.

So you've made it out of the first wave of elo hell but you can't rest easy on your laurels just yet. This is just the beginning. The players will get better and games will become harder to win depending on your team, comps, maps, and situational awareness.

I've learned a few tricks that help me win games most of the time. For one thing if you get a team of idiots that only want one healer, one tank, and the rest dps I always go Lucio in that situation. When we get into fights I minimize my deaths at all costs-basically stay alive most of the time to just keep healing. That's the best thing Lucio can do in this situation. Lucio is the best for this because his healing is pretty good and speed boost is just too good to pass up. During the off season I played tons of games (Quick play) where I was the only healer playing Zenyatta. That wouldn't work so well in competitive.

In other situations where there's another healer I do things differently. If somebody else rapid fire picks Lucio right away (this hardly ever happens) I will mostly always (sometimes Mercy) go Ana for the nanoboost as well as for her super amazing single target healing. If you call out your nanoboost on the mic and ping it people will get the idea and time it with their ultimates. If you position everything right you will get teamwipes and/or three or more frags (kills, eliminations) everytime. Ana's nanoboost got nerfed hard (lost the speed boost) but its still super effective in the right hands.

In those situations where somehow two people rapid fire pick healers (this hardly ever happens) I will go dps (damage per second) heroes. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Soldier 76 and Pharah. I think I'm going to focus on playing those two for this season. I think because I'm at a pretty low level Pharah can run amok on these low level teams. You just gotta find the right positioning and just rocket the hell out of them. Soldier is just a great hero in general. But generally I've hardly been playing dps in competitive.

I plan on continuing to climb the ladder and reach gold soon. If I play enough I might be able to hit plat. If not this season, there's always a season 4 to look forward to. I'm also looking forward to the Christmas patch update that will probably hit the servers sometime soon.

I'm still in elo hell, just a slightly less casual pleb version of it.