just remove the restore health feature of mei's iceblock, problem solved. then she isn't a solo monster. if it stops her dying but she doesn't auto heal from it AND built ult charge, her threat level goes way down.
At my SR that might help a little, but beyond that it doesn't have any impact (I think), and doesn't address her true power.
Ice block isn't really used for its healing - it's a practically incidental feature that is mainly used at the lower ranks, where healers suck as much as DPS. At plat and above, Ice Block is for baiting out and tanking powerful CC abilities like sleep dart, flash bang and shatter, or to quickly cleanse a debuff.
Point being, removing the heal from ice block will have a small but negative impact on Mei at lower ranks at absolutely-zero impact on her play at higher ranks. What makes her monstrous isn't her survivability - it's the wall, and her ability to cut off one player from the rest of their team.
If wall should be retained, the solution is simply to drop the health on its sections so a well-coordinated enemy team can burst down a section quicker to free a trapped teammate.
I should think, at least.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
at low levels team coordination is minimal though. at low levels mei's don't typically use wall that well. They typically contest by punishing teams that push with her freeze and the ability to fend off dive attackers by minimizing or eliminating that burst damage. i don't know at high levels and again, i think mei just needs a complete overhaul because she has so many tools that are frustrating to the enemy.
People didn't like strong shields but i didn't hear much "shields are unfair and fun killing". Mei is almost universally touted as THE fun killer.
My real solution to mei is that wall isn't an instant pop / de-pop, it takes time to set up, thus giving enemy teams time to stop her by forcing movement or killing her. Second, her gun should stop movement but not action. Freezing people in place is strong enough without completely stopping ability usage.
I don't think I watched a full match for OWL opening weekend, but saw a few maps across the weekend.
-Mei is still disgustingly OP and was picked by every team every map all the time, can't wait for her to be banned with the hero pool (same with Lucio honestly, Rein is still ok)
-Nice to see McCree get solid time and even Tracer and that loser Naruto
-Soe being moved to head table jockey works well but her pre-recorded ad reads make her sound mushmouth like they only did one take at 5pm on a Friday, Swiss Miss moer leik Swedish Chef a dab
-I've said it about previous seasons but fucking dress up like you're actually announcers, you deadbeats
-the attempt to make those highlights of previous matches with the replay mode and the epic music was incredibly cringey, just play an animated short in between the maps if the announcers can't really carry the time or the pauses
-The Overwatch apparel ad ran so much, and got so annoying, I'd rather see those bad phone app game commercials instead. Where are you Raid Shallow Legions?!?!?
In terms of just gameplay their feels like variety again, but Mei must be destroyed.
I think lucio actually makes the game more fun, not less fun. Agreed on Mei tho.
Watching NYXL seamlessly swap to dive on Anubis A was awesome. Having Whoru shining in that lineup is fun. Also, I was worried about losing Meko but apparently Hotba is a monster Dva whose more aggro playstyle may be better suited for the meta.
I felt bad for all the Reins who kept getting isolated and bullied by Mei walls.
at low levels team coordination is minimal though. at low levels mei's don't typically use wall that well. They typically contest by punishing teams that push with her freeze and the ability to fend off dive attackers by minimizing or eliminating that burst damage. i don't know at high levels and again, i think mei just needs a complete overhaul because she has so many tools that are frustrating to the enemy.
People didn't like strong shields but i didn't hear much "shields are unfair and fun killing". Mei is almost universally touted as THE fun killer.
My real solution to mei is that wall isn't an instant pop / de-pop, it takes time to set up, thus giving enemy teams time to stop her by forcing movement or killing her. Second, her gun should stop movement but not action. Freezing people in place is strong enough without completely stopping ability usage.
If you nerf or eliminate freezing then the frost spray itself needs to do a lot more damage as her primary fire. Mei would be making herself very vulnerable to spend so much time spraying someone only for them to continue shooting her.
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KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
Mei's kit is fine! You leave my precious girl alone.
I'd be a fan of Mei having a rework, but I think the main thing I'd change is making her iceblock breakable in some way, because the "crowd around it and wait" is one of the dumber things to regularly encounter. I would 150% be on board with Blizzard being a root instead of the current absurd 4 second total stun that it currently is. Alternatively, shields should block it again. What they were thinking when they gave it that massive buff AND increased the area by 50% at the same time, I'll never understand.
Stomps this way and stomps that way continue unabated.
Last night I had some super-cool games, but there was one with an enemy Zenyatta who was just unstoppable. At first I thought it was just a lucky shot that he happened to ding me in the head, but he just keeps lighting up the killfeed and every time I dive on him I can't-quite one-clip him and get obliterated by him or his team. Ended that game like 0 and 9.
Humbling.
Also re: Mei. It's just the wall. The wall is Mei's Invincibility Field, Sleep Dart, Rez, Deflect - rarely used to its full potential and kinda' gamebreakingly powerful in the right hands.
That's been a problem with the game from the outset and has gotten worse over time. It's pretty rare to get close games.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
If they were cool, they'd also make the wall partially see-through. The information denial about what's happening on the other side is an often overlooked but significant part of its power when splitting teams.
That too is one of its coolest aspects. The enemy team is thumping towards you, suppressive fire is coming in so you pop the wall and just keep on moseying up towards them. As soon as you reach the wall you shatter it, leap through the raining shards and fall upon your prey like a feral ice werewolf.
Arouuuuuuu.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I don't think one can make a very cogent argument that any of Mei's tools are particularly overpowered or strong. She's among the lowest pick-rate Heroes at skill ranks where players aren't just morons or smurfs, and her win rates even when she is picked are decidedly middling. She's not a tank, she's pretty mediocre as DPS, and she's definitely not a healer.
If I were doing her rework, I'd remove the delay on the launch of her secondary fire, which more or less removes any kind of skill component from landing shots outside short range, and maybe speed up the projectile speed a little bit. I don't think I'd change her primary fire, wall, or ultimate at all, except maybe to keep D.va from eating it, or Genji from deflecting it. It's not a projectile, it's a little robot, how does Genji reprogram it with a whack of his blade? Her Cryo-Freeze I might speed up the healing rate, and make the ice block destructible, so there's some counterplay when she's trying to stall the point. That will both get her back in fights faster, for when there's a teamfight, so she can do more than just die last, and also remove some of her stall shenanigans.
I don't think one can make a very cogent argument that any of Mei's tools are particularly overpowered or strong. She's among the lowest pick-rate Heroes at skill ranks where players aren't just morons or smurfs, and her win rates even when she is picked are decidedly middling. She's not a tank, she's pretty mediocre as DPS, and she's definitely not a healer.
If I were doing her rework, I'd remove the delay on the launch of her secondary fire, which more or less removes any kind of skill component from landing shots outside short range, and maybe speed up the projectile speed a little bit. I don't think I'd change her primary fire, wall, or ultimate at all, except maybe to keep D.va from eating it, or Genji from deflecting it. It's not a projectile, it's a little robot, how does Genji reprogram it with a whack of his blade? Her Cryo-Freeze I might speed up the healing rate, and make the ice block destructible, so there's some counterplay when she's trying to stall the point. That will both get her back in fights faster, for when there's a teamfight, so she can do more than just die last, and also remove some of her stall shenanigans.
That's less a rework and more just straight up providing massive buffs to almost every aspect of her kit.
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
Her wall's been around forever though, and hasn't been buffed recently, so I don't think that's the whole story. I think what's happening with her is multifold. At the lower ranks, there are more tanks in games due to role queue along with fewer DPS, so fewer of her counters and more of the things she eats for lunch. At the upper levels though, she's being run as basically a third tank since she's got enough sustain and blocking to pull that off, and tanks HAVE to respond to her as a priority, because if they try to block anybody else, then they lose their ability to block PERIOD. Meanwhile, she can just hop right through shields and not even shield dancing well can save you thanks to the buffed lenience on the freeze.
I don't care what you call her. A rose by any other name...
But calling her "Damage" is absolutely giving people the wrong idea about her place in this game.
I disagree, her job is to kill things. Her methods are different in that she outlasts opponents rather than bursting them down, but just freezing and walling alone doesn't justify her spot as one of two DPSers on the team. Doing damage with icicles is a huge part of her kit.
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Mei's not a tank though, she can't hold a frontline against dps. She's just good at killing tanks.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I don't care what you call her. A rose by any other name...
But calling her "Damage" is absolutely giving people the wrong idea about her place in this game.
I disagree, her job is to kill things. Her methods are different in that she outlasts opponents rather than bursting them down, but just freezing and walling alone doesn't justify her spot as one of two DPSers on the team. Doing damage with icicles is a huge part of her kit.
That's kind of circular reasoning. Mei is DPS, so she has to somehow do a lot of damage to justify her place in DPS, which makes her DPS?
Mei was just not designed with 222 in mind. She doesn't fit the paradigm at all.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
I don't care what you call her. A rose by any other name...
But calling her "Damage" is absolutely giving people the wrong idea about her place in this game.
I disagree, her job is to kill things. Her methods are different in that she outlasts opponents rather than bursting them down, but just freezing and walling alone doesn't justify her spot as one of two DPSers on the team. Doing damage with icicles is a huge part of her kit.
That's kind of circular reasoning. Mei is DPS, so she has to somehow do a lot of damage to justify her place in DPS, which makes her DPS?
Mei was just not designed with 222 in mind. She doesn't fit the paradigm at all.
No, I'm saying Mei is good at killing things - she does respectable damage, and that's what should be expected of her. She doesn't put out the raw DPS of someone like Reaper, but her damage is still decent provided you're landing icicles. I know you don't use her icicles that much and I think you're trying to justify that by suggesting she just isn't meant to do damage, but I think that's wrong. If Mei isn't doing much damage, then that leaves only one person on the team with high DPS output, and that isn't enough.
Zek on
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
Let me put it this way: You are going to have less Damage than a soldier or reaper or junkrat, even if you are a perfect shot with the icicles... and few are. Mei is just not well equipped to be getting Gold Damage medals all the time, if there are other competent DPS in the party.
You said "If Mei isn't doing much damage, then that leaves only one person on the team with high DPS output, and that isn't enough." Which implies you see this a problem with Mei, or maybe with how some folks play Mei. I'm saying the problem is 222 itself. Prior to 222, there was no issue. Because you just ran 3 DPS with Mei, more often that not.
So we can blame Mei, or people playing Mei, or 222 itself, but one way or another I get yelled at a lot for having low damage, and ... i can only improve that so much before I'm going to hit a ceiling, and I suspect that won't be enough for some people.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
Let me put it this way: You are going to have less Damage than a soldier or reaper or junkrat, even if you are a perfect shot with the icicles... and few are. Mei is just not well equipped to be getting Gold Damage medals all the time, if there are other competent DPS in the party.
You said "If Mei isn't doing much damage, then that leaves only one person on the team with high DPS output, and that isn't enough." Which implies you see this a problem with Mei, or maybe with how some folks play Mei. I'm saying the problem is 222 itself. Prior to 222, there was no issue. Because you just ran 3 DPS with Mei, more often that not.
So we can blame Mei, or people playing Mei, or 222 itself, but one way or another I get yelled at a lot for having low damage, and ... i can only improve that so much before I'm going to hit a ceiling, and I suspect that won't be enough for some people.
Mei doesn't have the highest potential damage in the roster and that's fine, she makes it up in utility. I don't think there's a problem with either her or 2-2-2, because I think she fills the damage role just fine. She can do pretty good damage with the post-freeze headshots plus easy tank body shots, it doesn't take great aim. You likely won't get gold, but you should probably get bronze at least as a rule of thumb, not to emphasize the medals too much.
Mei doesn't do much raw damage because if she's being effective, then she completely turns off a tank's ability to mitigate damage, and a tank that can't mitigate damage is dead. And her poking icicles one-shot squishies with a headshot. So, yeah, she'll do less raw damage than 76, or McCree, or a spammy Junkrat, or whatever, but the damage she does is waaaaaaaaaay the fuck more dangerous and is massively harder to deal with/recover from.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
I wish the folks in silver queue understood these kind of role nuances half as well as you all do...
I mean, I'm also just a bad shot.
That being said, I'm on a tear recently. Just call me the Ice Climber... :razz: I'm actually looking at Gold again; still quite a way to go, but it seems possible now! I suspect this is a combination of good advice from this thread and also just the end of a spell of bad luck.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
So many people have been explicitly complaining about that for so long. It's ridiculous.
I agree with Canis that no part of her kit is particularly OP (except multi-freeze). Icicle is fine. Ice block is fine. Ice wall is fine (although I'd like either a slightly longer cooldown or a change so that the cooldown starts when the wall breaks rather than when it casts. Right now it's 10 seconds from when you cast it (it will not show the countdown until the wall is broken, fyi. So if it runs it's course the cooldown will actually start at 5 seconds since it was up for 5 seconds already.). Multi-freeze is what puts her over the edge.
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
A whole lot of the roster is very OP is you assume their enemies always make basic positioning errors. Lining up like that when going after Mei is in the same category as standing still in Widows sniper lane.
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
A whole lot of the roster is very OP is you assume their enemies always make basic positioning errors. Lining up like that when going after Mei is in the same category as standing still in Widows sniper lane.
Stacking up being considered equal to overextending or facetanking a Widowmaker is kinda a weird take? Once a brawl has broken out, being able to just spray into the cloud and slow/freeze everyone you need to is kinda ridiculous. How are you supposed to correct that? Spreading out just means you are more vulnerable to getting picked off in some other way. Mei is virtually unstoppable in a 1v1. Her whole kit is designed around isolating targets and confirming kills on lone targets but multi-freeze just shits all over that.
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
A whole lot of the roster is very OP is you assume their enemies always make basic positioning errors. Lining up like that when going after Mei is in the same category as standing still in Widows sniper lane.
Stacking up being considered equal to overextending or facetanking a Widowmaker is kinda a weird take? Once a brawl has broken out, being able to just spray into the cloud and slow/freeze everyone you need to is kinda ridiculous. How are you supposed to correct that? Spreading out just means you are more vulnerable to getting picked off in some other way. Mei is virtually unstoppable in a 1v1. Her whole kit is designed around isolating targets and confirming kills on lone targets but multi-freeze just shits all over that.
Yes. Stacking against an opponent that is good against stacking is a positioning mistake.
Other opponents you shouldn't stack against: Junkrat, pharah, or anyone else with good aoe abilities.
Good and bad is all relative to what your opponent is doing and what your team is trying to do. :biggrin:
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited February 2020
I don't think they'll ever really nerf Mei's CC too much.
Mainly because as annoying as it is, it also keeps dive from running roughshod again.
Like we're already seeing dive come back a bit and that's with improved Mei and Brig in the game now.
Ran Mei on King's Row defense last night, held A for a few minutes but they swapped to Pharah.
It was beautiful while it lasted. Went Soldier for streets and Sombra for final point (and Tracer when they swapped off Pharah to Soldier/McCree). It was one of those crazy overtimes when the game ends and time slows and neither team was sure who won it. They'd C9'd in the final seconds.
It was like "noooooooo oh wow we won!"
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I don't think they'll ever really nerf Mei's CC too much.
Mainly because as annoying as it is, it also keeps dive from running roughshod again.
Like we're already seeing dive come back a bit and that's with improved Mei and Brig in the game now.
Also while I think the wall is the most tactically-impactful aspect of her kit, freezing people is her identity. S'why they wouldn't let Mercy lose her rez in the rework. As far as they're concerned Mercy doesn't mean flying or damage boosting, she primarily means Resurrect.
Mei definitely means CC, specifically the freeze.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I heard today that the one thing OWL players want changed is, specifically, her spray not freezing multiple targets. Apparently pros are using it in a combo with halt that allows Mei to freeze like half the enemy team.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
A whole lot of the roster is very OP is you assume their enemies always make basic positioning errors. Lining up like that when going after Mei is in the same category as standing still in Widows sniper lane.
Stacking up being considered equal to overextending or facetanking a Widowmaker is kinda a weird take? Once a brawl has broken out, being able to just spray into the cloud and slow/freeze everyone you need to is kinda ridiculous. How are you supposed to correct that? Spreading out just means you are more vulnerable to getting picked off in some other way. Mei is virtually unstoppable in a 1v1. Her whole kit is designed around isolating targets and confirming kills on lone targets but multi-freeze just shits all over that.
So the scenario I'm responding to is two tanks deciding to gank a Mei. In that case if both tanks don't take a big old step apart from each other then they fucked up their positioning.
In a furball fight it is sort of a positioning error but it is the entirely understandable kind made by a series of least bad choices or just information overload. Avoiding it and countering takes a very large amount of situational awareness and skill.
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At my SR that might help a little, but beyond that it doesn't have any impact (I think), and doesn't address her true power.
Ice block isn't really used for its healing - it's a practically incidental feature that is mainly used at the lower ranks, where healers suck as much as DPS. At plat and above, Ice Block is for baiting out and tanking powerful CC abilities like sleep dart, flash bang and shatter, or to quickly cleanse a debuff.
Point being, removing the heal from ice block will have a small but negative impact on Mei at lower ranks at absolutely-zero impact on her play at higher ranks. What makes her monstrous isn't her survivability - it's the wall, and her ability to cut off one player from the rest of their team.
If wall should be retained, the solution is simply to drop the health on its sections so a well-coordinated enemy team can burst down a section quicker to free a trapped teammate.
I should think, at least.
People didn't like strong shields but i didn't hear much "shields are unfair and fun killing". Mei is almost universally touted as THE fun killer.
My real solution to mei is that wall isn't an instant pop / de-pop, it takes time to set up, thus giving enemy teams time to stop her by forcing movement or killing her. Second, her gun should stop movement but not action. Freezing people in place is strong enough without completely stopping ability usage.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
I think lucio actually makes the game more fun, not less fun. Agreed on Mei tho.
Watching NYXL seamlessly swap to dive on Anubis A was awesome. Having Whoru shining in that lineup is fun. Also, I was worried about losing Meko but apparently Hotba is a monster Dva whose more aggro playstyle may be better suited for the meta.
I felt bad for all the Reins who kept getting isolated and bullied by Mei walls.
If you nerf or eliminate freezing then the frost spray itself needs to do a lot more damage as her primary fire. Mei would be making herself very vulnerable to spend so much time spraying someone only for them to continue shooting her.
Do Soldier, Hanzo, Genji and Symmetra still have a jump button? Yes?
Okay then, the game still needs Mei.
...I love that moment.
That's been a problem with the game from the outset and has gotten worse over time. It's pretty rare to get close games.
Arouuuuuuu.
If I were doing her rework, I'd remove the delay on the launch of her secondary fire, which more or less removes any kind of skill component from landing shots outside short range, and maybe speed up the projectile speed a little bit. I don't think I'd change her primary fire, wall, or ultimate at all, except maybe to keep D.va from eating it, or Genji from deflecting it. It's not a projectile, it's a little robot, how does Genji reprogram it with a whack of his blade? Her Cryo-Freeze I might speed up the healing rate, and make the ice block destructible, so there's some counterplay when she's trying to stall the point. That will both get her back in fights faster, for when there's a teamfight, so she can do more than just die last, and also remove some of her stall shenanigans.
That's less a rework and more just straight up providing massive buffs to almost every aspect of her kit.
I would not have called that as the part of her kit to nerf, but Canis_Anubis is correct about one thing - Mei's max DPS is actually lower than, I think, any other DPS. Her spray is super-low DPS, her icicle is easy to miss and with 100% accuracy has the effective DPS of a McCree missing every second shot. Her strength is her survivability, and the wall.
There's nothing in the game like the wall.
It honestly pisses me off when I'm playing tank, I know exactly what we need to make this push happen but I can't swap to Mei lol.
But calling her "Damage" is absolutely giving people the wrong idea about her place in this game.
Her wall's been around forever though, and hasn't been buffed recently, so I don't think that's the whole story. I think what's happening with her is multifold. At the lower ranks, there are more tanks in games due to role queue along with fewer DPS, so fewer of her counters and more of the things she eats for lunch. At the upper levels though, she's being run as basically a third tank since she's got enough sustain and blocking to pull that off, and tanks HAVE to respond to her as a priority, because if they try to block anybody else, then they lose their ability to block PERIOD. Meanwhile, she can just hop right through shields and not even shield dancing well can save you thanks to the buffed lenience on the freeze.
I disagree, her job is to kill things. Her methods are different in that she outlasts opponents rather than bursting them down, but just freezing and walling alone doesn't justify her spot as one of two DPSers on the team. Doing damage with icicles is a huge part of her kit.
It really is what makes her so nasty. Previously she could win 1v1s but if you dive her together she can't win.
Now she'll just freeze both your tanks at the same time and there's nothing really to stop her from doing it. Its really strong against otherwise coordinated teams.
That's kind of circular reasoning. Mei is DPS, so she has to somehow do a lot of damage to justify her place in DPS, which makes her DPS?
Mei was just not designed with 222 in mind. She doesn't fit the paradigm at all.
No, I'm saying Mei is good at killing things - she does respectable damage, and that's what should be expected of her. She doesn't put out the raw DPS of someone like Reaper, but her damage is still decent provided you're landing icicles. I know you don't use her icicles that much and I think you're trying to justify that by suggesting she just isn't meant to do damage, but I think that's wrong. If Mei isn't doing much damage, then that leaves only one person on the team with high DPS output, and that isn't enough.
You said "If Mei isn't doing much damage, then that leaves only one person on the team with high DPS output, and that isn't enough." Which implies you see this a problem with Mei, or maybe with how some folks play Mei. I'm saying the problem is 222 itself. Prior to 222, there was no issue. Because you just ran 3 DPS with Mei, more often that not.
So we can blame Mei, or people playing Mei, or 222 itself, but one way or another I get yelled at a lot for having low damage, and ... i can only improve that so much before I'm going to hit a ceiling, and I suspect that won't be enough for some people.
Mei doesn't have the highest potential damage in the roster and that's fine, she makes it up in utility. I don't think there's a problem with either her or 2-2-2, because I think she fills the damage role just fine. She can do pretty good damage with the post-freeze headshots plus easy tank body shots, it doesn't take great aim. You likely won't get gold, but you should probably get bronze at least as a rule of thumb, not to emphasize the medals too much.
I mean, I'm also just a bad shot.
That being said, I'm on a tear recently. Just call me the Ice Climber... :razz: I'm actually looking at Gold again; still quite a way to go, but it seems possible now! I suspect this is a combination of good advice from this thread and also just the end of a spell of bad luck.
So many people have been explicitly complaining about that for so long. It's ridiculous.
I agree with Canis that no part of her kit is particularly OP (except multi-freeze). Icicle is fine. Ice block is fine. Ice wall is fine (although I'd like either a slightly longer cooldown or a change so that the cooldown starts when the wall breaks rather than when it casts. Right now it's 10 seconds from when you cast it (it will not show the countdown until the wall is broken, fyi. So if it runs it's course the cooldown will actually start at 5 seconds since it was up for 5 seconds already.). Multi-freeze is what puts her over the edge.
A whole lot of the roster is very OP is you assume their enemies always make basic positioning errors. Lining up like that when going after Mei is in the same category as standing still in Widows sniper lane.
Stacking up being considered equal to overextending or facetanking a Widowmaker is kinda a weird take? Once a brawl has broken out, being able to just spray into the cloud and slow/freeze everyone you need to is kinda ridiculous. How are you supposed to correct that? Spreading out just means you are more vulnerable to getting picked off in some other way. Mei is virtually unstoppable in a 1v1. Her whole kit is designed around isolating targets and confirming kills on lone targets but multi-freeze just shits all over that.
Yes. Stacking against an opponent that is good against stacking is a positioning mistake.
Other opponents you shouldn't stack against: Junkrat, pharah, or anyone else with good aoe abilities.
Good and bad is all relative to what your opponent is doing and what your team is trying to do. :biggrin:
Mainly because as annoying as it is, it also keeps dive from running roughshod again.
Like we're already seeing dive come back a bit and that's with improved Mei and Brig in the game now.
It was beautiful while it lasted. Went Soldier for streets and Sombra for final point (and Tracer when they swapped off Pharah to Soldier/McCree). It was one of those crazy overtimes when the game ends and time slows and neither team was sure who won it. They'd C9'd in the final seconds.
It was like "noooooooo oh wow we won!"
Also while I think the wall is the most tactically-impactful aspect of her kit, freezing people is her identity. S'why they wouldn't let Mercy lose her rez in the rework. As far as they're concerned Mercy doesn't mean flying or damage boosting, she primarily means Resurrect.
Mei definitely means CC, specifically the freeze.
So the scenario I'm responding to is two tanks deciding to gank a Mei. In that case if both tanks don't take a big old step apart from each other then they fucked up their positioning.
In a furball fight it is sort of a positioning error but it is the entirely understandable kind made by a series of least bad choices or just information overload. Avoiding it and countering takes a very large amount of situational awareness and skill.