I really don't understand the point of the Mei changes

General Discussion
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So the MEI changes are in, and well I’m not exactly a fan.

Their is a bit of spice, that I will touch on in a minute.

Be it right off the back, her damage pressure on primary fire is now gone. And this really just sucks. It was the most engaging part of her OW2 kit. And now she mostly can just be out healed.

basically we losing the flame thrower niche she had. Which is something no other hero provides at the moment. (Also hint hint I’d rather this on mei then on another hero, we really don’t need a hero that is a hard punish to tanks without barriers)

Secondly theirs some miscommunication going on. Does the slow scale from 30% to 50%?

Or does it go to 75%? Is their an addition 25% slow added to such while directly connected to the enemy? If so why did they specify that bit after the point where it sticks for 1.5 seconds?

Is this a typo? Does it mean that you can only go up to 75% when stacking other slows. Like it’s the cap on much you can be slowed all at once.

And regarding the bit of spice, their is now an extra damage modifier on her primary fire. That adds an additional 40 damage to targets that are slowed.

Which is ok in a vacum, however landing the secondary fire was never really a majorly effective part of her kit. Even with the freeze it was common for her P to S fire combo to be interrupted. On top of that the status that can be easily cleansed by a dozen different effects. Be it suzu, zarya bubble, wraith, rewind and more. and ignored completely by tools like dash, blinks, teleports, leaps, etc.

This is kind of just going to dumpster her effectiveness the moment people figure out they just need to block/deflect the projectile in some way.

The added damage is cool, but like that’s not the part of the kit people really want to engage with outside of long range poke.

Nor will it really effect mobile heroes, as most of those will completely ignore the slow effect anyway. While if it does slow up to 75% this is going to basically shut down something like ball and d.va. Who’s mobility are directly tide to their speed boosts.

or in lucio case will just need a rien barrier to ignore the effect completely.

I really don’t understand the devs logic here, especially when Cassidy’s nade basically covers that anti-mobility niche perfectly. That acts as a solid follow up tool to something like a tracer that’s already taken a body shot.

As she is now a hyper specific counter to low mobility hero’s that can’t cleanse or TP/blink out of a situation. And also against ball/d.va specifically. that are doing more then a hit and run tactic. Doom should be fine as his punch and jump isn’t tide to slows from my understanding. ( I could be wrong on the latter part)

Altogether that extra slow and rare potential to land an extra 40 damage. Isn’t worth loosing the consistent 45 dps you got with the beam. And it really won’t help against mobile heroes, as the vast majority of those will just cleanse the effect outright before ever getting a chance to shoot the icicle.

I really don’t understand the point of all this, it’s just a flat nerf agianst anything that isn’t already mobility challenged like Cassidy, soldier, bastion or hog.

7 Likes
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If this means 190 headshot damage she’s just become the best close range duelist in the game.

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If you hit an enemy with right click after 1.5 seconds of primary, the slow scales up from 50% to 75% is how I interpreted it.

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If it hits, after a long freeze period. And it sounds like this also may cleanse the slow in the process. Not a hundred percent confirmed. But tracer/reaper/genji/sombra will basically never have to worry about this, while cassidy, soldier, torb, bastion, ana, zen, and sym if she didn’t set up a tp before hand. Are going to have issues with it.

Basically the exact opposite of what the devs think it’s going to do.

It says primary not secondary. Which means unless theirs a typo that doesn’t sound like the case.

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Even in a body shot, that’s still a 75 + 40 damage.

Very risky, and shifting Mei into a heavily precise character if she wants to get that much damage off.

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Which is weird because that’s what the old version did anyway, as you had to track the beam and maintain a specific range to do so regardless.

1 Like
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I’m guessing they’re shifting more into the ice and icicle combo and make her more reliant on it.

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Nah this change makes mei a must-pick.

Mei was never picked for her damage. She’s picked for her utility and her tank hate. Both of those things just got cranked up to a billion. So in S5 your DPS choices are mei and cas, and you don’t even have to worry about shields because people are running JQ now that widow got nerfed.

2 Likes
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On some tanks sure, sigma, hog, ball, d.va, JQ. are going to suck because of this. While rien/winston/orisa/zarya just don’t care about the slow. Meaning that a death ball or rush comp is still on the table. While dive with winston or doom isn’t going to be effected either.

Cases nade can also still be blocked/deflected. So tracer is most likely out. But genji will be fine. With sombra needing to be very careful with her positioning, and will to TP the second cas is in range. Or catches him in his throwing animation.

On a side note, preseason 5 Mei with a damage boost would melt whole teams. As the damage would pierce and layer 250+ dps onto two or more targets. It was like using the tf2 kritzkrieg on a pyro.

Which was never exactly strong in the first place, even with the freeze.

it was the most telegraphed and easy to peel damage combo in the game.

1 Like
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Her wall is still an amazing part of her kit and combining that with the new slow, it causes the enemy you walled off in even more danger. And now with the slow she is even better against the enemy tank with her own tank. Even if it is cleansed for a second guess what, you keep at it. In an actual coordinated or even semi-coordinated setting I see this being actually great.

(Edit was to make a part more clear)

1 Like
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I see it as making her more of a threat in the hands of a skilled person while still making her more of a counter to heroes that less-skilled people can’t handle.

E.g. if you whine about Ball (even though if you are good you can take him down), you can still easily lock him down by spraying at him for 1.5 seconds for a 75% slow for little effort. People that are skilled can take down any squishy in a 1v1, even if healed, if you can land your headshots.

Curious to try her out tomorrow with this change. Mei without her freeze is boring, so partially bringing it back will hopefully restore some fun for me with her.

3 Likes
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They want the game to be moba watch clearly brawl only gets buffed more and more

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I’m a Mei tourist, so I have questions that I hope someone more experienced with Mei can answer. Will the bonus icicle damage only work after building up the “super slow”? Does the standard slow even last long enough to fire off an icicle? How long does it take to build up to the super slow?

I get that this change was probably made to screw over WBs but I’m wondering how much worse off (or better?) Mei is at peeling for supports. A 115 bodyshot icicle might just give a Tracer a bit of a nasty shock.

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Goes from 30-50% until it builds up to the big slow that keeps them at 75% for 1.5s landing secondary fire shots will “detonate” the slow and deal additional 40 damage. I’m assuming after this you have to reapply the slow.

That means a alt fire headshot on someone slowed will do 165 damage

2 Likes
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I’m skeptical about this change. Her slow has no effect on skills that grant movement, so it’s effectively useless against skills like Blink, Echo Flight, Dva Booster, Cassidy Roll, Doom Jump, etc. These changes do nothing with her interactions against high mobility dps / tanks.

From the patch notes, Cassidy is FAR better as a CC user because he locks all movement abilities like Zarya.

The 55 DPS reduction makes her significantly worse up close, because she can’t kill confirm as effectively.

These changes essentially force her back into a Tank Punisher role, which is a huge regression because this is the same exact role she had in OW 1 where she was consistently one of the worst dps in game. Now that she doesn’t even have freeze, I don’t see how this is beneficial outside of punishing Ball and Junker Queen, who are huge problems atm.

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Ah, okay, so unless Mei get this “super slow” off then she’s out of luck. Dang. And I assume that the likes of Tracer are going to use burst mobility to get away well before the super slow kicks in.

It kinda sucks that all the DPS beam heroes have to deal with gimmicks.

My guess is that they specifically wanted someone to punish Ball. Oh well.

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Sure I agree with doom a decent amount and echo (but you are mei fighting echo, use your secondary) But that is why wall is a thing. Cassidy cant escape anyway, tracer you one shot with secondary to the head, and Dva form my knowledge does get slowed during boosters. Wall is a big form of CC, just indirect.

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we have no idea yet.

We gotta test. This isn’t something we’ve had before.

just barely. I’m less of a # and more of a feel player so I’ll get back to you on how many you can cram in before no more slow. Also wondering if it “bursting” gets rid of the slow which would be… annoying. By numbers you should be able to cram in 2 shots before the slow fades… but this is by the old logic that Mei’s beam is not quite a beam but weird projectiles that have traveltime. You USED to be able to fire the beam till ALMOST frozen, and while the last bit traveled you warmed up M2 so you could get 2 dinks in before they unfroze. … but now it “bursts” so we’ll see what that does.

… Also cannot wait to go to…

Continuing the discussion from Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes - June 13, 2023:

Giblartar.

2 Likes
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There are already tons of heroes that can punish ball and do it really well like sombra/tracer

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It says in the patch notes that alt fire does 40 more damage while in the super slow so yes it’s only during that

It’s probably going to remove the slow instantly so you can’t chain 2 hits in the most you’ll get maybe like 1/million you do it so perfect you get 3 since it’s 0.5s to charge an icicle. It will be good enough unless they’re receiving constant healing you will straight up kill a 200 hp hero from slowing them + bonus icicle damage