Mei Storms the Nexus
“Our world is worth fighting for.” – Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou
Despite her sunny demeanor, Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou has always had a knack for manipulating the colder elements to aid in her fight against the enemies of Overwatch. Now, utilizing the latest in temperature-dropping technologies, Mei has stepped out of the lab and into the Nexus to give her opponents a thorough thermal thrashing.
Ability Breakdown:
Thanks to the disruptive, protective, and surprisingly restorative properties of Mei’s icy engineering, this bone-chilling bruiser can get in the opponent’s face with her Endothermic Blaster, disrupt and devastate teamfights, then slide out of the skirmish unscathed.
Basic Abilities
(D) - Cryo-Freeze
Encase yourself in ice for 3 seconds, gaining a rapidly decaying Shield that absorbs damage. While active, this Shield grants Unstoppable and restores up to 35% maximum Health.
(Q) - Snow Blind
Throw a snowball that hits all enemies in an area. Enemies hit take damage, are Slowed by 35%, and are Blinded for 1.5 seconds.
(W) - Blizzard
Command Snowball to create a blizzard at the target location for 2 seconds. Enemies within the blizzard take damage every 0.25 seconds and are Slowed by 7%, stacking up to 35%. When the blizzard ends, enemies within its area take additional damage and are stunned for 1.25 seconds.
(E) - Icing
Slide quickly in the targeted direction. When this effect ends, enemies near Mei are knocked back, take damage, and are Slowed by 80%, rapidly decaying over 1.5 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
After 0.5 seconds, roll a massive snowball that consumes enemy Heroes in its path. At the end of its path, the snowball crumbles, releasing the consumed Heroes, dealing damage and stunning them for 0.5 seconds per Hero consumed.
After a 0.75 second delay, create an impassable wall that traps enemy Heroes hit for 2.5 seconds. When the wall expires, trapped Heroes are slowed by 75%, decaying over 3 seconds.
Making Mei:
Join Game Designer David Warner as he briefly breaks down what went into bringing one of Overwatch’s most polarizing agents into the Nexus:
Defining Mei’s playstyle:
Despite her gentle disposition, Mei is a kind of a bully in the Nexus. Since all her basic abilities offer some amount of slow and an additional form of CC, she can easily control the flow of combat and repeatedly disrupt her enemies. She really wants to get in someone’s face and keep them controlled while her teammates take them down.
Translating Mei from Overwatch to Heroes of the Storm:
From the beginning we knew a direct translation of Mei’s kit from Overwatch was not going to work for Heroes of the Storm. Being able to attack while moving is already a huge advantage and tacking on crowd control effects would have made her the most frustrating Hero of all time. Looking at the available pieces of her kit, we decided that she was inevitably going to more closely resemble a Tank or Bruiser, as opposed to her more damage-oriented role from Overwatch. Once we made that decision, the rest of her kit very quickly fell into place. We liked how it felt to have Mei as a ranged tank, so we doubled down on that by giving her Snow Blind (Q). Her ultimate in Overwatch, Blizzard (W), was such an iconic part of her Overwatch kit we knew we had to carry it over though it made more sense as a basic ability for our game. We tried a few iterations of Icing (E), but quickly fell in love with its current form because of the natural combo-caster playstyle it created.
Friends and Foes:
Works Well With:
Burst Mages
Mei’s ability to slow and disable enemies from long range makes it easier for fragile high-damage mages, such as Tassadar and Kael’thas, to land their big abilities. Additionally, Mei’s disruption effects can keep her fragile backline safe from would-be divers.
Disabling Heroes
Anyone with area crowd control effects, such as Malfurion, Imperius, or Junkrat, can easily combo their disables with Mei’s Blizzard and Icing, potentially shutting down whole teams for long periods of time.
Jimmy
Our favorite Renegade Commander, Jimmy Raynor, loves having Mei around for near constant uptime on his Ace in the Hole talent.Struggles Against:
Disabling Effects
Outside of Cryo-Freeze, Mei lacks any way to avoid disabling effects, so she is susceptible to being locked down and interrupted by other tank and bruiser Heroes like Muradin or Diablo.Solo Engagements
Because of her low damage output, Heroes with smaller health pools don’t have to avoid confronting Mei as they might for some other tanks. Mei is highly dependent on her allies for dishing out damage and serving up killing blows.Sustained Damage
Mei lacks sustained healing and damage reduction, so damage dealers can soften her up between teamfights with consistent poke damage.Mei is taking the Nexus by storm (blizzard, of course) with today’s patch. We can’t wait to see what you do with this crystalizing climatologist!
