Black Ice [16] Icing’s Slow effect no longer decays over its duration. Icing deals 300% more damage to enemies very close to Mei.
Icing [E] Slide quickly in the targeted direction. When this effect ends, enemies near Mei are knocked back, take 52 damage, and are Slowed by 80%, rapidly decaying over 1.5 seconds.
The damage bonus is nifty, can shine when peeling a melee from a team member. It’s not why I would pick the talent, though.
The slow not decaying over time. Oh gawd. Do you have any idea what an aoe 80% slow for 1.5 seconds means? Do you know what an 80% slow is? Practically a root.
It’s almost too good to believe - amazing for setups, for peels, for disengages. Icing has a reasonable hitbox, it’s not unrealistic to hit 3 members of the enemy team. After that, you can casually ponder who to throw your Blizzard drone to, because they cannot escape anyway. See hope leave their eyes as the inevitable stun for even more setup approaches in the form of a teapot with smiling LCD eyes.
Icing is an okay initiating tool as it is, this talent makes it almost broken.
I love it, may it not be patched for as long as I play Diablo Sr aka Ice Devil.
I haven’t played her enough to recall what talents it compete, only that it’s not always my instant pick unless I talented for the CDR when skating into blizzard
We all know this as Alexstrasza has something similar already…
Increase Flame Buffet’s initial Slow from 40% to 50% and cause it to no longer decay.
Given that the ability and the slow last for 2 seconds this means a near permanent (only skill shot travel time between) 50% slow. Sure 80% is even slower than 50%, but has a much lower up time (can she spam it every 2 seconds?) and by this stage the victim is already moving so slowly that practically every skill shot or hazard will land on them. Except maybe Abathur mines.
It practically roots the opponent but does not root them. This is an important distinction. Heroes like cassia will still proc their trait when walking at -80% movement speed but will not when rooted. On the other hand it will not proc effects that are proced by being rooted. Hence likely why they choose 80% slow rather than “no longer slows but instead roots”.
dude, just avoid it ok. it doesn’t matter even if it was 1000% extra damage and a non-decaying 99% slow. you can just dodge it, so therefore it’s balanced. ok, bro? yeesh. L2P
There’s Acclimation, which is a strong talent for sure, with an almost permanent 10 armour and 20% extra healing. Then there’s a Q talent that imho is not good enough to be on 16.
I mean, yes, but does it really help this thread? Alex’ needs setup, hits in a line and is on a support instead of tank. You could as well have mentioned Butcher’s similar talent.
That would make the talent a joke and push it to level 7 quality.
That’s my point. I thought of pressure point as well and how incredibly strong it was. Now we have something comparable, but aoe.
People sleep on how strong the aoe part is.
Not exactly, Rehgars slow totem was always great talent. The difference is that Mei is/supposed to be at the front potentially taking damage, and there is Acclimation.
EDIT - cba to do math but this slow sounds like 1-1.2s root when it comes to distance negated. Problem is its still just a slow, it doesnt work that well against any dashes/blinks and there is also plethora of speed buffs.
Blaze for example got his oil slows and 1.25 AoE STUN.
Additionally, if Mei wants to make her W stun reliable, she will probably try to combo E with W. Slows do not stack and W stun will pretty much overlap with Black Ice omegaslow.
Not to detract from your point, but in League of Legends there’s a character with a non decaying 99% slow for 2.5 seconds on a single target on a 15 second cooldown. That slow is nuts, it’s practically a root.
This is one reason I have been playing tanks in QM with either Unstoppable on a short CD (JoJo, Anub) or Tyrael, who couldn’t care less about slows. With Mei in just about every match I tank, it makes a big difference. Anub’arak is rapidly turning into my favorite tank for going up against her.
Mei is the Li-Ming of slows. I know many people think Li-Ming is famous for her Orbs or maybe the Calamnity shenanigans but she actually has an aspect which only a few other mages share. She’s breathing more damage with every action she makes. She might not initially be like that but with the right talents the only way you wouldn’t be dealing damage is via her move command. In spite of this she isn’t the most insane damage dealer still (though conditionally could be).
Mei breathes slows wherever she goes. Since move speed modifiers are capped at the highest positive and negative this aspect may not be that obvious but even her presence is effectively making you an easier target. That’s what she’s on and given the comparison and my main you can guess why I love Mei. As for Black Ice it’s a soft root without disabling the mobility abilities. It further cements Mei’s role as a tarpit for low mobility comps and it can be said without exaggeration that without this her entire E build is quite anemic.
Anyways, while Chen’s slow was single target, it was also point and click in nature so it meant your doom. Also any movement speed buffs turn the pseudo-root of Black Ice into just a short-length slow. For example if I use Black Ice on Valla she’s “only” slowed to 40% speed. It may be still a lot but she’s effectively twice as fast compared to anyone else without speed buffs. So the point of Black Ice not to just blanket slow everyone but set this up. The point is that you can’t conventionally dodge for that period unless cleansed or receive enough movement speed. So yeah, setups to her W, her ult or even abilities of others. And yeah this is a soft Blaze dash in effect and perhaps Mei’s only true engage. Take Black Ice away and she’d struggle to remain a tank late game, IMO.
What an odd comparison, but I understand where you are coming from. That said, a 60 % slow (Valla at -80% + 20%) is still slow enough to make dodging practically impossible. Especially with Valla, who is squishy enough to (hopefully) delete her in that period.
13: Purifying Darts
Healing Dart removes Roots and Slows from the target, and heals for 20% more when doing so.
Not only is this 3 levels earlier than Black Ice, Healing Dart also has a 2 second CD as opposed to 14 (7 with level Cold Front proced) seconds CD of Icing.
Yes, yes, focus on Mei and remember that Lucio, when played properly, can slide through enemies and snare them for 75% for 1 second on a under 10 second cooldown if you take a talent and wall ride constantly (no, I’m not saying nerf it, I’m saying there are already other versions of aoe slows/combos, considering I can push off -> boop you back into the team!)
(no, I’m not saying nerf it, I’m saying there are already other versions of aoe slows/combos, considering I can push off -> boop you back into the team!)