How cost effective is Recall

Solution 1:

So I did some informal testing, with probably a large margin of error, I have some pictographical results.

I picked Blitzcrank, because I own him(it?) and he has a base 300 ms. 8 Seconds of walking down the bottom lane put me a little ways behind of the inhibitor.

Purchasing boots of speed boosted him up to 350 ms, and 8 seconds brought him past the inhibitor, put not yet past the inhibitor turret.

I attempted to record results for 406 and 455 (like I said, it's hard to get the higher numbers precisely) but botched the results, and in each case I was only about the same spot as 350 ms.

Finally, I bought Phantom Dancer and Boots 5, hit ghost (un-talented, sadly) and activated rank-5 overdrive to see how far I could get when speed was pushed to egregious levels. Since Overdrive lasts for 8 seconds, it made for a far more accurate timestop. I made it here.

So we can safely conclude that, unless you're backed in to your own base, it is always faster to recall.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go avenge my horrendous 6 - 4 previous test game. I will get Ashe Bot this time. grumble grumble

Solution 2:

This video shows exactly where the fountain stops, and tests several champions with various movespeeds. Check 3m for a summary of the results with no boots, lvl 1, and lvl 2.

tl;dr: With lvl 2 boots, it's faster to recall if outside your base.

Edit: Another image to help visualize this: