Mei is coming to Heroes of the Storm. Who saw that one coming?

Yes, Heroes of the Storm is still around. Blizzard’s little MOBA has kept on trucking despite running on a skeleton crew, and now it’s getting its first new hero since October of 2019. That’s eight months since getting a new character, which is a record for the game.

And it’s yet another Overwatch character, making Mei the eighth one to cross over from that game into the Nexus.

I think we're all pretty familiar with Mei-Ling Zhou's backstory by now, so we're going to focus on how her abilities transfer between Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm. Most of her moves will be familiar to Overwatch players, but she's got a few surprises up her sleeve too.

First is her Q ability, Snowblind. Basically a snowball, this ranged AOE slows and blinds all enemies in the impact area, making it great for taking out dive characters like Tracer and Illidan.

Mei's W ability, Blizzard, is an AOE attack that damages and slows anyone caught in the effect. If you're still in Blizzard at the end, you'll also get stunned, which is bad news for anyone. It's interesting to see Mei's Overwatch heroic ability relegated to a standard one, but you'll find her HOTS heroics to more than make up for it.

Her E ability is Icing, a fast-moving slide that allows Mei to reposition and also has some light crowd control effects. Anyone caught at the end of the slight is stunned and knocked back.

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And now we arrive at Mei's heroic abilities. Her first R is Avalanche, which is a giant rolling snowball that sucks up enemies to get rolled along with the snowball. At the end, the ball explodes and stuns anyone caught in the explosion--including everyone that got sucked up into the ball.

The second heroic ability is Icewall. Normally used for blocking line-of-sight in Overwatch, Icewall will now also freeze anyone caught inside the wall as it's summoned. After a few seconds, the ice wall melts and anyone who was frozen is slowed.

But perhaps Mei’s best ability is her trait. By pressing D, Mei encases herself in ice similar to Nazeebo’s Ice Block talent, but she’s also healed as she’s frozen.

To be honest, Mei seems like a strictly better ETC with more crowd control than anyone else in the game and a self-heal. That’s sort of nuts, but we’ll have to see how she plays out before we decide if she’s truly busted or not.

Mei is available now on the PTS, with her official arrival in HOTS set for June 23.

Source: Blizzard

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