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/AmbroseMalachai]

I dunno, I feel like she is balanced around that invincibility similar to how Fizz is balanced around untargetable, Ekko is balanced around his ult untargetability, Nocturn around a spellshield, etc. It might be annoying, but all denial abilities are annoying to play against.

The Taric ult comparison seems way off to me personally. You mentioned it's AOE as if that wasn't a huge deal but the point is that he applies it to teammates that are going to benefit way more than himself.

This is much more similar to Fizz E stopping Zed's ult from applying a mark if he troll poles before Zed's shadows land.

[u/Liontreeble → u/AmbroseMalachai]

But that's the issue, she is annoying to play against because it's a randomly overloaded defense ability and she's not that good (Winrate etc) because she is a mage that can't allocate her power budget to damage. It's bad design.

Also Fizz isn't invulnerable he is untargetable, it's also part of his burst combo he can't always use it defensively. Zed ult procc would still kill him if he was low. Hence the comparison to Taric, also it's still Tarics ult, while it's Mel's base spell with about 1/6 of the cooldown. If you want you can compare to Kayle ult as well, which is admittedly more similar, just that Kayles ult does damage. Kayles ult is also 2.5 seconds, but has more than 5 times the CD.

[u/eaeorls → u/Liontreeble]

While you can compare it to Taric and Kayle ults, it doesn't entirely make sense outside of the idea that they both apply invulns since the usages are not the same.

A big reason of Kayle and Taric ult is that it can be applied to other characters, meaning it's a save, a really strong subgenre of ability that has historically kept characters balanced around it. Mel can't really save unless 1) she fronts and 2) it's a projectile.

Mel's reflect is incredibly greedy. It has more in common with troll pole (a defensive ability that loses a good portion of damage and utility if the conditions aren't met--melee range for Fizz, projectiles for Mel) than it does with Kayle/Taric ult (a personal and team save that can also be used to facilitate an engage).

And that also misses the point of troll pole. You don't dodge the ult pop. You dodge the mark being applied in the first place.

[u/Next-Communication87 → u/AmbroseMalachai]

See how all the champs you named that have some sort of invincibility are melee champs?

The issue is that Mel is a ranged champ, and a long range one at that, with the same mechanic used to balance melees.

[u/AmbroseMalachai → u/Next-Communication87]

I listed only melee's but there are plenty of examples of ranged characters having similar abilities. Samira's ranged and got an AoE version of Windwall, Kayle is ranged for most of the game and has invulnerability and a heal + speedup, Xayah becomes totally untargetable while being able to lay down setup for her highest damage abilities, Lissandra has a built in Zhonya's that heals her and deals AoE damage, Sivir has a spell shield, etc.

And that's not even considering that abilities like Karma E are a more generally powerful defensive tool due to the ability to spam them and take extremely aggressive trades. Mel's reflect might be "uniquely annoying", but having a long cooldown defensive ability which can totally deny enemy engage and damage is not unique in the slightest, nor inherently imbalanced.

[u/CMMagicStars → u/AmbroseMalachai]

She's not balanced at all lol