In this new age of 2-2-2 balance, Mei ice wall needs to be addressed. We have reduced barrier health and reduced CC, so things are moving in the right direction. However, there is way too much value for ice wall, especially on control maps. The cooldown is too short and pillar life is too high. It is ridiculous compared to today’s barriers.
Mei has become almost a must pick and the only way to counter a skilled Mei is with another Mei. Team losing? On your last minute? Switch to bastion? No way, you just go with Mei.
The worst games have been against Mei + Rein + Lucio on control maps. Speed to the teams opening, use ice wall to separate the up front tank , plus one or two others, if you are lucky, and freeze and decimate them with your full 6 party team.
I’m OK with Mei freeze in general. If I move to close and have no support to back me up, that’s my fault. But if I’m doing my job, trying to make up front space for my team, but not too far from my support, and get completely separated and die, with my team close by but unable to help, over and over, it is a problem.
Moving Mei to tank would be interesting but it doesn’t fit the OW mold. The designers seem to think tanks have to be huge, easy to hit targets. So, unless Mei puts on an extra 200 pounds, they probably won’t move her. Although it is funny that many people consider her a 3rd tank because of super short ice wall cooldown and ice block ability.
Oh, and her alt fire would need to be tuned as well. Too high damage for a tank.
Shoot the wall? How long do you think a solo tank can survive against 6 opponents? Tank is long dead before enough pillars are destroyed or a support can get around the wall.
You will be surprised how effective the focus fire on the wall can do. Besides a good tank is able to trick Mei into launching premature wall then it is on CD, rush in to kill Mei.
as for walls at choke, Mei is typically standing where she wouldn’t be effected by this anyway.
Most of the time, you are standing at the side of the choke, so they Rein would have to make the choice of being walled out, or just killed by the rest of the team.
He can’t defend against both.
I had thought about it before when I was looking at how to fix Mei, but I ended up falling on to the shorter cooldown, less health wall.
there is a fundamental irony in using mei’s wall in that, while it may separate teammates, it often groups them together behind the wall as well. (though this isn’t so much a problem in comp since people generally play grouped up)
i think about it a lot. mei’s wall can actually hinder your team ~7 seconds after use if the enemies walk around to a different path and emerge as a 5 or 6 player mass, compared to the moment before when everyone was doing their own thing spread apart.
the wall is strong but it can and does backfire in this way
Current problem is that even if a pillar of the wall is shot-down, it’s still not wide enough for a main tank to retreat from iirc, at least not for rein.
There are several solutions to the wall problem.
Reduce wall health from 400 to 300. This is probably the worst solution as it is just a straight “shield” number nerf and solves issue by brute force.
or
Reduce wall pillar number to 3 while maintaining the same total wall width. In this case Destroying 1 pillar is enough to allow most tanks, if not all, to pass through.
or
Nerf the duration from 5s to 3.5s. It would act less like a shield and more like a interruption tool.
How does the tank bait the ice wall and make a successful rush to the Mei? Mei still has freeze, so you can’t exactly rush in. Also, these Mei ice wall are not from mid to long range, they are used up close. The opposing team is pushing up close range and Mei separates the team, follow up with a rush to 2v6 or 3v6. Even if you line up the team, so tanks can’t be separated up front, the ice wall can be turned side ways, still splitting up the team.
