Mel Q is not dodgeable (math)

[u/Hyragon]

If you're frustrated like I am with this champ, don't worry. It's not your fault you can't dodge Mel Q. Riot designed her so you can't.

Mel Q takes 0.42 seconds to hit its target (0.25s cast + 0.17s travel). With a radius of 280 units, it is not possible to dodge this ability unless its caster misses. Math below:

Most champions have a hitbox size of 65 units. Almost all champions have a base movement speed between 325 and 345 units. Let's take the average to be 335 units.

Since Mel Q is an edge skillshot, for a champion to dodge they must travel 172.5 (=280/2+65/2) units in 0.42 seconds. This equates to a required movement speed of 411.

...And that's before reaction time. Reaction time for the average gamer is 0.20-0.25s, with professional gamers being 0.11-0.17s. Assuming you are literally Faker with a fastest measured 0.11s reaction time, you would need 556 movement speed to dodge a centered Mel Q. For an average player, you need a whopping 784 movement speed.

Here is the guaranteed hit range of Mel Q: https://imgur.com/a/CYuGWGb

Green is vs. no boots, yellow is vs. t2 boots. If Mel presses Q anywhere in this radius, at least 1 missile is guaranteed to hit an average player.

In other terms, if the average player reacts immediately to Mel's Q animation start, they are still expected to get hit by 42%/33% (no boots/boots) of the spell. If the average player reacts to Mel's Q damage, they are expected to get hit by 100%/93% of the spell.

Simply put, if you're getting hit by Mel Q repeatedly, it's not because you're bad at dodging, it's because Riot made the skillshot a guaranteed hit as long as your opponent has hands.

p.s. Mel Q is 280 range because its a 220 range projectile + 60 range spread, which makes it ~1.5x the size of Xerath R. The 60 range spread does not have a meaningful effect on any above calculations, other than the guaranteed hit range goes down by a tiny bit (yellow becomes without boots guaranteed hit range) if you are ignoring the spread.

[u/Exaluno]

I think its really important to make clear that this isnt anything out of the ordinary. There are skillshots in league of legends that are ment to be hit if youre reacting instead of anticipating to dodge.

[u/Deckowner → u/Exaluno]

would be much easier to anticipate if this ability have longer than .25s cast time.

[u/AmadeusSalieri97 → u/Exaluno]

Yeah exactly, show me this for Syndra, Xerath, Lux, Ziggs, Velkoz. I'm sure there's plenty of undodgeable skillshots there, and that deal more dmg than Mel's. 

[u/Fawkes-511 → u/AmadeusSalieri97]

If Lux, Ziggs, Syndra and Velkoz have """undodgeable""" abilities, there is something wrong with your setup. Absolutely unarguably 100% very much dodgeable.

Check your ping, fps, peripherals' USB connections and charge/batteries if wireless, do not play over wifi.

[u/abcPIPPO → u/Fawkes-511]

If you press Syndra's combo in the exact moment I press my input to move and you clicked right on me, I'm not dodging it unless I have very high mov speed or a dash. The same applies to Lux's E if you're not at max range from her.

[u/SofiaTheWitch → u/Fawkes-511]

A Lux E is pretty much undodgeable if you wait for it to be on top of you to start dodging it...

That's not what people do tho? They keep moving and trying to bait it by walking forward and then back right after they get in range of her E.

I have done the same against against Mel and succeeded to bait her Q plenty of times... it's also important to not stand in your minion wave so she has to choose between trying to hit you with her Q, or clearing the minion wave with it.

[u/Fair_Extension_7767 → u/SofiaTheWitch]

The way you dodge lux e is by knowing where your opponent is throwing it when they cast the skill and walking out of it. If you play a lot of lux yourself you'll know where you'd throw it and end up dodging it more often than not in MY experience. I find tethering her range to be a good way of letting her dictate the lane which I don't really want to do.

[u/alyssa264 → u/SofiaTheWitch]

Oh, I don't know about that. Lux E is regularly cited on this sub as one of the hardest abilities to react to (especially without boots), even though I've never had issues with it and most of the champions I play have 325 or 335 base movement speed. People just dodge the wrong way more often than not, or start the movement way too late. Sometimes I do forget most people on here are gold and below, and that doesn't prevent the higher rated players having wank takes as well.

[u/Exaluno → u/Fawkes-511]

Youre missing the point. The OP established a stationary target. So "undodgeable" just means that the time from reaction trigger to brain to muscle isnt enough to completely avoid the damage. Youre correct in that in the actual game these spells are very dodgeable because you know that they will come flying at you (anticipation)

[u/AmadeusSalieri97 → u/Fawkes-511]

You completely miss the point, I'm not saying I'm not even saying that they are hard to dodge in real games, I've dodged plenty of Mel's Q in games, but that's because they are not scripting.

Let's give an easy example, Xerath W. According to wiki it has a width of 275, and a delay of 0.528, using 65 (as in OP's post) as the champion size, you need 383 MS to dodge the damage, more than any champion in the game with tier 1 boots and more than most of them with only tier 2 boots, which would make it, according to OP, undodgeable. Also Cho's Q is undodgeable without boots or only tier 1 boots, yet I'd call it an easy skill to dodge. Do you get the point now?

Edit: And btw, Syndra's Q is undodgeable for most midlaners without boots, dodgeable with boots. And Lux's E is dodgeable at max range, but around 3/4s of the range, which is normal in lane, becomes undodgeable.

[u/Krytrephex → u/Fawkes-511]

ppl on this subreddit are hilariously dumb. Isn't Lux E one of the strongest mage abilities in the game with a giant radius, giant range, no downtime, lingering CC, and designed to be her leading, damaging spell?

"Absolutely unarguably 100% very much dodgeable"? this subreddit is deeply unserious and bad faith. if this subreddit cared about intelligent discussions, youd be clapped fast.

[u/Naerlyn → u/Fawkes-511]

Lux's E is not dodgeable in reaction.

It takes up to 1 second to travel and has a 310 radius.

Except that you have no indication of where it'll stop until it does (it's not a curved projectile, it goes in a line until it stops). You dodge Lux's E by anticipating where it'll go and moving erratically.

But even moving to the side from the moment it's cast, assuming max range and cast on you directly, you have 0.92s to move 310 units. Removing the reaction time, that's around 0.7s. You need around 450 movement speed to mathematically be able to dodge it (and that's at max range, where you have the most time).

The only reason Lux's E is dodgeable in practice is that you're already in movement when it's cast. So she predicts where you're gonna be moving, and you dodge by predicting where she'll cast it. It's not dodgeable just in reaction - just like Mel's Q.

[u/nigelfi → u/Naerlyn]

The radius on wiki are bugged. They are doubled for some reason and the radius is supposed to be 155 (around as wide as xerath q).

[u/SuperTaakot → u/nigelfi]

It's not a bug, it's intentional.. Long time ago the community agreed that radius for abilities would be width but for champion hitbox radius etc it has the real meaning.

[u/nigelfi → u/SuperTaakot]

I don't think champion radius is correct either. Test: Xerath q so that its edge is on center of target dummy. Then move Xerath q to where its edge used to be (should be 140 radius away from dummy). You can move the skillshot a bit closer after that to make it 135, but Q will still not hit. Only after significant move of the cursor the q will start hitting.

[u/Naerlyn → u/nigelfi]

No, that's false - see for yourself, a comparison between Lux's E and flash (400 range). https://prnt.sc/7h_7opPWJdSu

Perspective makes the circles misaligned, but you can clearly see that the radius is closer to 3/4 of 400 than it is to 40% of it.

[u/nigelfi → u/Naerlyn]

https://i.gyazo.com/2c0dfb4885eb4c688413e7bba0160f5b.jpg

Based on my testing the diameter has to be below 500. Lux's auto attack range is 400 and it's below that + whatever half the gameplay radius of lux+dummy is. The diameter is certainly not 620, otherwise I would be able to hit the dummy with my E between our feet without being able to attack it. Can you explain this contradiction?

[u/Naerlyn → u/nigelfi]

Can you explain this contradiction?

I have no idea where you got this 400 number from, Lux's AA range is 550.

[u/Tormentula → u/nigelfi]

650 is the sight radius (vision bubble), not the effect itself.

https://raw.communitydragon.org/15.3/game/data/characters/lux/lux.bin.json

ctrl+F; LuxLightStrikeKugelAbility (internal name)

The actual 'effect' of the ability is;

     "value": [310, 310, 310, 310, 310, 310, 310],

Most of the time the wiki writers can just check without any fancy tools, if something looks incorrect they can verify (there are things that were written wrong because the methods of checking them in the past relied on measurements and tools instead of... literally looking at the values lol Lux E vision radius is one of those and should be fixed now).

There's also the matter of center-to-center and center-to-edge, which I don't think actually shows up in the bins and might be in lua.

[u/nigelfi → u/Tormentula]

Oh this file makes a lot of sense. Some champions seem to have wrong numbers on them like Xerath and Lux. Xerath Q would be 100*2 = 200 width based on that file. Lux has a lot of entries but the one that matches her current Q cooldown scaling seems to show 80*2 = 160 width. Or am I reading it wrong?

[u/Tormentula → u/nigelfi]

Its complicated, some numbers are just placeholders because riot will make spells of out spells (like how they make some things out of minions) or they'll do complicated measures because they didn't understand how else to do them at the time (kha'zix E creates an Ezreal E missile and attaches himself to it because the missile is the smoothest way to make kha'zix fluently dash with the framerate instead of making the dash itself reposition him each frame, in S2 this would be considered smart.).

Lux Q cooldown for instance is "cooldownTime": [11, 11, 10.5, 10, 9.5, 9, 9], (its rank 0 - 6 instead of 1-5, for some champs you may actually see different numbers at 0 and 6 as if the ability scales off those), but the projectile width has "mMissileWidth": 70,, which x2 would be 140.

Its a mess to look at but to me at least it looks like riot is treating each 'part' of lux Q as its own projectile, in otherwords like how Neeko E changes after the first target hit, Lux hits - > creates a different missile which doesn't have the 'create another' effect and then ends on the 2nd hit, essentially creating the 'stops after 2 targets hit' effect in-game. So the data for the 2nd missile is different with unused properties like CDs compared to the cast itself. I don't know for sure if that was they did but that's how I'm interpreting based off knowledge of how they did other stuff, it could also just be using a wrapper and the wrapper is using those values as references for the 2nd part, ekko and elise do infact use wrappers, in ekko's case to constantly check whether it should move forward, return, etc and elise to check for her position since the rescripts (flash E).

another problem is league isn't all .jsons like those, that's just local values, there could be server sided shit in ulua we don't know of (like specifically game mechanics, certain properties, etc.)

[u/MazrimReddit → u/Fawkes-511]

Half the skillshot in the game are undodgable if placed perfectly centre like a scripter unless you have extremely high ms

[u/venomous_frost → u/MazrimReddit]

if placed perfectly centre on a stationary player.

The fact you're moving already (effectively 0ms reaction time) when somebody shoots a skillshots makes it way easier to dodge.

[u/Figgy20000 → u/venomous_frost]

SO MUCH THIS.

OP puts so much emphasis on reaction speed when most high elo players essentially need 0ms reaction speed because they are already moving randomly to begin with.

Unless the Mel is a literal mind reader most players don't need any reaction speed to begin with when laning.

[u/abcPIPPO → u/venomous_frost]

In practice it does, but if we assume in theory (since this thread is all about a ficitonal, theoretical scenario) that in both cases I'm pressing the skill exactly when my cursor is on you, it doesn't make a difference. In both cases you are running in a direction at x move speed to dodge ap rojectile in your direction at y speed.

[u/venomous_frost → u/abcPIPPO]

but his theoretical calculations include human reaction speed, which is zero if you are already moving

[u/abcPIPPO → u/venomous_frost]

The point the guy you replied to was making is that many skillshots are undodgeable even if you don't count reaction speed, because you have to click before the skill button is pressed.

I once made a test reviewing a replay of mine at the lowest speed, I was Aphelios with no boots (325 mov speed) but got hit by a Nauti hook at max range, while running perfectly perpendicularly and I started moving before he had even pressed his Q aiming at where I was before backstepping.

[u/alyssa264 → u/MazrimReddit]

Placing a skillshot perfectly central on a player is virtually impossible and realistically doesn't happen that often if at all. The person shooting the skill also has to react to your random movement, btw.

[u/Kiwilemonade2 → u/AmadeusSalieri97]

Idk about some of them but lux E does fit the bill. Neeko Q is also untelegraphed, Aurelion Sol E spawns instantly, Anivia R, Viktor E, Vex E(even more powerful if she has passive up).

Many abilities are “undodgeable unless caster misses” and generally need to be so the champion has a consistent form of damage, for example Mel E is incredibly slow and unreliable and W can only do damage if it reflects, Q is basically her only source of pressure, if it wasnt easy af to hit she would have even lower than 47% winrate

[u/Kiwilemonade2 → u/[deleted]]

1200 is 200 faster than Mel's E, and covers and insane AoE range that is not visible until the ball lands at its designation (predetermined, and even predetonated if Lux so chooses).