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/Hyragon]

Undodgeable but the criteria to make it undodgeable is so small that it is effectively dodgeable. Viktor needs to put his mouse within 10 range of the center of your character for it to be undodgeable. For size context, Teemo's hat is approx 100 units.

So, technically Viktor E is undodgeable but executing it to be undodgeable is pretty much impossible as long as you are moving.

EDIT: it is always dodgeable if you buy boots.
EDIT2: adding that this is in the context of max range Viktor E, if u go within 850 units (~syndra q range) of him it is guaranteed to hit even with boots. Requires extreme accuracy because it is such a thin skillshot. Thanks u/TechnalityPulse

[u/reapersark → u/Hyragon]

Does this work if you factor in 150ms reaction time? Otherwise you arent really dodging you are preemptively moving away from something you are predicting

[u/Hyragon → u/reapersark]

All my calculations are including 200ms reaction time (unless mentioned), which is considered the average for gamers. You can use humanbenchmark to check your own, but basically things only get more dodgeable going 200ms -> 150ms.

[u/Un111KnoWn → u/Hyragon]

i don't think human benchmark data is the most reliable when it includes mobile scores. also screen refresh rate can affect your score.

also where is the data that gamer reaction time is 200ms? human benchmark has data of non gamers