Mel

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Play For Sustain Early - Mel’s poke heavy playstyle and range makes it very difficult for Renekton to lane into her. Her overall kit and tools are designed to counter initiator style champions such as Renekton, therefore requiring Renekton to play around his team or look for specific opportunities to fight Mel. All Renekton can really do early is buy D Shield and Second Wind, as these will provide you the ability to sustain your HP and survive any early aggression from Mel. If Renekton maintains his HP from playing correctly, Renekton will be able to utilise teamplay assistance to help him fight against Mel within the lane.

2. 02

   Respect Mel’s Passive - Mel’s passive allows her to store damage in the forms of stacks, allowing her to build up damage through her stacks to help her execute her target. If the overall stacks of damage exceed the target's current HP, it will instantly execute her target on her next auto attack or ability. Make sure to avoid consistent poke against Mel, as her overall damage will threaten you towards recalling and missing minion waves, or securing a kill onto you.

3. 03

   Avoid Mel’s Q - Mel’s Q will throw out a barrage of projectiles, allowing her to poke from range to apply her damage and passive stacks, while also preventing her opponents from being able to walk close towards her. To dodge her Q’s, try to understand the pattern in how she is using it. Eventually when you figure it out, try to use short clicks to bait out her Q before you walk towards her. Mel’s Q ranges from 10 to 6 seconds at rank 5, so make sure to abuse it by trading within its down time, or simply farm minions until she’s able to get her Q back.

4. 04

   Respect And Abuse Mel’s W - Mel’s W allows her to shield against all incoming damage abilities, allowing her to avoid any damage within the 0.75 seconds cast time, while also projecting any incoming abilities back towards her enemies. Mel’s W can completely counter Renekton’s fast combos, as once he’s able to get into range she can simply use her W to block all of his damage. As Renekton, if we manage to jump onto Mel, we should hold all of our damage until her W goes away, allowing us to unload on Mel’s HP and potentially kill her in the process. Within the laning phase, trying to trade with Mel can feel impossible alongside dealing with her E. However, Mel’s W CD is 35 to 23 seconds at rank 5, providing you 2 potential E trades to abuse her while her W is down, giving you a clear window to play around after she uses it within the lane.

5. 05

   Avoid Mel’s E - Mel’s E is a giant counter towards Renekton’s engages, due to her easily being able to throw it out towards Renekton’s E direction. Because Renekton’s E is so telegraphed, it allows Mel to always have an answer to keep Renekton at bay. Instead, we need to either bait Mel E out by walking towards her, or use our E more creatively, to where we can double dash as fast as we can to land behind her, dodging her E in the process. Overall, the second way is a lot more riskier within mid lane, so make sure to do it when you’re receiving a gank, or Mel has W on CD and she steps up towards your range.

6. 06

   Rush Mercury Treads - Mercury Treads are very helpful into Mel, due to being able to help tank against her heavy AP damage, as well as providing you the CC to escape her E faster. When buying Mercs, you’re able to take more fights into Mel, lowering the overall risk of her being able to kill you.

7. 07

   Play Wave On Your Side - Playing the wave on your side essentially means playing wave states on your side of the map, via abusing wave manipulation tactics or freezing on your side of the map. Simply use this to help you combo on your laner, taking away any space from them being able to trade you back (This also helps prevent the enemy running you down with their extended or sustained movement speed abilities). You can also use this wave state to run down your opponent with your abilities up, helping you obtain kills a lot easier vs stalemate or ranged match ups. Look to do this when your opponents are below 50% HP, or potentially make a mistake to provide you an all in opportunity to run them down.

8. 08

   Play For Team - Playing against Mel is very hard with Renekton’s lack of range and high CDs, meaning the only consistent way we have to make an impact is playing around our team. Playing the wave on our side, allows Mel to potentially overstep and create a ganking opportunity. If we’re able to out push Mel via her recall timer or her willingness to let ourselves push, Renekton can try to roam towards other lanes or objectives to help him gain some kind of advantage. Overall there’s not a lot of things we can do if Mel is good, or if she has heavy team presence playing around her, so make sure to play stable and just make sure you make it to the mid game without inting.

9. 09

   Respect Mel’s R - Once Mel has her R, her passive is available to store even more damage towards executing her targets, allowing Mel to do an insane amount of burst damage towards non magic resist targets. Within the later stages of the game, Renekton should opt into a Kaenic alongside his Mercury Treads, to help him tank against her overall AP damage. If Renekton is able to survive against her high damage combos while avoiding the threat of her R, Renekton will be able to provide more playmaking potential, as well as being able to bait out her W for his team or present himself a kill opportunity onto Mel if the opportunity arises itself.

10. 10

    Build Hexdrinker, Eclipse, Stridebreaker or Profane - Go Hexdrinker to lower Mel’s overall damage and have a MR shield. / Build Eclipse, Stridebreaker or Profane - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Stridebreaker to cripple Mel’s mobility and provide teammates with additional utility. / Go Profane for full damage focused playstyles.

11. 11

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Mel’s overall playstyle within the mid to late game, consists of playing from long range to apply her passive stacks, using her kit to help extend the fights while eventually looking to use her R to obliterate any stacked targets. Keeping fights long vs Mel is always a terrible idea, as Renekton’s role is to look to jump into carries and try to end the fights as fast as possible. Mel’s ability to extend the fights from her W and E can cause a lot of trouble, however if Renekton builds the right items, he can try to dash in and bait out Mel’s abilities before she’s able to use them any other time within a fight. Getting rid of her W allows your team to focus her as a target, allowing you to easily shut down Mel if she’s in range, or it can provide Renekton with the ability to use the rest of his damage to successfully kill Mel. When playing into Mel, trying to also set up plays within the fog of war is also essentially, using your red trinkets and control wards to create vision denial while waiting for her to walk towards a bush. As long as you can keep Mel away from fights, or force early kills on her before objectives, this will allow you to have success and avoid Mel’s annoying playstyle within those points of the game.