Mei has almost the exact same issues as Pyro had in TF2, and I’m baffled that Blizzard didn’t look at the 14 years of balance work they put into the game to draw ideas from. Namely, that her whole kit is mostly based around getting in close and disabling to kill, like Pyro. But -like- Pyro, she’s completely outclassed in that role by other heroes who do what she does much better. Why flank with a Mei when you could do it with Reaper and have a higher output? Or tracer, who can match Reaper’s DPS -and- have extreme mobility to get her out of tight spots.
As it stands, Mei’s just… not good. Rather than touching her damage, she needs more utility to round her out. Maybe when she pops out of Ice Block, it applies an AoE slow, or something?
<— Grandmaster Mei Main, peaked at #5 Mei global last season (check my overbuff if you have to)
While I agree with the notion that Mei’s right click is not good at chunking down barriers, that is ONLy a problem if you’re engaging the enemy tanks without standing behind your own tank’s shield. Making her right click do more damage to barriers specifically is objectively poor game design. Additionally, barriers are a tank’s only real counterplay to Mei. If you can’t successfully kill them, you’re simply being outplayed. Not a problem with Mei at all.
Allowing Mei’s right click to be ‘held’ in preparation is just dumb. It’s one of the highest damage projectiles in the game, and it travels extremely fast. It’s rewarding for those with mechanical skill.
Your statement about Mei’s Ice wall is woefully incorrect. Mei’s Ice Wall is one of the most reliable way of securing kills in the game, when used correctly. If you’re struggling to get kills using Mei’s Ice Wall, again that is a problem with you the player, and not Mei’s kit.
Currently, the only buffs that Mei really needs are auto-reloading during her cryo-freeze, and an increase in the projectile speed of her primary fire to allow hyper mobile targets such as Doomfist, Lucio, Genji and Tracer to be frozen more easily.
This seems more like a half measure. They tried one half measure already, with the increased ammo and penetrating left click.
Can this even assist with killing Genji or Tracer, when the player can just climb a wall, or blink away, before you can use enough ice to lock them into place?
I think this needs a full measure. Something that really sets her apart as a threat
If you’re implying that Mei should deny mobility abilities outright, that’s simply a step too far. That would basically turn her primary fire into a perpetual graviton surge.
I just think your suggestions wouldn’t rise her from her low rates, to a higher rate. It would just make it so the already decent Mei players can play her a bit better, rather than attracting other players to use her to assist in situations.
Mei is meant to hold her own, and she can. But that doesn’t mean she can always win a 1v1 or 1v2+. I believe there is a misconception that Mei should be able to outright shutdown anyone that comes too close to her. She’s designed to work with a team and to isolate and peel. Perhaps this misconception is due to the misclassification/overtuning of Hanzo and Junkrat. They either need to be retuned to reflect their roles (Defense) or they need to be moved to OFFENSE family.
That…would be glorious.
They just did that for her earlier this year. And, man, was that noticeable. You’re saying it’s not enough? I’m not sure if out-right kills are necessary. There is so much to be said from denial. Keeping enemies away is just as effective as a kill.
Maybe in overtime but as long as they are alive they can be considered a threat, especially those with long range attacks. In any case Junkrat is also area denial but has a high kill potential making him much more of a threat.
Right, but we’re also talking about close range flankers (Genji, Tracer, Doomfist) and Lucio. They will have to dive on OT no matter what but to contest without proper backup against one Mei? Even if one or two of them came at a Mei at once, I feel like it would almost require a solo ult, possibly wasting two because of lack of comms. I’m just speculating, though.
The real secret to Mei is that she’s playing a different game. Her job is to run down the clock. She’s by far the best stall hero in the game, and her ultimate wins overtime. On attack she’s mediocre, but she’s an amazing defence hero.
What you’re suggesting is still wrong. Mei has a very high skill floor and skill ceiling, and people don’t realise it.
The solution is NOT to buff Mei simply so that she can be utilised at lower ranks. Mei’s has a kit that would be very easy to overtune.
I hate to be that person, but you simply need to get good. Mei is a very powerful hero, and many of the things you listed in your OP are in fact non-issues.
I like where mei is… but I think it would be fun if she lost her self heal and gained some ice-slick ability. BUT people treat this game as a pure FPS and hate any movement altering ability so that’s out the window…
Really? From what I’ve seen Mei is quite strong right now. You just have to use her at the right times (the whole premise of this games switching mechanic), ie you can’t expect to get the same level of effectiveness on a koth map as on Hanamura defence.
Her wall is so strong for isolating one enemy and picking them off. Denying an enemy push 9/10 times on maps with strong chokes.
Also, her new freeze time is insane. I play primarily tank and I’ve had Mei’s walk into my team, freeze me, I live because of my health pool, but because her freeze is so fast I’m frozen again as soon as I walk away. I’ve played Winston and used my jump as soon as I noticed Mei on me but still been frozen when my jump lands. Playing Roadhog and being repeatedly frozen because of your slow speed until you finally die is annoying as hell.
Also regarding her ult being eaten by D.va, what about Tracer ult? Pharah ult? Soldier ult? McCree ult? Zarya ult? All eaten by D.va. You just need to work with your team and get them to help focus D.va mech/distract her, and call out when DM is used up just like all those other heroes. If you ult right in the face of a D.va, its likely your fault your ult is eaten. Granted, some of the time the D.va seems to do a 180, matrix for a split second, and eat your ult, but that is the exception not the rule.
Also her ult denied by Lucio and Zen? Really? That’s what Lucio and Zen are for. They are supposed to deny your ult. They are supposed to trade their ult for yours to save their team.
Only thing I could see Mei needing is for her ult to be a bit faster, there seems to be a pretty significant delay between when you press Q and when the ice actually starts freezing people and often everyones moved out of the way. Edit: also somebody mentioned making her ice block thing reload her gun, just like Reaper’s wraith form that’d be good.