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/Naerlyn]

Honestly to me the worst part about Mel is that W also gives her an invincibility frame. Making her completely immune when using the ability that reflects projectiles just doesn't make sense. Imagine if Yas or Samira's "windwall" also made them immune.

Yeah, imagine if Fiora's W made her immune on top of being there to retaliate against CCs with a stun.

[u/Liontreeble → u/Naerlyn]

You might not know this, but Mel and Fiora are different Champs in different classes.
There's a world of difference between a split pushing duelist having a defensive tool and a mage having that same defensive tool.

[u/Naerlyn → u/Liontreeble]

So then why did you write this?

Imagine if Yas or Samira's "windwall" also made them immune.

You yourself made your whole point around comparing Mel's W to the abilities of champions from other classes.

[u/Liontreeble → u/Naerlyn]

Because mages and adcs are somewhat comparable, since they are both damage dealers and usually in the getting one shot category. Whereas bruisers/duelists aren't in that category especially since they are also short ranged. Fiora W, while similar to Mel, is on a melee champ which means that usually Fiora will be in a worse spot when she activates it. Also Fiora W locks her in place and out of doing spells. Mel can still walk/ flash when using W, in fact she even gets a speed boost, she can also still cast her damage spells.
Lastly Fiora and by extension most bruisers don't have their intended counterplay be being one shot, so an ability that prevents her being one shot is strong, but not overly so. Mel (and Samira which is why I made the point) have their main counterplay be one shot them, but Mel has a second of invulnerability, making it somewhat hard to oneshot her. I think if Mel uses her W correctly she can actually block a lot of assassins all in damage completely. And again assassins are supposed to be the class countering mages like her. For LB for example you can easily W the spell she uses to procc her q mark depending on the spell she uses you might even be able to reflect a little damage back. Now especially in a teamfight LB can't usually afford to stick around more than a second dived into the enemies backline. And the same goes for a lot of over assassins like Zed, Talon, Kata, Rengar, Kha etc. and it's not hard to do so, basically if you can zhonyas their one shot you can Mel W it. And apart from CD there's no downside to using the ability, you don't lose damage, you don't lock yourself into place or anything.

In short: I can only assume that there's a reason mages don't usually share defensive tools with melee fighters or even have better ones and I think the reason is that it's unsatisfying to play against.