Mei's Snowball Offensive

A Personal Viewpoint 

By: Jaskot (JazzEFiddle)

Mei's Snowball Offensive is one of the new arcade game modes in Overwatch's Winter Wonderland event. This game mode is a 6v6 elimination that takes place on Ecopoint Antarctica. The catch...everyone is Mei! Now, before the Mei mains get all cocky and the rest of us do not even try this game mode (because you hate playing against a good Mei), hear me out. Mei's abilities are a bit altered. Her primary shot only has one fire and then needs to be reloaded. But it is not your typical reload, where your character takes a few seconds to insert more frost into her gun. Instead, you must find a pile of snow on the ground and hold down a timed trigger to gain enough snow to form the one snowball shot again. To make things even harder, you only carry that one shot until it is used, then you must find a pile and reload again. The shot fired is a snowball, not Mei's typical icicle that she shoots.

Physics are involved. Her shot fires more like a bullet traveling in a straight line to the direction of your cross hairs no matter how far you are away from your target. The snowball is heavily weighted; it falls to the ground much faster than you would think, making it so you have to lead or lob your snowball above an intended target from a distance. Mei's other two abilities, Ice Wall and Ice Tomb, are the same. The real challenge here is that once you are hit with a snowball from the opposing side you are out! That is right, one good shot and you are done for the round. The mode is played in rounds: eliminate all the opposing Meis and win the round. First to 3 wins in a best of five wins the offensive.   

As Mei is one of my favorite characters to play, how do I feel about this game mode? I like it! It has an acclimation period of I would say about 4-5 offensives. But once you get the concept down and get a few shots fired, you will be surprised at how much fun this simple winter game mode can be. There is one and only one thing that I do not like about this game mode: the reload! Not the fact that you only get one shot. Not the fact that the snow piles move and you might spend some time looking for your next reload point. It's the fact that the cone above the snow piles that activate the reload process. Having to point your gun down at the pile to start the reload makes you blind for that split second, which, in a one shot one kill game, makes it far too long! But don't let this sway you from playing this event.

It is super fun, so grab some of your friends, pick up some snow balls and may the best Mei win.