League of Legends New Champion Mel: Insights from Riot Games
The latest champion addition to the League of Legends is finally arriving. After making a splash in Season 2 of Arcane, Mel is ready to join the fray with her release on patch 25.S1.2, the second patch of the year.
Mel's kit, however, also introduces a brand new mechanic to the game: projectile reflection. As this opens up a whole world of possibilities for League of Legends, Myles Salholm, Lead Champion Designer at Riot Games, disclosed several of the details, goals, and complications involved in the creation of the game's newest champion.
Let's go ahead an take a look at all-things Mel, from her champion design and adaptation from Arcane, to tips for utilizing her kit to its fullest potential!
Mel is being introduced to League of Legends in patch 25.S1.2. (Credit: Riot Games)Adapting Mel from Arcane
Initial exploration for Mel as a champion began as early as Arcane’s development, but was paused due to lack of clarity on what her powers were going to end up looking like.
The project to introduce Mel into League of Legends was only resumed after Season 2 of the show provided more details about her abilities. At that time, Riot Games and the developers team started to focus on bringing projectile reflection into the game as apart of her kit.
Collaboration with the Arcane team during Mel’s development as a playable champion was key for ensuring continuity between the show and the game, with Mel’s in-game portrayal supposed to represent a stronger version of the Medarda daughter following the events of the show.
Only in Season 2 did Arcane begin to show Mel's powers. (Credit: Arcane/Riot Games)Design Goals for Mel
While coming up with Mel’s design, Riot Games strove towards making her an accessible, fun-to-play mage, while keeping true to her powers and personality in Arcane. The other objective was to introduce a new mechanic to the game, which is precisely how Mel was born as a champion.
Mel’s kit represents a more modern approach to old fan-favorite mages like Lux or Morgana. Like Mel, these are champions which are easy enough to learn and appeal to a large portion of the League of Legends playerbase. This is why several of Mel’s skillshots are large and relatively easy to hit, while still being exactly that: skillshots.
When it comes to mastering Mel, however, that part will prove to be a little trickier, as getting maximum value out of her projectile reflection mechanic will prove to be no easy feat.
Ultimately, Riot Games wanted to ensure Mel’s kit was about as fair as it could get, making a champion that is both easy enough to play, yet leaves room for counterplay.
The struggle of Projectile Reflection
Initially, the champion design team at Riot Games initially struggled in finding the right way of introducing the new mechanic, projectile reflection, into Mel’s kit.
The mechanic was first planned to be Passive ability, much like Malzahar’s own [P] Void Shift, only it would reflect the next projectile landed on Mel instead. Riot then also toyed with the idea of the ability placing a bubble on the ground, which would reflect projectiles that came into contact with it.
Finally, the design team settled on the way Mel’s [W] Rebuttal works today. As for why the ability is not usable on allies, the realization was that that would simply make far too strong of an ability.
Mel's projectile reflection ability only works on herself. (Credit: Riot Games)Tips for playing Mel
One of the keys to playing Mel, according to Riot, will be to land your [Q] Radiant Volley as much as possible. To achieve this, you will often need to predict your opponents moves, shooting the skillshot where you expect your enemies to be, rather than where they are.
Another thing to always keep in mind when playing Mel will be to weave auto attacks in between abilities, because this is the most efficient way to rack up her Overwhelm stacks. Mel’s ultimate, [R] Golden Eclipse, deals damage based on the number of Overwhelm stacks on enemy champions, meaning you will want to apply as many of these as you can before choosing to go for that big ultimate hit.
Lastly, crucial to maximizing efficiency with Mel will be holding on to her [W] Rebuttal in order to reflect just the right spell. This is where the ‘hard to master’ part comes in. Remember that waiting for the right moment to reflect a key ability, like a Seraphine ultimate, can quickly turn a team fight in favor of your team!
And for all of you out there wondering, Mel’s intended roles are mid lane and support, according to Salholm himself. Due to her kit’s high damage output, however, Mel is expected to be found in the mid lane more than anywhere else.
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Image source: Riot Games
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