ChemLok Vod Review- A silver oddity

Hi, Speed Boop here, the guy who ran out of jokes to start out his vod reviews. I'm in an interesting spot with this vod. Usually, most of the vods I'm sent are plat, diamond, with some in masters and few in gold. This is probably the first silver vod I've done. Due to the low sr, I'm probably going to be a bit more lenient. And this isn't an insult to Chemlok, more to the oddity that is the lower ranks that are bronze to low gold. Playing Lucio in these environments is vastly different than gameplay in plat and above. So while I will try to give you correct criticism, I do want to warn you that some of the tips might not be useful in your sr. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't practice them. You shouldn't just do something because it works in your sr, as that can often lead to bad habits that catch up with you and end up hindering you in the long run. So do take some of the information within with a grain or two of salt. Also, due to me already seeing the vod, I will tell you that the void of wall riding is irritating, and I greatly suggest you look at my wall riding guide or go to the wall riding reddit or discord. They have a lot of lovely people that would be happy to help you learn wall riding. On to the review.

There are a few things at the start that really stand out to me. For one, the team comp, while a bit odd, is still fairly ok, especially for a low sr. I also really like you seeing if there is anyone you can communicate with from the start of the game. Callouts and general chat is important for playing lucio as you wall ride up the ladder. The issues start immediately as the game starts. For one, you seem to take the wall riding tutorial (the one they show you when you click on the character abilities) to heart, as you are hugging walls. Again, my wall riding guide goes into more depth, but overall, this is a big no no. Imagine the walls are like a butt. You gotta tap that ass. My god that was a terrible analogy. Around 1:20, when you first enter combat, you swap to heals. I will discuss this in depth, but not at the moment. You start hiding in the hallway, running away from the rest of your team and getting very few people in your healing aura. If you are going to swap to heals the second you enter combat, you may as well try and get the most out of it. As the teams converge on the point, you lose track on who to focus on and simply wander around like a lost frog. As a combat lucio, the movement and actions are painfully passive, and while this is what most people believe lucio to be best at, they're wrong. Lucio is a strong active hero. You need to learn how to start utilizing speed boost in combat, especially since you are in such a low rank. If you don't build habits such as this, it will hold you back from climbing. Sadly, it's hard to teach stuff like this. You almost have to force yourself to get used to this stuff. The other issue is just that your position on the point contradicts your very deep positioning in the enemy team. If you are playing passively, even though that is not how you should play, you need to position yourself to fit that passive play style. And while these actions go completely unpunished by the enemy team, they are still hurting you. Your team win the point and I'm even more confused.

See, healing is not why Lucio is played. I can describe his purpose simply- he can get people in and around and help them when they fuck up. In your case, getting in and getting around is less important, but with the common mistakes and fuckups that occur in the casual silver game, you need to work on helping with those. There are two ways a good lucio does this- Healing them from the damage or helping them get away from their assailants. Or as I like to call it, Healing or Peeling. Of course, if you need to know what peel is, my definition is in the guides. But overall, you seem to like the healing part.  Peel, while a very thankless tool, can be super powerful in the right hands. You have two ways of peeling, which are using boop or speeding your team away from danger. You do neither. So yet again, you need to make using speed to help your team more of a habit and start getting used to using speed in team fights in situations where it will help your team more.

As you and your team continue to hold the point (2:20), I see the general lack of awareness that is common of the silver rank. You seem to get lost easily trying to find both your team and the enemies, and you can't really discern what is occurring around you. After you die, you run back to you team, and yet again swap back to heals, even when it might help you get back to your tanks to heal them in a more timely manner. Things like these seem small, but mistakes and mentalities such as these build up. One thing that I am really proud of you doing is trying to direct your team and have them take positioning that would be advantageous. Moving up is a lot better in this map, so thats a good. Another thing that I like is you attempting to check on your team as well as the enemy in select scenarios to know if they need your focus or if the enemies do. I'm seeing a habit that you have in combat. You move forward just a bit, then immediately back away and repeat, of course while never swapping off healing. Again, around 3:30 minutes in, you show that you have some understanding of callouts. The fact that you aren't able to your abilities to back up those callouts is probably the issue. If I can put a little quote from a streamer, "The best way to get good at callouts is to say everything that you are doing and where you are doing. As you get higher and higher, you start getting more specific and more intricate with these, and you say less and less about what you are doing in order to not annoy the crap out of your team." But again, that's besides the point. If you have good callouts, you need to understand your abilities to back them up. When the D.va bomb comes in around 3:45, I finally see you swap off heals, even if only for a very short moment. You need to swap more, period. That's it. Do you have teammates going into the enemy team? Swap to speed. Do you have someone or something that you and your team need to run away from? Speed. You need to make yourself harder to hit, even though silver aim is of that of a rat randomly convulsing while attached to an infrared sensor? Speed. It's that simple, although it gets way more complex when you get to quick swapping, but that's besides the point. Honestly, you are playing aggressively passive, to the point where you barely try and fight at all and simply run away from most danger. At 4:15 an onwards, you are never swapping and don't even try to boop or even fight the enemy team. You never even used your ultimate once, throughout that entire round. That isn't ok. You should've had reason to use it at least once, even if your team is rolling. This is especially bad since you had it since the first team fight.

Honestly, reviewing the final round is basically pointless, as there are no stakes and no real chance of losing. Overall, You need to start playing less passively and work on swapping between heals and speed more often. I would definitely read the guides I've made, and would especially want you to read the one on his main abilities. The lack of focus, while excusable, can definitely be worked on. I would try playing him more in comp and maybe even in ffa to get a better understanding of how to utilize a more active play style. That's really all I can do to help you. Silver is such an odd sr that doing vod reviews for it is hard. With the amount of general inconsistencies and massive amount of awkward play and actions, criticizing it is difficult and perplexing. Honestly, as someone who has been in silver, a lot of the losses are just unavoidable and escaping can be painful and sometimes just impossible unless you have extreme luck. I still think that you can greatly improve though, even with circumstances like these. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. Speed Boop out.