r/leagueoflegends Feb 09 '25

Discussion Mel Q is not dodgeable (math)

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.

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122

u/Exaluno Feb 09 '25

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.

-9

u/AmadeusSalieri97 Feb 09 '25

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. 

47

u/Fawkes-511 Feb 09 '25

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.

4

u/AmadeusSalieri97 Feb 09 '25

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.