League of Legends has welcomed a new mage champion to its roster—Mel, who brings with her a groundbreaking defensive ability that’s causing quite a stir among players. Her W ability creates a barrier around her for a brief 0.75 seconds, not only blocking incoming projectiles but reflecting them directly back at their source.
What makes Mel’s reflective barrier really stand out is its auto-targeting feature. When an enemy projectile hits her barrier, the game instantly sends it back to wherever the attacking champ is standing. You don’t have to aim a thing as Mel – the reflect kicks in right away and nails the attacker with perfect accuracy, kind of like using auto-aim in a shooter.
This reflect move works on all sorts of projectiles, from skillshots like Lux’s Light Binding, point-and-click spells such as Annie’s Disintegrate, or even basic attacks like Jhin’s notorious fourth shot. And it doesn’t just reflect projectiles – Mel gets total immunity to damage the entire time her shield is up, even if someone jumps on her with melee attacks or tries to use a non-projectile ability.
Riot designed Mel’s W to make her easier to pick up for new or returning players. Dropping the new champ right when Arcane’s popularity was peaking was no accident – it’s an obvious nod to fresh faces or lapsed fans giving the game another shot. That’s why her reflect is super easy to use; there’s no stressful timing or weird directional play required like with Fiora’s Riposte or Irelia’s Defiant Dance.
Tech-wise, Mel’s reflect can be kind of weird at times. For example, if you bounce back Zed’s shurikens, they all fly straight to the main Zed champ, not to his shadows. Sometimes, projectiles sent back act a little differently than usual, moving faster or targeting in odd ways that can really throw enemy players off.
Even though Mel doesn’t win a ton of games, people ban her a lot—her ban rate sits at a whopping 30–35%. That’s mostly because players find her barrier super annoying, especially if it shuts down a huge part of their main champ’s kit and basically flips their strengths against them.
Mel’s reflect really flips the script for the artillery mage role. Usually, champs like Xerath or Vel’Koz have to give up personal safety for long-range firepower, but Mel’s W gives her a special way to hold off assassins or anyone trying to jump her, which isn’t something most mages get.
Is Mel overpowered?
The power of Mel’s W kind of overshadows the rest of her kit, which is pretty simple with things like an execute for minions and straightforward combos. Some players think this one move makes her a pain to fight no matter how strong she is overall, while others say it’s basically the only cool trick she has.
Riot says they’ve built in some ways to tweak Mel’s W behind the scenes, hinting that they might mess around with how the reflect works in future patches. That could mean things like adding a small delay, making players aim the reflect, or changing up how the bounce-back targets people—though there’s nothing official yet.
