Mei Build Guide “A-Mei-Zing!”

Mei is a Tank who relies on various types of crowd control to mess up the enemy plans and some peculiar forms of self-sustain to survive longer during team fights.

Strengths

• High survivability
• Decent damage output
• Versatile crowd control
• Good mobility

Weaknesses

• Not able to peel from high mobility Heroes (like Tracer)
• Weak to Knockbacks and Roots

Icing Build

Recommended

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10 ?

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20 ?

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Mei's Icing Build is focused on improving your damage to enemy Heroes and increasing the crowd control you can provide during team fights, at the cost of some survivability.

The cooldown reduction provided by Cold Front at Level 4 is great for using Black Ice at Level 16 more often and to have Icing up when Blizzard is up thanks to the cooldown reduction given by Flurry at Level 13.

Cryo-Freeze Build

Situational

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10 ?

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20 ?

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Mei's Cryo-Freeze Build is designed to increase her survivability and sustain damage via Basic Attacks.

The additional survivability comes from Crystallize at Level 4, a defensive Talent that makes it harder for the enemy team to break the Shield provided by Cryo-Freeze.

The damage increase is primarily provided by Heat Transfer at Level 1, combined with the Passive effect from Cooling Servos at Level 13. With these Talents, you can pressure the enemy frontline.

Snow Blind Build

Situational

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10 ?

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20 ?

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Mei's Snow Blind Build is quite good to counter enemy Heroes who primarily deal damage via Basic Attacks and also lack mobility (notably The Butcher and Zul'jin).

Blind them twice in a row thanks to Fresh Powder at Level 16 and then again thanks to Heavy Pack at Level 1 giving cooldown reduction. In addition to that, Skating Away at Level 7 grants Physical Armor, which also counters Basic Attacks.

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Mei synergizes with

Considering that her Basic Abilities are not that reliable when trying to engage enemy Heroes, Mei prefers having allied Heroes who can initiate for her (for example Maiev).

Similarly, Mei benefits from Heroes that can help her to keep enemy Heroes within Blizzard by creating impassable terrain (like Tassadar with Force Wall) or by Knocking back enemy Heroes nearby (such as Maiev with Umbral Bind).

As she provides a lot of crowd control, Mei performs better with Heroes that can follow-up her Abilities with burst damage (for example Jaina).

The high Slow uptime is good for Heroes who get increased damage from it (such as Greymane with Executioner at Level 16).

Mei is countered by

Mei suffers while facing Heroes who have access to any kind of mobility because she will have a hard time trying to engage and her peeling tools will not accomplish anything (for example Tracer).

Roots (such as Entangling Roots by Malfurion) and Knockbacks (like Face Melt by E.T.C.) can stop her while trying to engage with Icing.

While she does not gets completely shut down by them, Mei also does not like effects that reduce healing (for example Biotic Grenade by Ana), deal percent-damage (such as Cursed Bullet at Level 10 by Greymane), or deal bonus damage to Shields (like EMP Grenade at Level 13 by Lt. Morales). The same is true for Heroes who can poke her team from a long distance (such as Li-Ming).

Last but not the least, you can combine crowd control and burst damage to kill Mei before she can even use Cryo-Freeze defensively.

Mei's stronger maps

Mei's average maps

Mei's weaker maps

Mei is good on Maps that have narrow passages where she can get more value from her Abilities (for example Cursed Hollow), especially if there is a Boss to contest because her Abilities are great for that.

Mei has good waveclear, making her a good pick on Maps where macro is important. Keep in mind, though, that she will not be able to help you capture Mercenary Camps quickly.

While she can fight just fine in open space, Mei loses a lot of value when enemy Heroes are not forced into a choke point (Hanamura Temple comes to mind).

• The moderate Slow provided by Snow Blind can be used to slightly increase the chance that Blizzard will connect and that Icing will hit enemy Heroes from a good angle.
• The high but decaying Slow provided by Icing must be used to drastically increase the chance that the Stun at the end of Blizzard will trigger.
• Avalanche can split the enemy team by pushing some enemy Heroes away, even behind impassable terrain.
• After you aggressively get behind an enemy Hero by using Icing, you can push them towards your team with Avalanche.
• If you catch 3 enemy Heroes with Avalanche, you can follow the snowball with Icing to be in range for casting Blizzard as a follow-up to the prolonged Stun.
• Ice Wall can be used to split the enemy team by putting in Time Stop some Heroes and fighting the others.
• A well-timed Blizzard—exactly 0.5 seconds after your Heroic Ability connects—will always Stun enemy Heroes affected by Ice Wall.
• You can use Ice Wall behind enemy Heroes to block their retreat or in front of them to stop their engage.

Mei is a Tank that excels at punishing enemy Heroes who lack mobility to play around her Slows.

She has access to powerful Heroic Abilities that, when having a Mage in team, can be used to make scary combos. That said, Avalanche and Ice Wall are already strong on their own, both for engaging and for peeling. With a bit of creativity, you can make powerful tricks with them.