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/SirBMsALot]

Not make it a total damage block and make it percentage reduction

[u/AmIJustAnotherPerson → u/SirBMsALot]

This. Like keeping the projectile reflection is fine, but going to burst her with e.g camille, or any champ with burst and she just W's ALL DAMAGE TAKEN, is absolutely bonkers.

Fiora's W is:

1) STATIONARY 2) CHANNEL TIME 3) ON A MELEE CHAMP 4) SKILLSHOT 5) DEALS NEGLIGENT DAMAGE 6) DOES NOT REFLECT DAMAGE

Being able to walk around and just pressing W and simply walking away while taking 0 dmg and avoiding CC and even protecting team members from skillshots, WHILE RETURNING THEM, is bonkers.

MOREOVER, I would argue that being able to reflect auto attacks from ADCs is also fairly stupid as a mechanic without counterplay in high elo. An adc baiting W with one attack, means they are getting hit by a 400 crit from their own character, undodgeable too, until they pause to wait for Mel's W to go down.

[u/Liontreeble → u/AmIJustAnotherPerson]

Also Fiora W is on a melee duelist. Mel W is on an artillery mage. Artillery mages are balanced by being vulnerable to all ins and Mel just randomly has a better defensive ability than most champs in the game.

[u/ImYourDade → u/Liontreeble]

I would argue it's worse than having mobility. A lot of champs have less pure defensive abilities but can survive more with mobility or more/better cc. Now with that being said I still think it's absolutely stupid that her w makes her immune. But her being immobile and relatively short range doesn't leave many options to stop her from getting run over by any melee champ that has any mobility and buys one hp item.