(This could become the Meigathread continue, because for an unknown reason i can’t edit anymore the main Meigathread’s original thread)
Update 1: in PTR Mei got a beta-like revert: now icicles don’t have anymore falloff, i think this buff makes totally sense because if we buff hitscans like Bastion, McCree and Soldier76, Mei becomes pretty useless, and also she has too many disadvantages on secondary fire, so getting rid of falloff makes her more useful and powerful. In a Seagull’s live, Geoff Goodman wasn’t sure about bringing to live patch this buff, i completely think it should, because the icicles feel more powerful and more rewarding for players with good aim, there is no reason to leave Mei in this state with a locked potential
BTW, sometimes i think devs don’t want to buff Mei properly, because they fear to make her too powerful. Many influencers added fuel to the story: “If Mei gets buffed too much she becomes oppressive” and i think this influenced devs.
But, giving her 10 icicles, the freeze piercing throught enemies and increased defreeze time what did? Quite nothing, these “buffs” are pretty handy, but lowered her skill floor without fixing her true problems: making her more efficient and useful for the team.
I reflected about some of her abilities and i will explain why some of the buffs did nothing or what major flaws could have her kit:
Frost stream
Increasing the defreeze time of enemies gave us more possibilities to do the famous “freeze+heashot” combo, but at higher levels if you play Mei expect to get engaged by a flanker or at long distance, but this still pretty useful in some situations.
Making freeze pierce throught enemies is not a big deal IMO, because is not common enemies stack one behind the other, also freezing a group of enemies is not worth the risk: you need at least to be assisted by an healer or another DPS, but enemies will tend to separate a bit to make our attemp useless.
One of the major flaws of this mechanic is this: if you have a bit of mobility or enought damage, you can outperform an enemy Mei. This ability makes becomes nearly useless, making it more a tool to punish enemies that overextend or get caught out of position.
Personally i don’t know how this ability could be balanced to make it more useful.
Icicles
Reducing the icicles cost to 20 ammos (10 icicles in total) is pretty handy but didn’t solved much the damage output issue. If you remember, Mei one time used to “snipe” because the icicles didn’t had falloff, so she was called “MeiCree”; falloff has been added to make her icicles less powerful. I understand this because she’s not meant to be a sniper, but the falloff seems to be too much, because the icicles has 3 disavantages: falloff, projectile nature and cast time, this means means we don’t have a consistent damage.
A solution to this could be increasing her fire ratio, so she shoots the same ammount of icicles but in less time, so we increase her DPS, or tuning/removing falloff.
Update: in PTR Mei got a revert like she was in beta: now she hasn’t anymore falloff on icicles, and makes sense because it’s the only projectile weapon with falloff and cast time in the game, so is less powerful than a pure hitscan. Also with the recent buff in PTR of McCree, Bastion and S76 there is no reason to leave Mei underpowered compared to them.
Cryofreeze
The Cryofreeze not cleaning Ana’s grenade debuff was a bug that has been fixed only after an year, but an issue called “favor the shooter”, caused by latency, still persist: if you press shift to enter in cryo, and in the same moment you get stunned/hooked/killed/earth-shattered/hacked, you get out of cryo even if you pressed shift and cooldown starts. This makes the cryofreeze a russian roulette: sometimes works and you save yourself, other times you die and you cause a loss for the team.
Fixing this issue, favoring the cryofreeze over the shooter would make this ability more reliable, and abling Mei to bait cooldowns.
Ice wall
This ability is pretty handy but has a big drawback: your teammates doesn’t know where are you placing the wall, and this causes issues in coordination, because you risk to block ulting teammates or similar episodes. Devs wanted to make a clear ice wall to see throught it, but wasn’t possible due to engine limitations. This could be fixed making the blueprint visible to teammates, this would allow more coordination.
Also this ability has another problem: works well on small chokes closing them, but works bad on wider chokes, leaving a little space to pass throught. Adding a column could be helpful, i don’t have at the moment ideas of how could be balanced the wall.
Blizzard
I think the Blizzard is a bit redundant: is like a graviton, but wider, lasts more but unreliable:
- We have a 0,5s cast time (the time where the drone spawns) and a 0,8s setup time (time between the drone touches the ground and actives), in total it needs 1,3s before starting freezing. If i remember correctly, the cast time has been added because Mei had a bug that caused her to lose the ultimate.
- During the cast time, even if the drone is out of the hand and Mei gets stunned/dies, the drone disappears. (The ultimate reworks was meant to punish more often bad ultimates, but indirectly nerfed too much Mei)
- Every enemy with an escape ability or a good mobility, can escape easily the ultimate, making our attemp nearly useless.
The ultimate could be fixed reverting two things: reducing activation time, making the activation quicker with a faster setup time and tuning the cast time (removing it or at least reduce the window where Mei can be stunned to only the moment when she has the drone in the hand).
Here’s a Reddit thread about the ultimate’s inconsistency:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/7gwtrw/fix_meis_ultimate_it_is_very_inconstant_and/
Bugs
I leave here 2 reddit threads about her bugs, with videos:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/7ko6mx/mei_bug_list_with_examples/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/8u0s1f/blizzard_its_been_at_least_nine_months_can_we_fix/
I already have and i manage another thread where i talk with other players about Mei balancing in general, but i decided to make another one, to have more space to express my thoughs and explain the flaws of her kit more freely:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/mei-gathread-mei-buff-proposals-and-issues-discussion
. I think Mei shouldn’t be an oppressive hero or a must pick in every situation, but she shouldn’t be even an extremely situational hero or a troll pick. Let me know what do you think.