While I agree she does need some kind of rework without the freeze effect, I don’t agree that she doesn’t currently have a niche role.
She’s decent on maps with chokes and better against 4 tanks comps to split them apart than any character imo.
Since she was buffed I’ve seen her way more often and in good hands (not saying you suck) she was pretty good and won some games.
I feel like she belongs in the offtank spot most of the time and if it’s not the case and she takes a dps spot, she won’t perform as well.
No, they’ll likely play around with her again. I think this because it didn’t take much demanding from the Meins to get some loves from the Devs, meanwhile Reaper mains are screaming and are still waiting to hear something that’s not just some QoL changes.
He has more playtime, sure, but he hasn’t received as much attention as Mei has in terms of patches. That’s what I was getting at. Playtime has absolutely nothing to do with balance.
And yet she’s barely ever picked and is non-existent in every comp tier. Must be one hell of a niche, or is it the same mythical niche that Torbjorn and Symmetra are supposed to fit into?
It’s pretty stupid how people think it’s completely fine for Mei and other heroes to be “niche” aka #$^& tier while other heroes have been at least applicable and useful in almost every situation to the point where they usually don’t even have to swap when being countered -COUGH-Offense Heroes-COUGH-
Playtime is a good indication if a hero is viable or not. I thinks it’s a pretty good sign of being unbalanced if a character hasn’t been viable for over 7 seasons and had a pickrate below 1%.
MEI is in a difficult spot for devs to properly fix.
Right now, the vision for the game is, in part, to improve the game we must remove or tone down frustrating abilities that block, freeze, denies abilities or the hero himself entirely.
MEI does all of that.
So if you want to “fix” MEI, you’ll have to completely change her kit but MEI is MEI. It’s all about Ice walls and freezing.
They nano buffed her for now, and they’ll need to do like they do with Symmetra but that takes time.
Ask me? Make it so her right click is not a hold but like Zen’s primary.
And if you hold right click for 2 secs (can be held while in ice rock) then release, she pushes people like Lucio’s boop but without the lift effect. You’d slide away.
A lot less insta die after ice rock, and more efficient damage output plus some more 1 vs 1 fast enemy options.
Actually, let me stop you right there. Tracer and Genji have been viable picks for over 7 seasons as well and have a high pickrate, so your defense of a character being “unbalanced” based on their pickrate falls flat on its face just because Mei hasn’t been viable for over 7 seasons. Secondly, Rein most certainly doesn’t have a role in the game right now and hasn’t had one for a while (dive comp? hello?).
Most Rein players have swapped to Orisa because she’s simply a better pick right now until they adjust Rein’s shield. You also don’t have to worry about wonky pins, your ult missing for seemingly no reason, or getting shut down as easily. In terms of damage and shield deployment, there’s absolutely no reason why you would pick Rein over Orisa right now.
I still play him cause I’ve been playing him since the beginning, more or less anyway, but even I’m starting to lean more towards Orisa these days because she just has higher sustain (what with fortify and all) due to her shield deployment.
Then allow me to stop you here as well.
Remember Mercy before she has gotten her nerfs? She had a near 100%. The majority agreed that Mercy was not balanced, but she was definitely viable. She was just too viable.
If a near 100% pickrate is a problem, then why is a near 0% pickrate acceptable? Because they are niche and annoying?
Tracer and Genji are balanced based on their stats. Tracer might be a bit too strong, but that’s another topic.
Tracer, Genji and even Reinhardt never had a pickrate below 1%. Even now has Tracer a pickrate of 4%, Genji a pickrate of 4.8 and Reinhardt a pickrate of 7.12
Meanwhile has Mei a pickrate of 0.71%.
Thats a huge difference. And these pickrates hasn’t change much with every new season after the Tank Meta of season 2.
Even if Reinhardt doesn’t fit in the dive meta, he does fit in other metas (like the quad tank meta). And this was made clear when Jeff posted the stats of season 9. Reinhardt is viable.
Mei has not a single meta in which she is viable.
So my defense of heroes being underpowered because they have a pickrate below 1% isn’t that wrong.
Who is currently being looked at? Hanzo, Symmetra and Torbjorn. And before them were Mei, Doomfist and Sombra being looked at.
Do you know what these heroes have in common? They have the lowest pickrate in the game. They received buffs to make them more viable.
Which leads us to this thread. Mei didn’t became more balanced and viable, because these changes didn’t addressed her biggest issues.
She has no role and place in the game other than being a point staller.
Her underwhelming ultimate.
She is still being seen as a troll pick.
Can the same be said about Reinhardt?
(Well, his ultimate is buggy though so I’ll give you that one.)
But I agree with you that Orisa has made it tougher for Reinhardt. She has range, a deployable big shield with a small cooldown, the ability to reduce damage and cancel stuns.
I too played Reinhardt a lot in the past but nowadays am I more tempted to play Orisa. I find her kit more enjoyable than Reinhardts kit. (Junkrat has made it tougher for Mei.)
Again, pickrate is not synonymous with balance. I don’t know why you keep contradicting yourself in your statements. You can’t complain about balance when you’re going from one side of the spectrum to the other since we have plenty of examples from both sides to suit a counter-argument against your claims.
A. We have characters with a high pickrate that are unbalanced
B. We have characters with a high pickrate that are balanced
C. We have characters with a low pickrate that are unbalanced
D. We have characters with a low pickrate that are balanced
I’m not quite sure why you keep harping on pickrate as if it’s a determining factor in who gets balanced or not. Also, this had absolutely nothing to do with what I said in the beginning anyway. My main point was that Mei has been shown more love than Reinhardt has in terms of patches and that much is true.
Now, if you want to keep talking about “pickrate” this and “balance” that, so be it, but it still won’t change the fact that Mei has seen more changes than Rein. Hopefully the fix they have planned for April will actually help Rein players, but as it stands… You don’t really have any room to complain about Mei not receiving any balance changes when there are characters who have been sitting on the backburner waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than Mei.
Alright. I do believe a character can be balanced and have a low or high pickrate as well. It’s probably because they dont fit in a meta.
I do think Sombra is balanced and she has a low pickrate as well.
I disagree. Reinhardt received a faster swing, QoL changes with his shield and bug fixes. Only his ultimate got nerfed by lowering the height of it.
Mei changes in 2017:
Undocumented: Ultimate received a 1.5 second cast time. (nerf.)
February 28, 2017: Mei can now be targeted by allies while in Cryo-Freeze. (QoL change.) (Only a few heroes can btw.)
December 12, 2017: Fixed a bug that prevented Mei’s Cryo-freeze from clearing the healing debuff caused by Ana’s Biotic Grenade. (Bug fix.)
Reinhardt changes in 2017:
May 23, 2017: Ultimate height decreased from 3 meter to 2 meter. (Nerf.)
July 27, 2017: Hammer swing speed increased by 10%; Fixed hit registration issues;
August 1, 2017: Fix a bug with Charge. (Bug fix.)
September 19, 2017: Holding primary fire while your shield is active now allows you to rotate the camera. (QoL change.)
These are all changes they made to these heroes in 2017. (I didn’t listed sound and visual changes.)
It seems to be me that Reinhardt has received more changes.
But can you please answer me this question. What role has Mei in the game?
less of 1% pick rate in any serious mode, people used her less of 20 secs to stall, its all.
none of her skills are good enought to be useful in a match. let me guess are you using the same pitty excuse from jeff but with similar words of " We dont want to buff niche heroes because otherwise they going to feel opressive to play against" , im right?
she cant be played in: offense, defense, payload, KOH, CTF, CTP or any mode without being called a thrower or troll.
at this point hope you arent serious about your previous post and instead it was a sarcastic one.
Powercreep is really the issue with Rein, every single hero they released after Ana can just destroy him.
Every one of orisas abilities counter his kit.
Sombra just removes his purpose and can do it between his attacks
Doomfist can literraly just throw the rein back into his team to die or burst him down.
Then he also had everyone else before that who could hurt him. He can still do a lot of good it just makes his anchor tank job so much harder.
Mei is powerful in the right hands unfortunatly most of the not niche heroes would be even better in those hands. Playing a F-tier herp incredibly well doesnt suddenly make them OP if the top Mei in the world isnt as good as the top Tracer or Genji at helping the team to win then she is a worse hero.
The problem with niche heroes is they are just empirically worse then non niche heroes. Either they are better at their niche which means you need to run them or it doesnt matter. Which means that if the other hero that is generalized is just as good as the niche hero you can just use them all the time and be better at them. If a hero really has a niche that means it fills a role that no one else can fill or it specializes in being better at that role. Doctors specialize and eventually fill a niche, if you have an issue its almost guaranteed that a specialist can help you more and more easily then a generalist.
Every single one of Meis abilities does a weaker job at something another hero does, this really should make her a generalist.
She is OK at killing flankers:
-She can 1 shot a tracer and get around deflect to kill a genji
She is OK at area denial:
-she can split the team with walls and deny a point with her ult.
She is OK at sniping:
I routinly outsnipe a widow but it takes me 2-4 headshots to her 1, and its a projectile.
She is OK at stunning people
Her freeze is slow so it can stop things but at 1.5 seconds of perfect aim. That means most ults are going to already have done a lot of damage.
She has an OK self heal
150 hp over 4 seconds isnt terrible although if your team isnt right there you will probably die right away.
Mei’s kit is incredibly versatile, that shouldnt put her in a niche it should let her be used almost everywhere. If you really want Mei to be a niche hero she should almost hard counter on certain maps making it so you have to deal with her.
i just got a pc and started playing doomfist for the first time (never played him on console) and hes SUPER fun. BUT his right click punch hitbox is super small, and i feel like i could hit someone on my screen but it wont actually register as a hit