'Overwatch' hero spotlight: How to suck less with Mei's ice powers
Want help with a different hero? Click here to check out our master Overwatch guide, where you'll find links to tips and strategies for each hero in the game.
Each Overwatch hero is a special snowflake.
Different guns, different abilities, different movement speeds, different quirks. Learning to excel with one hero doesn't mean you've mastered Overwatch.
You May Also Like
Playing a hero the "right" way only gets you so far, of course. Positioning, team formation (on both sides) and overall skill level are still important; you can play a hero perfectly and still lose. But you probably won't win until you learn to play whoever you're using right.
We've got you covered. Read on for tips, strategies and ideal maps/modes to help you suck less at using Overwatch's soft-spoken, hard-hitting ice princess, Mei.
Ability breakdown
Weapon: Endothermic Blaster. Shoots out a short-range freezing spray that briefly immobilizes enemies after 2-3 seconds of sustained fire. Ammo capacity is 200, with freezing spray draining it at a rate of 20 ammo per second.
Secondary fire: Icicle. Slow-firing spikes of ice that deal moderate damage at medium range. Each shot consumes 25 ammo from the clip.
Cryo-Freeze: Mei temporarily immobilizes herself in a block of ice, rendering herself invulnerable and healing up to 150 health. The block lasts as long as four seconds, and there's a 12-second cooldown.
Ice Wall: Creates a five-pillar wall of ice with a 4.5-second duration and a 10-second cooldown. Each pillar has 500 health and can be destroyed before an Ice Wall expires.
Ultimate ability: Blizzard. Mei tosses out a small probe that damages, slows and rapidly freezes any foe caught in its area of effect, marked by a colored circle on the ground. The probe lasts for five seconds.
How to Mei
Mei is a powerful defensive support hero who excels at zone control and area denial. She's best for buttoning up a position or making her chosen piece of the battlefield hazardous for all enemies.
For close-quarters engagements, there are few better Overwatch weapons than Mei's Endothermic Blaster. A deep ammo pool allows for 10 seconds of uninterrupted freezing spray that makes it difficult for even the speediest of foes to escape.
The only problem with Mei's spray is its low damage output. But she has a powerful one-two killing blow thanks to the blaster's Icicle attack. Freeze an enemy solid with your spray and then, before they can thaw, quickly fire off an Icicle headshot or two to finish the job.
Ice Wall lets you cut off flanking routes or funnel an approaching team into a bottleneck, but aiming can be tricky. The center of your Ice Wall is wherever the crosshairs are focused, with the rest extending an equal distance on either side.
Overwatch helpfully includes a guide for placing your Ice Walls -- just look for the glowing stripe on the ground when you activate the ability. Pressing the ability button once brings up the Ice Wall guide. Pressing it again rotates the guide 90 degrees. You can also press the ability button after a wall is active to destroy it, useful when you accidentally block allied attacks.
Cryo-Freeze gives Mei the rare Overwatch ability to self-heal and it's one of the game's best "oh sh*t" buttons. It lasts long enough that most enemies will move on or deal with either threats before you can move again.
Ice Wall and Cryo-Freeze make an excellent combo when escape is on your mind. Once you turn into an ice block, use the few seconds of breathing room to aim at the ground between you and your attackers. If you're quick, you should be able to raise a wall after Cryo-Freeze wears off and make an escape.
Ice Wall can also serve as a makeshift elevator for Mei and her allies. Build one underneath your/an ally's feet to reach positions that would be otherwise inaccessible to certain heroes.
Blizzard is a helpful ultimate -- especially when it pairs with more damaging ultimates -- but timing is a concern. Mei takes a second and a half to toss out her probe and then it's another two seconds before trapped foes are completely frozen. They'll slow down as they freeze, but they can still shoot.
Try to hold off on tossing out Blizzard until the main attacking force is clustered together and occupied with other threats.
Best maps/modes: Mei is indispensable in "Defend" scenarios, obviously; that's the role category she falls under. But she's also a potent offensive force. Control maps (Ilios, Lijiang Tower, Nepal) in particular are very Mei-friendly since they always come down to close-quarters scrapping.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Topics Blizzard Entertainment Esports Gaming
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
