Mei recently got removed because there was a bug that allowed Kiriko to glitch outside of the map, and she’s always had a series of nerfs, firstly from being able to freeze with her primary then being able to shatter frozen enemies even in her ultimate with her ice blast, but now after this most recent nerf not even her icewall is immortal and crumbles with very little effort now which does make her one of the weakest characters available.
Why do I say she’s weaker than other characters, well firstly lets look at the abilities most other characters have.
Mobility, mei is known to be one of the slowest moving characters in the game but besides this every other character has some sort of significant mobility move where they can either fly or do some form of dash away from the area while already moving quicker yet mei as the slowest has no such move to get away from anything, and there are even characters such as echo who can not only fly but also have a dash move to give them tremendous mobility
Attack power, as mei is considered a dps character and rather squishy she certainly lacks any significant power in her weapon as even if you use your ultimate and freeze their entire team your primary will barely tickle enemies and your secondary won’t even take down an opponent at full health and good luck taking down a tank as you will just sit holding your primary on them and nothing will happen, whereas other dps characters will have strong attacks that are swift and on top of this they will also have a secondary fire which fires a swift series of bullets of their significantly stronger weapon (equivalent of if she would be given swift fire for her ice blast) and then I have noticed recently that maverick/cassidy has a stick power that throws roughly where you aim and locks onto a character and will instantly take down a full health mei which other characters in dps also have equivalent instant takedown moves on top of all their other damage moves, but all mei has is her primary which barely tickles but slows enemies and her ice blast which takes a long time to fire shots between and no instant takedown equivalent. Furthermore her primary is so short range that you have to get in close to even attempt to damage them with your tickleblower.
With her moveset although she doesn’t provide any significantly healing to other characters what she does have certainly seems more geared towards being a support character, although most support characters in the game still have significantly stronger weapons than hers and will often be able especially in the case of kiriko be able to take mei down in a single hit but not even a crit from mei’s iceblast to the head will do the same to them and you will have to land 2 crits to take down a squishy enemy. If she was a support at least she would then get the healing over time statistic, even though entering her shell essentially is a self heal (but other dps characters have that along with strong primary attacks such as soldier 76)
Mei’s ultimate is also one of the weakest in the game, and while it can be used to great means like holding objectives from being taken compared to other ultimates it is definitely the weakest because other ultimates offer team killing potential, from dva’s exploding mech which takes out instantly all enemies in range, soldier 76’s aimbot, I could just list all the ultimates which all give damage severely to the enemy team, but mei’s even if you catch all 5 of the enemy team inside it will just freeze them for a second or two with barely any damage, doesn’t give her weapons any buffs to damaging the opponents and will more often than not fall flat if you try to use it as an attack rather than a defence. Furthermore as if it wasn’t bad enough that most characters can use their mobility dodge to get out of the freeze in the slow time that it triggers some moves like shields or even kiriko’s ultimate which I have witnessed her trigger after freezing freeing the entire team from my ultimate after I captured them makes it even worse as ultimates go as practically anyone can get out of it and that’s before your own teammates sabotage you pushing them out of the freezes with their moves.
So ultimately while every other character has some form of mobility move to dash or fly out of the way quickly, mei has the ability to turn into an icicle and regain health but not really get out of the way of an entire team when your teammates all fall where other characters can be severely evasive, all other dps characters have stronger weapons, with a special instant takedown move along with a rapid fire move all of which mei lacks. The one move mei has been given is a wall which effectively has been nerfed to the degree that anyone can just blast through it now that it offers no protection and is at best something to hold back enemies for 1 second so she really has no protection whatsoever now; and on the scale of ultimates hers offers little to no value and does not do any significant damage and offers her no advantage to use as all the ways it would have been useful like being able to shatter enemies have all been nerfed even though it takes more skill to go in and shatter then with the ice blast after they’re frozen compared to the examples of other characters ultimates.
Despite all of this I still have fun playing with mei and I do still rank highly on the eliminations vs deaths but there is no denying that she is one of the weakest characters in the game, and while I do play her more like a tank and throw myself into the fray as that’s all you really can do as you have no mobility and your moves are freeze yourself and create a temporary nuisance barrier, and if you want to use your primary you have to get up close and personal because it has so little range, and you’d be better off being someone like widowmaker if you really wanted to snipe from afar rather than using the icicles (and again hero with far more powers than mei’s barely anything and moves quicker)
So really mei does not belong in the dps characters with the moveset as she really does not cause damage, what she causes is chaos and nuisance and while she plays like a tank and has moves like tanks essentially damage mitigation with her icewall and her self freeze but she doesn’t have the 600-700 health of a tank and is far squishier, she’s certainly slow like roadhog but again all tanks have stronger attacks than her still also and still have ultimates that wreak havoc as opposed to her temporary annoyance freeze ultimate.
If she’s supposed to be a dps main she should be buffed in her attack powers so she has a quick takedown move like cassidy and junkrat etc, a rapid fire like them on the iceblast and whatever roll she needs a quick dash (even if it turns her into a snowball that rolls away which would be fun and fitting) If she’s supposed to be a tank she has the moves and really just needs a health buff and perhaps a dash for mobility and if she’s support maybe she can have the ability to add a healing wave to her freezegun and get the self heal buff. Whatever class her ultimate definitely needs to be returned to the ability where it could shatter enemies or at the very least make her weapon strong and powerful while they’re frozen so she can actually take down something she’s frozen that isn’t already low health as other ults destroy full health tanks.
This is all just my personal view, but mei really doesn’t fit into any of the roles and does seem a combination of all three but constantly weakened and nerfed to oblivion while other characters remained buffed, and the excuse that she’s strong is proven wrong, while there are players who can make her work despite all of these nerfs and lack of abilities there are definitely hard counters to mei like flying characters she will struggle to get to and shields and lazer characters, all very strong counters to mei.
It does seem to me that because she’s good against characters like cassidy and soldier 76 (literally the meta characters) she gets nerfed for the sake of competitive players complaining she’s too strong just because she can counter them, but she really isn’t and this just creates the competitive meta just being the same characters over and over so really other characters do need a buff and balancing to create diversity so essentially any character can be taken onto the field and be able to do something rather than leaving 70% of the characters essentially unplayable, and if you take someone like mei you have to play extra hard just to even stand a chance against everyone else.
There literally is nothing else the could nerf from her at this point already weakened to oblivion but she does still remain fun, but the points I have mentioned here really do prove she is a weak hero and not competitive, a close range weapon that does practically no damage, a slow firing secondary which does less damage than most other characters primary weak attacks, a terribly weak ultimate in comparison to all others and just some support based moves and no strong moves like every other dps while also being slow and having no mobility moves.
I don’t know what makes mei so special that she has been nerfed to this degree but balancing certainly isn’t a consideration here as she does need more mobility and more damage to even be up to the standard of any other overwatch members, but as the motto is never give up and always try your hardest, while not a true hero as an ordinary scientist who’s been forced to join the fray with the heroes she can if you’re a good player hold her own but there is no denying how weak her moveset and weapons are in comparison to all other overwatch superheroes, she’s just an ordinary girl who’s adapted a hairdryer to tickle enemies with ice and cause annoyance to your enemies and really frustrate them.