Overwatch Lucio Soundwave, Cross Fade and Sound Barrier Guide

Overwatch Lucio Soundwave, Cross Fade and Sound Barrier Guide by SPEEDBOOP

Yes it’s another lucio guide. Holy shit I think I have an addiction. And while I could seek help for my crippling lust for explaining lucio, I’d rather revel in it. Since I already did a guide that went very in depth on wall riding, I felt it only fair to explain his other abilities. The ones that I am planning to tackle are cross fade, boop, Sound barrier, and the nuances(god I love that word) of these abilities. I am planning to discuss the other main concepts like Positioning, callouts and psychological warfare in another guide. No, the last is not a joke. I just want to make a full guide for everything lucio so I don’t have to repeat the same shenanigans over and over again in every single vod review. So in writing this, I’m doing myself a great favor in the future. I’m also probably giving myself Carpal tunnel syndrome, but the ends justify the memes.

Crossfade

As someone graced with a name that is referencing lucios main ability, I feel it only fair to start with crossfade. I’m going to begin extremely blunt- speed is key. Speed boost is the entire reason why lucio had such a presence in professional play. Without, he wouldn’t be played. While the ability is simple, it has one property rarely used. People rarely use it to disengage. You can fuck over a genji by making your mercy look like a blue hedgehog, or maybe get a dps out of a terrible situation. You should always be considering whether your team needs to back out of a fight and if you can help with that. But speed has it’s main purpose in engage. Heroes like Roadhog, Reinhardt, Reaper, Soldier, and others become surprisingly mobile and a dangerous threat. More mobile heroes just get more annoying, although with Ultimates like genjis, It adds way more potential. That’s really the basics.

Heals is a lot more controversial than it’s counterpart. You’ve all seen them, and I have a fucking vendetta against, so I feel I have to discuss them. That lucio that never switches off heals, is barely concentrating on the team fight, Yet some how doesn’t die no matter how much he deserves it. If you are playing lucio and only using heals, you would be better off playing another support. Lucio is not a healer, he is a support. Yes,Healing should be a priority, but your speed boost is a much more powerful tool, especially in team fights. You should be making your team faster, not doing what your other support (hopefully) is doing. Speed makes your team a much harder target to focus, and allows them to chase down targets. Unless you are solo healing(which you shouldn’t be), your main focus should be speed boost.

Soundwave

Boop. This ability has a weird reputation. So its best to start with the thing it is infamous for- Pushing people off ledges is often seen by the community as the bread and butter of lucio. As I have greatly discussed before, it is not. While it is fun, it is very situational and shouldn’t be your main priority. If you see one that’s possible and has an escape route, go for it. But don’t camp. Other than one just mentioned, there are three main purposes of boop.
Peeling– This should be your main priority. The fact that it is on such a low cool down means you can continuously help heroes like mercy, ana, Rein, and zen back out of tricky situations.
Damage– The boop can be easily combined with your primary fire. If you shoot, punch, then boop, you can take away some serious health. It’s useful in the fact that it can throw off enemy aim in 1v1s, but this should not be entirely relied on.
Separation– This is one that is a whole lot riskier but comes with high rewards. If you get behind and boop a Reindhart into your team, you almost have a guaranteed pick, or at the least, some ult charge. This one is best when fortified by wall riding, so be careful.

Sound Barrier

Your ultimate is a strong tool for saving lives, which should be your main purpose, but it has a few stipulations. The first thing is that it has a range and a time limit that is very short. After dropping it, you have a quick grace period where people can gain the barrier without being in the initial drop. Shields also stop the barrier, so be aware of the position of those. The other issue is the cast time. You have to wait from when you used it to whenever you hit the floor. So jumping from a building like a hoodie wearing assassin with a bad parent company is not advised. Instead, try to go from a lower ground to a higher ground. Time is key, so don’t get stuck in the air while the genji slaps people with his weeb stick. As I said in the beginning, your ultimate is great get out of jail free card. But it can also be used offensively, even comboed with other ultimates. Here is a quick list of some of them-Genji, McCree, Mercy, Pharah, Bastion, Moira, Torbjorn, soldier, etc. In most of these, the use of the ultimate is intended to keep your team mates from dying in the next push and to have an intimidation factor.

Hope this was helpful to any of those reading. I put a lot of effort into writing these, so please give feedback and any points you feel I should add. Speed boop out.