OverwatchOverwatch Mei Guide and Overview

Specialising in controlling space and manipulating the environment, Mei’s opponents end up frozen with fear. Ice Wall defines her kit and has ruined the day for countless Tank mains. Against heroes with poor mobility, getting walled off can feel like a helpless situation with no counterplay. Don’t sleep on her at long ranges either, because her icicle secondary fire can two-tap you from across the map. Typically, Mei will position pushed up with her Tank where she has the most opportunities to split off the enemy team. Once she gets her Perks activated, be ready to deal with constant crowd control.

TLDR

Play As

• Isolate the enemy Tank from their team by placing Ice Wall right behind them.
• When Ice Wall and Cyrofreeze are both on cooldown, stay near your allies and away from the enemy.
• Use Ice Wall as a shield to protect yourself. It’s great for cutting off enemy LoS and keeping you and your team safe.

Play Against

• Break her wall! Shoot a single pillar to quickly create an opening for trapped teammates to walk through.
• Play around her cooldowns. When she has Ice Wall, don’t casually walk through a choke and get walled off. Wait until she’s used it before pushing up.
• Stay outside her primary fire range. Her secondary fire range is less consistent and easier to deal with.

Strengths

Divide and conquer

The main reason to pick Mei is for Ice Wall. Splitting off enemies from their team is often the quickest and most consistent way to win fights.

Controls space

Mei’s presence and threat of Ice Wall are good for holding choke points and controlling areas. Anytime the enemy wants to get close, they’ll have to plan how to survive her primary fire, Ice Wall, and Blizzard.

Adaptable kit

She can be a frontliner, ranged poke, and an anti-dive hero. Mei’s kit allows her to adapt to what her team needs based on team comps and map selection.

Weaknesses

Feast or Famine

Abilities like Ice Wall, Blizzard, and icicle are either massive value or zero value. A poorly placed Ice Wall does nothing, and if you can’t hit secondary fire consistently, you’re contributing nothing to the fight.

Low damage

Damage output is not her strong suit. Sometimes this leads to slow Ult building and falling behind in Ult economy. If you aren’t getting elims from Ice Wall, you should probably swap off Mei.

No mobility

Other than using Ice Wall as an elevator, Mei has no mobility whatsoever. She can protect herself, but she can’t escape, reposition quickly, or chase down retreating enemies.

Primary Fire: Endothermic Blaster

Tips for Endothermic Blaster

• Slow enemy retreats
• • The slow debuff increases the amount of time it takes for enemies to disengage from the fight. If you see an enemy trying to escape, keep primary fire on them and buy your team more time to eliminate them.
• Slow then icicle
• • For increased burst damage, once you’ve inflicted slow on the enemy, try to headshot them with secondary fire.
• Treated as a beam weapon
• • Endothermic Blaster ignores Defense Matrix, Deflect, Javelin Spin, and Kinetic Grasp. When you see these abilities used, you can damage the hero through it.

Secondary Fire: Endothermic Blaster Icicle 

Tips for Endothermic Blaster

• Poke
• • Mei has decent poke capabilities. Landing a single critical hit with icicle on any DPS or Support forces them to hide and wait for healing.
  • In the beginning phases of a fight, use secondary fire to build ult charge, and possibly get an early pick.
• Hold angles
• • Icicle’s slow rate of fire makes it good for jiggle peeking. Stand at a corner or wall and try to only expose yourself when firing. Then, quickly hide behind cover between each shot.
• Headshot frozen enemies
• • Anytime you freeze an enemy with Blizzard or Deep Freeze, always headshot them with secondary fire. Don’t keep holding primary fire because the damage is significantly lower.

[SHIFT]: Cryo-Freeze

Tips for Cryo-Freeze

• Invincibility
• • Counters stun. In match-ups against enemies with stuns like Cassidy Flashbang or Ana’s Sleep Dart, use Cryo-Freeze to block their stun. Doing so essentially guarantees you’ll win the duel.
  • Mei takes zero damage from enemy attacks and can’t be healed by allies in Cryo-Freeze. Useful to survive attacks you otherwise couldn’t escape, like Gravitic Flux.
• Breaks LoS
• • Earth Shatter, D.Va bomb, and Deadeye are all good examples of Ultimates that require LoS. Ice blocking not only protects you, but it can also shield a teammate hiding directly behind you.
• Reloads Endothermic Blaster
• • While in ice block, Mei slowly reloads about half her ammo.
• Healing
• • A full duration Cryo-Freeze will restore Mei’s entire health.
• Block doors
• • When your team is capturing an objective, and the enemy team is returning from their spawn, Cryo-Freeze in small doorways to block their path for five seconds. 
  • They can’t do anything to stop you, and can Ice Wall after for increased safety and stall duration.

[E]: Ice Wall

Tips for Ice Wall

• Wall Tanks
• • Easiest way to quickly win a fight is to separate a Tank from the rest of their team by placing Ice Wall directly behind the Tank. They’ll be cut off from healing, and their team can’t attack yours. Unless the Tank can jump over the Wall, they typically won’t survive. 
• Wall choke points
• • Whether you are stalling the objective and want to stop the entire team from entering, or dividing the team in half, chokes are Mei’s best friend.
  • Even leaving a single enemy stuck behind Ice Wall gives your team the opportunity to win while you are one player up.
• Cut off LoS
• • Ice Wall breaks LoS from any abilities that require LoS. You can Wall in front of Immortality Field to prevent its effect. 
  • Ults like Earth Shatter and Annihilation can be blocked by Ice Wall.
• Rotations
• • If the enemy team has the poke advantage, Wall them off to buy your team time to rotate across open.
• Trap enemies in a 1v1
• • Mei is really good in close-range 1v1 because her primary fire is easy to hit, slows the enemy, and she can heal herself. Anytime an enemy ends up in a room with you, Wall the exit to trap them.
• Stall objectives
• • Of all the DPS, Mei is the best at stalling objectives. Go into a corner and Ice Wall yourself while waiting for your team to return.
  • Coming out of Cryo-Freeze, look straight down and Ice Wall. You’ll end up on top and can jump down to separate yourself from the enemy waiting to attack you.
• Ice elevator.
• • Ice wall beneath your feet and you’ll lift up yourself and nearby allies. Useful for accessing high ground for yourself and other teammates who have no vertical mobility. 

Ultimate: Blizzard

Tips for Blizzard

• Trap with Wall
• • Place an Ice Wall just behind the enemy as they try to escape your Ult.
  • Blizzard freeze effect goes through your Wall, so don’t worry about cutting off your LoS.
• Survive with Cryo-Freeze
• • If you go deep into the enemy team for Blizzard, you can Cryo-Freeze until the enemy freezes, then exit and start right-clicking their heads.
• Primary fire speeds up the freeze effect
• • Shooting enemies with primary fire will freeze them from Blizzard quicker.
• Needs LoS
• • Walls, structures, and Lifeweaver Tree cut off Blizzard’s AoE.
  • Blizzard does, however, go through shields and barriers.
• Cast time
• • After a short startup animation, Mei tosses the Blizzard drone, but it only activates once it’s landed on the ground.
  • Against D.Va and Sigma specifically, throw straight at the ground or in between their absorption abilities. 
• Wait out mobility and invulnerability
• • Against enemies with dashes or CC immune abilities like Fortify, wait until you see those abilities used before using Blizzard. Otherwise, they will easily counter your ult, and you’ll have wasted it.

Minor Perks

Biting Cold

• Stronger Minor Perk
• Follow-up shots
• • After landing your first icicle, the follow up shots are easier to hit, and keep the enemy slowed.
  • 1.5 seconds of slow only leaves a brief moment where the enemy isn’t slowed if you at least land every other shot.
• Slow down enemy Tank’s approach
• • Tanks are easier to hit with secondary fire. They all want to push up to your team and get in close. Focusing them with Biting Cold icicle gives your team more time to chip away at their health before they can close the distance.

Permafrost

• Cut off the enemy backline
• • Most Supports lack the damage to quickly break Ice Wall. The extra duration from Permafrost gets a lot of value when used to cut off enemy Supports from the rest of their team.
  • You can effectively take away the enemy's healing for seven full seconds. 
• Niche
• • Rarely will your wall last for seven seconds without being broken. Most of the time, it’s better to take Biting Cold.

Major Perks

Deep Freeze

• Play close and hold corners
• • The ability to freeze enemies means you’ll want to spend as much time in primary fire range as possible. Position up front with your tank, or find enemies you can flank.
  • When defending, stay at the choke and any corners. This forces close-range fights. Anyone who approaches you has to deal with the threat of being frozen, on top of getting walled off.
• Anti-Dive
• • Freezing any dive DPS is a death sentence for them. When the enemy team has mobility heroes giving you a hard time, shut them down with the Deep Freeze.

Cryo-Storm

• Big damage potential
• • Cryo-Storm deals 70 damage every second for up to 350 damage total. 
  • Try to trap an enemy in a corner or between Ice Wall and Cryo-storm.
• Block doorways
• • As noted in the Cryo-Freeze tips, blocking doorways is very strong for capturing and stalling objectives. Cryo-Storm adds damage as well, making the tactic even better!
• Ult charge
• • The extra damage Mei deals from Cryo-Storm adds up to a lot of extra ult generation over the course of a game. This is especially true when getting multiple enemies in your AoE.
• Blizzard combo
• • Similar to your primary fire, the slow effect of Cryo-Storm will speed up the freeze effect of Blizzard. 
  • The tech is OP since Mei’s invincible and slows enemies too fast for them to escape by walking out.

Mei tends to have an easier time finding value on non-payload maps. The stationary objectives of Control, Flashpoint, and Clash naturally have chokepoints for Mei to Wall off. Regardless of the game mode, Mei likes maps with tight spaces and wants to avoid wide open spaces at all costs. Icicle gives her decent poke pressure, but she’s at a clear disadvantage against snipers on long sight lines. Since she lacks mobility, she also struggles on maps that favor dive and have a lot of high ground.

Best maps

• Lijiang Tower
• Oasis
• Throne of Anubis

Worst Maps

• Circuit Royal
• Watchpoint: Gibraltar
• Junkertown

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!