Alongside Bastion, Mei has always been one of the Overwatch franchise’s most annoying characters. While Bastion is capable of wiping out heroes instantly with his high rate of fire and high damage, Mei is a crowd-control menace who can isolate, slow, and headshot low-health heroes, instantly wiping them out. Even though she can’t freeze enemies with her primary fire anymore, she’s still a more than capable hero in the right hands.
If your team’s tank isn’t good at peeling for your backline or you find yourself constantly being chased by Mei, there are a handful of counter-strategies at your disposal. While Overwatch 2 isn’t built on a simple rock-paper-scissors counter system, there are a few heroes who have beneficial abilities or damage styles that can take her out more easily.
Here are the best Mei counters in Overwatch 2.
Moira
Moira’s biggest asset in a fight against Mei is her Fade. This ability acts as a crowd control cleanse in most situations, removing any negative effects on Moira and giving her a burst of speed to get away from a bad situation. If Mei slows Moira with her primary fire, Moira can simply use Fade to run away, putting some distance between her and Mei. Moira’s sustain damage can also win out against Mei in an extended fight, particularly since the former’s effective damage range is longer than Mei’s.
Hanzo
Hanzo is a hero who excels at dealing high damage at long range, both of which are characteristics that make him great for taking on Mei. While Mei is powerful, she’s constrained mostly to short range thanks to the nature of her primary fire. Hanzo can fire off arrows from a sniper’s perch and keep Mei at bay while also protecting himself. While Mei can put up a wall to stymie the sniper’s shots, he can use his high mobility to simply reposition and find another angle. His Dragonstrike ultimate can also keep Mei’s allies from capitalizing on her own ultimate.
Pharah
Like Hanzo, Pharah is great at staying out of Mei’s range. It’s nearly impossible to freeze her when she flies off the ground and peppers the ground with rockets. Pharah can either deal damage directly to Mei or keep her away from her teammates by knocking her back with Concussive Blast. Just make sure to watch where you land: a good Mei will keep an eye out for Pharah players on the ground and can capitalize on the hero’s relative uselessness while grounded.
Echo
Echo’s effectiveness against Mei is similar to Pharah’s: Echo’s Flight and Glide abilities mostly keep her out of range of Mei’s abilities. Mei’s icicle-shooting secondary fire isn’t hitscan, so it’s difficult for even the best Mei players to hit a swooping and diving Echo. Mei may try to wall off Echo with Ice Wall, but like with Hanzo, Echo’s extremely high mobility makes getting around the wall easy. While Echo is harder to pick up and play than Pharah, if your goal is to make Mei as frustrated as she makes you, she’s worth a shot.
Sombra
Sombra is great against heroes who rely heavily on their abilities. While Mei can still slow heroes while hacked by Sombra, she can’t use Cryo-Freeze to heal and become invulnerable. Mei has slightly more health than the average damage hero—250 versus 200—and much more self-healing potential, so a hack from Sombra makes it that much easier to burst her down with your team. Sombra can also use Translocator to get out of the way of Mei’s slow, keeping herself safe during critical fights.
