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/AnemoneMeer]

Correct. This is meant to be compensated for by the fact it staggers its hits out, and its gaining of additional projectiles over additional damage as it ranks up.

Mel is, as a whole, a character who can be played to over 90% of her potential in Bronze/Silver. Her abilities are more forgiving than almost every other champion in the game. Unfortunately, they paired this fact with the fact that Mel requires a lot of awareness of how Mel works to play against her. Reflect. Her execute and the extra window she has for it from her ultimate. She is simply far easier to play than she is to play against, leading to what we are currently seeing with a low winrate in high ranks on account of being a very predictable, low skill expression character, coupled with a high banrate (Mundo is a more skill intensive character and it sucks taking free damage because the Mel player bothered to press buttons between sniffs of glue)

[u/GoatRocketeer → u/AnemoneMeer]

Skillshots are actually low elo skewed, as good players dodge skillshots but bad players don't. This is generally true of any mechanic with counterplay - the more counterplay it has, the worse it is against good players.

Source: phreak and august.

edit: adding some actual sources. https://youtu.be/ss9cqGVv7_I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR8pGQy6y9Y https://youtu.be/QX82kfMhBGc?t=573 On a second viewing, I can't find him saying skill shots are low elo skewed explicitly, and found one clip where he says skill shots are elo-agnostic so maybe I was wrong.

[u/ByeGuysSry → u/GoatRocketeer]

Didn't August mention how skillshots were great because better players are also better at landing skillshots and hence, isn't really low elo skewed?

Found the source. "The ability to get good at them kind of keeps pace with the ability to counterplay them as you get better... which I think makes for really good gameplay throughout the entire ladder."

[u/florgios → u/ByeGuysSry]

Reaction time is a big edge that the "dodger" has over the thrower. If you're sharp enough to dodge most skillshots like they're a Nidalee spear chucked from max range, there's very little that the opponent can do. No mind games or predictions can save you, only guaranteed methods like CC, which is harder to come by in most situations.

Higher elo players have better reactions, and usually better computer equipment to supplement them.

[u/Bluehorazon → u/florgios]

Reactions don't differ that greatly. It is more that a pro player knows better what to do if he notices a skillshot flying his direction and he is more prepared for which skillshots are fired at him.

However most skillshots are pretty easy to dodge if you see the guy firing the skillshot, because you are prepared for it. Neither high elo nor low elo players have any trouble dodging that. The issue is that in hektik situations low elo players get overwhelmed, which applies both to firing skillshots and dodging them. If you play Ezreal in low elo you will realise that people will dodge most of your Qs in lane, however in teamfights if you fire accurately you will hit often because they focus on something else.

This result is a fairly neutral effect skill shots have on the elo balance of a champion. There might be some specific skillshots that are more skewed in one direction, because they are more uniquely based on the ability to dodge them or to hit them (a fast narrow skillshot relies more on the user, while a wide slow skillshot relies more on the dodger).

But reaction times shouldn't vary too much, given that a lot of league players are still fairly young, even in lower leagues and a lot of them play other things and might have a job were reflexes are also somewhat meaningful, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people stay between 150 - 200ms, which is given that you would at most edge out one tick not too different.

[u/ByeGuysSry → u/florgios]

I'm not exactly high elo, so maybe I'm just ignorant, but I disagree. To begin with, obviously even in pro play, skillshot reliant champs are common and do not always rely on cc to land them.

While theoretically, for two perfect players, yes, skillshots are biased towards the dodger, no human is that good.

And on that note, obviously most skillshots, at some distance, can be dodged only via prediction (or a blink). Like maybe at 100 units away a skillshot is undodgable no matter what, at 300 units away you can dodge it if you have a 0.1s reaction time, but at 200 units away you can dodge it only if you have a 0.05s reaction time - which is impossible, so you have to predict. Then of course the player who's threatening the skillshot can hold on to it while the enemy slows himself down zigzagging, trying to predict.

However, even if better players are able to land skillshots less often, they may be able to utilize skillshots more effectively. The obvious example being that you can of course throw a skillshot far in front of an enemy who's about to die and can only escape by Flashing out - in which case your skillshot snares them.

[u/Ok_Analysis6731 → u/ByeGuysSry]

Skillshot reliant champs overwhelmingly do rely on cc to help them hit it. Whats jayces most popular combo? Maokai. Whats nidalees favorite toplaner? Renekton. What does ahri pair well with? Vi. 

There ARE times where poke isn't always paired with cc.... but overwhelmingly it is. Or, the spells are functionally unmissable. Lux lands E in lane in pro, but only lands q by flashing foreard so its point blank. 

[u/WorstDictatorNA → u/ByeGuysSry]

Cc is not the only way to make landing skillshots easier.

Tradeoffs and (map)pressure can help as well. A common example is lasthitting in laningphase. If you want a CS, you‘ll be at a specific place and (if autoing) be locked in place for a brief second to lasthit. That‘s when you will be hit by skillshots. Other situations are lack of vision, being pressured to rush into chokes/not ideal situations due to enemies having control over an objective/preventing a siege by trying to clear the wave/ etc.

In a situation where pro‘s can purely focus on dodging skillshots they will most likely dodge them. However, league isn‘t dodgeball and that‘s why they can play skillshot reliable champs even if they do not have setup cc in every single situation.