Lucio Added to Heroes of the Storm!
Lucio is the single most fun I’ve ever had playing a support class in a multiplayer, and now he’s bringing his area-of-effect heals over to Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s mashup MOBA starring characters from all over their various franchises. He’ll be joining Zarya and Tracer as the third hero to represent Overwatch. (Which does bring up the question, will the next immigrant be a Defense hero? My money’s on Torbjörn.)
Most of his kit has been preserved, albeit molded to fit the MOBA gameplay. His wallride lets him bypass enemies and avoid stuns, his various healing and sound barriers are still as powerful as ever, and he even gets an alternate Amp it Up that slows and damages enemies instead of helping teammates. Not gonna lie, that is an awesome-sounding ability. The only thing missing are the boops, because there are no pitfalls in HotS maps. A frog can only dream!
Now, I don’t really play Heroes of the Storm (except 15 rounds of Azmodan against easy bots for the Nexus Challenge) but the subreddit seems excited that they’re finally getting another support, especially one that comes with aura speedboosts. Considering how influential Lucio’s green song is for Overwatch, I can’t blame them for wondering what this is going to do for their meta, and might even jump in again to experience it firsthand. It’s a free to play game, after all, so no reason I shouldn’t give it another go just so I can play Lucio in a completely different setting.
It’s rather interesting to see Lucio receive the port over the other opposing Overwatch supports. I consider it a testament to how unique his gimmick is in the shooter genre. As I mentioned the first time I played him, you don’t normally see characters with constant AoE heals in arena shooters, and that rarity is doubled when you add his AoE speedboosts into the mix. In many ways, Lucio proved it can be done, something Ana, Zenyatta and Mercy didn’t need to because their healing is more single-target and ubiquitous in class-based shooters. It’s telling that Paladins, an extremely similar game to Overwatch, reworked Grover into an AoE-healing tree a few months after Overwatch released Lucio.
And last but not least, the HotS devs once again proved that they can make amazing skins. Zarya fans have been clamoring for her pulchritudinous HotS outfits to be reverse-ported to Overwatch, and now us Lucio mains can share their pain:
Look at that gold-and-black frog skin! Hopefully Blizzard does some sort of Nexus Challenge-style event to earn those skins for Overwatch, because I need that skin in my life. But for the time being, I can get a taste of it by trying out Lucio in Heroes of the Storm, and so can you!