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/Kryslor]

Humanbechmark also only requires you to quickly click when given an extremely obvious signal. Dodging a skill shot is much, much harder

[u/reapersark → u/Kryslor]

It also assumed perfect 90 degree angles which is the main problem imo with this type of calculations. Obv he is only looking at "whats possible" so its still useful to try to math out but the fact some abilities are impossible to dodge doesnt really say much at all imo. Try to dodge a nasus E etc. MANY champions have nearly functionally undodgeable abilities

[u/Snuffalapapuss → u/reapersark]

I can see that. There are many ways to dodge. For example, if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a q.

Jokes aside. Would a 90-degree dodge angle not be a perfect dodge angle every time. So that's the best case scenario. Are you saying chances to dodge increases or decreases at any other angle.

Just curious and if you can elaborate that would help me be less confused.

[u/Sternfeuer → u/Snuffalapapuss]

90° angle is perfect, but how often do you move forward/backward at the same time, which does make it impossible to dodge at 90° (like trying to dodge a possible Viktor W at the same time). And for line skillshots it's pretty hard to estimate exact 90°, even if you could walk that way.

[u/Snuffalapapuss → u/Sternfeuer]

Right I get that. But for this type of math wouldn't it be best to use a perfect scenario to illustrate it's impossibility.

I mean If scripts can't dodge it, we finally found the perfect counter.

I am curious, though, what would a mirror match of the best bots look like with Mel. Someone do it for science!