DotA vs LoL...which is better?

[Eclectic Dreck]

Ah, opening with rhetorical fallacy! My favorite sort of post to respond to.

I'm unclear where the fallacy is. Perhaps it is unfair of me to accuse you of bias, but your bias appeared evident.

The fallacy was Ad Hominem.

I'm still uncertain why you are of the opinion that "High Risk High Reward" encourages conservatism in DOTA. I am not familiar with fencing, therefore I am ill equipped to have a debate about fencing. I would like, however, a demonstration of this conservatism in action in DOTA. My anecdotal experience does not support it. High level competitive play does not support it. Can you support this theory with DOTA examples, as opposed to fencing examples?

Mid lane players are less likely to leave lane to gank other lanes, top lane players are less likely to roam, etc. Functionally, where roaming is incredibly common in League, my experience with DOTA was that it was less common during laning phase.

It is a ZERO risk target if it happens to hove into view. It also takes all of 1-2 auto attacks to dispatch, as opposed to the Dragon, or Nashor, or Rosh. It's an ENTIRELY different animal than a neutral or jungle creep. This is a bizarre assertion.

The target will generally be inside the opposing jungle ergo the high risk/reward scenario. By contrast, Dragon is high risk because of it's location in neutral territory and the length of time it takes to dispatch. In each case, risk is assumed (staying in neutral territory close to three to four other players for dragon, being in the opposing jungle for the Courier) in exchange for a potential massive gold payout if you pull it off.

We're not talking about a case of simplicity vs needless complexity though. If your complexity adds decision points, as opposed to just making something needlessly fussy, then it could be described as "good complexity" that adds depth to the experience. You're attempting to argue that everything that LoL has streamlined out added nothing in terms of decision points or depth. I disagree VEHEMENTLY with that assertion. And I am very, VERY much a proponent of streamlining away pointless fussiness.

My experience with DOTA is that there was no increase in decision points. Leaving lane was leaving lane - altering the precise payoff to leaving the lane doesn't alter the balance of leaving (and risking gold) with the payoff (getting an item, healing, ganking, etc).

I'll give you two examples during laning phase.

In League, leaving lane presents several risks: it leaves your opponent to farm freely, it puts your tower at risk, it lets your opponent roam (putting other lanes at risk), and it undercuts your gold supply (no CS, obviously). By contrast, it comes with several potential advantages: you will restore your mana and health, you have an opportunity to purchase an item, and you could spend the time ganking another lane or killing a neutral monster. This risk can be mitigated to a degree with items (Boots or other move speed items) or summoner spells (Teleport for example).

By contrast, in DOTA, you add a wrinkle. Leaving lane for an item or health is no longer strictly necessary thanks to the courier but calling the courier, simply put, engages a high value target of opportunity for your opposition. This risk is functionally identical to several of the risks undertaken by leaving lane in either game in terms of the actual impact on the game itself.

The second is the Deny system in DOTA which is not present at all in League. Functionally, it serves to reduce enemy gold acquisition directly. League, by contrast, has a system to do this but it involves effectively taking actions against the player themselves to keep them from getting last hits. The end result is the same (less gold for your opponent).

In each case, it is absolutely true that DOTA gives you more options for how you engage a problem. My assertion is that those options don't actually affect the underlying decision making process in a particularly useful or notable way.

Laning is such a simple and repetitive stage, I do enjoy having the additional ball to juggle. I'd have a hard time taking anyone seriously who promoted "denies" as a singular reason why DOTA was "better" than LoL though.

I can understand why you'd enjoy the addition of Denies. It's an interesting wrinkle that can add a great deal actual "play"to the game. League has plenty of champions that simply don't do a great deal during laning phase. Morgana, for example, has a fire and forget way of farming and from there all you can really do is poke half-heartedly. Against another fairly passive champion, laning phase becomes an endless bore spiced up only by the occasional gank attempt.

The complexity of the systems in DOTA does, in many cases, give you as a player more to actually do - there is no denying that. Its just that those systems don't add to the actual core decision making of the game; they serve to confuse it. And, as a rule, I simply prefer the distilled version. You could look at my post history defending, for example, the reduction of complexity of Mass Effect 2 to see this isn't a purely tribal trend. When I started playing MOBAS, I had friends who played League and Friends who Played DOTA and my time can only allow for one such time sink. League eventually won me over.

I will not assert that DOTA is an inferior game - it is a game that is very slightly different. I like denying purely by zoning, I like having the freedom of high risk activities that league's death system allows and I like that the choice to buy or grab more CS is an either/or affair. The extra trappings of DOTA, simply put, don't alter the core game enough for me to want to bother with them.

 

[Vigormortis]

While Dota may be the "deeper game" due to its extra complexities, that makes it far less accessible.

I`m going to have to disagree with this for two reasons. First, while the skill ceiling may be higher in Dota 2, it`s no harder a game to pick up and start playing than LoL. And it doesn't take very long to get the hang of the basics and start playing a lot of characters at least somewhat competently.

Second, and this is the most important bit, no game that locks 90+ percent of its characters behind a paid barrier will ever be as accessible as a game that makes everything available up front. You can argue doing so makes initial character selection more difficult, but it's bull. It takes no real effort to pick one and stick with it to learn the basics, then branch out. And it's unbelievably easy to search for characters who specialize in the sort of play styles you learn that you enjoy. And you won't pay a dime and risk wasting money trying new characters. That is key. Any game that requires you to pay absurd amounts of money, or do absurd amounts of grinding in order to find the best character for you is the exact opposite of accessible.

Exactly.

I am honestly baffled, quite often, by the complaints people levy against Dota 2 when compared to League of Legends. The one you've refuted is one of the more common.

Another would be the "Dota 2 heroes are OP". Of which makes no sense. Are they saying heroes not being able to spam abilities or turn and attack instantly is now "overpowered"? How the hell does that make sense?! For that matter, how does saying "Dota 2's idea of balance is making all heroes OP" make sense? Would not all heroes being on the same power level equate to the exact opposite of any of them being OP? Seriously, what the hell people?

But when it comes to accessibility, the difference is night and day. Don't even get me started on the level, matchmaking, and hero pick restrictions in LoL. Or, for that matter, the runes. (Yes, brilliant. Let's give veteran players even BIGGER advantages over the new players. Because that's how we do fair play.)

A game that locks out at least half of it's core gameplay content behind pay/grind barriers is, as you put it, "...the exact opposite of accessible."

I don't care if someone prefers LoL over other, similar games. Personal preference is just that. Personal.

Hell, I wouldn't even care if you said you liked Smite the best. (in fact, I might like you more for that)

However, don't sit there and tell me that LoL is more "accessible" to new players or that Dota 2 is "worse" because it has more complexity and more options.

 

[Drizzitdude]

I find league to be more fast paced and more big play moments. Also they are constantly changing the game and pushing out a ton of updates. I find the only problem with Dota champs is they are all warcraft based and that limits them to what they can do with them. Also there are some ideas that made it into the game that I don't understand how no one pointed out its problems. One of the characters for example, sniper, can make it so his autoattack passively stun enemies. In early games, its annoying, in mid game, its tough as hell to stop, late game you have no chance of getting away fromt hat guy, he can literally lock down whoever he wants.

 

[Yeager942]

Well Valve's EU servers actually work most of the time so there's that, EU West OP. In terms of gameplay I prefer League because the engine DOTA 2 runs on is absolute wank. Apparently they just took the original DOTA Warcraft 3 engine or what have you and HD'd up with zero attempt at improvement.

Oh but don't worry guys, it means that all the guys who played DOTA 1 can still be familiar with the shit controls if they transition! Instead of taking a week at most to get used to how not shit the new engine would feel. Logic.

I could go on about the engine for all the minor annoyances but mainly, pathfinding. The amount of times my character has ran in a little circle then finally decides to move the way I fucking told her to five seconds ago when she's already been stunned senseless and killed. That or getting blocked on every single minion ever.


For hero balance, DOTA doesn't have any, League is trying to balance over 100 of the bloody things so it's a little bit trying for them, it's item balance they have trouble with (lol Trinity Force strikes again) DOTA 2 has a fucking hard on for stealth mechanics for fuck all reason, League has a strict meta and DOTA just does whatever and nobody cares.

It's not that Dota doesn't have a meta, it's just that hero roles are so much more flexible than LoL is.

I played LoL for nearly three years and I've since started transitioning into Dota 2. Dota is significantly more complex than LoL, but it's a complexity that I enjoy. The engine LoL runs in prevents the game from having as many varied mechanics as Dota (such as multiple unit control), so the hero design in Dota is much more varied. Additionally, LoL has painful power creep, which really puts me off of buying new champions. Both games have >120 characters to pick from so I love the fact that Dota gives you all of them up front. It's really painful to spend all your hard earned IP on champion you thought you may like only to discover that the champion sucks, and don't even get me started on runes.

However, all of this may mean for naught if Dota's complexity scares you. I have many friends who started LoL with me and refuse to make the transition into Dota merely because they have grown used to LoL's engine and mechanics. If you want the simpler, leaner game, go for LoL. If the complexity of Dota doesn't scare you, then Dota is better. That's not to say that Dota is IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN, just that it more difficult when compared to LoL (which is already really complex when compared to other games).

Edit: I just scrolled up and I saw people arguing about logical fallacies. You see OP, this is what happens when you bring up the LoL/Dota debate. You get angry neckbeards.

 

[Bicheng Liu]

You have to play to get characters, profile levels, "runes," and "masteries," in LoL.

In DotA, you don't have to do anything to play the entirety of the game, so I prefer DotA but you can try both if you wanted to as they are both free.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The fallacy was Ad Hominem.

I'm not sure outlining a clear preference, which you have gone on to reaffirm, constitutes ad hominem, but I understand your objection to me zoning in on it all the same.

Mid lane players are less likely to leave lane to gank other lanes, top lane players are less likely to roam, etc. Functionally, where roaming is incredibly common in League, my experience with DOTA was that it was less common during laning phase.

I don't see this at all. Part of the reason I hate going mid is because mid is EXPECTED to gank, and gank early. Roaming, lane swapping and ganking becomes more and more predominant at higher skill levels, as players get better at weighing the risk vs reward. DOTA actually rewards extremely aggressive play, as does, say, SC2. The worst thing you can do is hang back and let your opponent dictate play. Conservative play will almost always result in a loss unless your opponent is an idiot.

The target will generally be inside the opposing jungle ergo the high risk/reward scenario. By contrast, Dragon is high risk because of it's location in neutral territory and the length of time it takes to dispatch. In each case, risk is assumed (staying in neutral territory close to three to four other players for dragon, being in the opposing jungle for the Courier) in exchange for a potential massive gold payout if you pull it off.

Early on, yes, but courier use is not restricted to the laning phase, and cuts through the opposing jungle for ganks are common even at extremely low levels. Courier play is an interesting tactical wrinkle. As are scrolls.

This risk is functionally identical to several of the risks undertaken by leaving lane in either game in terms of the actual impact on the game itself.

The courier can only supply health/mana if you buy it. The distance there and back is longer, meaning huffing back and forth and not employing the courier creates a devastating opportunity cost. TP scrolls are expensive and on long cooldowns. You can boil it down to "in the end it's all the same risk!" but that's oversimplifying to a comical degree. There are more options in DOTA, those options come saddled with additional complexities, additional risks, and additional rewards. That is a form of game play depth.

The second is the Deny system in DOTA which is not present at all in League. Functionally, it serves to reduce enemy gold acquisition directly. League, by contrast, has a system to do this but it involves effectively taking actions against the player themselves to keep them from getting last hits. The end result is the same (less gold for your opponent).

That's not a "system", that's just harassment. It's identical in both games. Denies also reduce enemy xp for creep death, btw. And result in the lane getting pushed less, which is essential if you're in the suicide/long lane.

The complexity of the systems in DOTA does, in many cases, give you as a player more to actually do - there is no denying that. Its just that those systems don't add to the actual core decision making of the game; they serve to confuse it.

And this is a pretty key point, and it's at the heart of our disagreement. You accept that DOTA has added complexity, but deny it adds anything to the game...indeed, you imply it actively makes it worse. I really could not disagree more. DOTA is a pretty clean game. I don't see too many areas of feature bloat or needless complexity for the sake of having a fussy game. There's no "confusion". Is there slightly more mechanical complexity than LoL? Yes. Might LoL players prefer the more streamlined experience? Yes. It is a discredit to DOTA, however, to suggest the systems "confuse" the decision making.

And, as a rule, I simply prefer the distilled version. You could look at my post history defending, for example, the reduction of complexity of Mass Effect 2 to see this isn't a purely tribal trend.

Agreed on ME2, although this was less a case of ME2 being a titan of game design and more a case of ME1's game systems being a fucking mess. Cleaner was better simply by process of elimination.

I will not assert that DOTA is an inferior game - it is a game that is very slightly different. I like denying purely by zoning, I like having the freedom of high risk activities that league's death system allows and I like that the choice to buy or grab more CS is an either/or affair. The extra trappings of DOTA, simply put, don't alter the core game enough for me to want to bother with them.

One strikes me as more of the grognard's MOBA, vs the more accessible title. For me it was the business model that swung the initial decision, but I've come to really prefer DOTA's huge momentum swings, punchy powers, and high risk/high reward decisions. And, admittedly, I hate LoL's art style (although frankly neither is anything to write home about).

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Well Valve's EU servers actually work most of the time so there's that, EU West OP. In terms of gameplay I prefer League because the engine DOTA 2 runs on is absolute wank. Apparently they just took the original DOTA Warcraft 3 engine or what have you and HD'd up with zero attempt at improvement.

Oh but don't worry guys, it means that all the guys who played DOTA 1 can still be familiar with the shit controls if they transition! Instead of taking a week at most to get used to how not shit the new engine would feel. Logic.

I could go on about the engine for all the minor annoyances but mainly, pathfinding. The amount of times my character has ran in a little circle then finally decides to move the way I fucking told her to five seconds ago when she's already been stunned senseless and killed. That or getting blocked on every single minion ever.


For hero balance, DOTA doesn't have any, League is trying to balance over 100 of the bloody things so it's a little bit trying for them, it's item balance they have trouble with (lol Trinity Force strikes again) DOTA 2 has a fucking hard on for stealth mechanics for fuck all reason, League has a strict meta and DOTA just does whatever and nobody cares.

It's not that Dota doesn't have a meta, it's just that hero roles are so much more flexible than LoL is.

I played LoL for nearly three years and I've since started transitioning into Dota 2. Dota is significantly more complex than LoL, but it's a complexity that I enjoy. The engine LoL runs in prevents the game from having as many varied mechanics as Dota (such as multiple unit control), so the hero design in Dota is much more varied. Additionally, LoL has painful power creep, which really puts me off of buying new champions. Both games have >120 characters to pick from so I love the fact that Dota gives you all of them up front. It's really painful to spend all your hard earned IP on champion you thought you may like only to discover that the champion sucks, and don't even get me started on runes.

However, all of this may mean for naught if Dota's complexity scares you. I have many friends who started LoL with me and refuse to make the transition into Dota merely because they have grown used to LoL's engine and mechanics. If you want the simpler, leaner game, go for LoL. If the complexity of Dota doesn't scare you, then Dota is better. That's not to say that Dota is IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN, just that it more difficult when compared to LoL (which is already really complex when compared to other games).

It's kinda odd that of all the comments I've read so far, this is the one that actually offended me, but it did, so here goes.

I am not scared of complexity. I am a terrible multi-tasker. I don't do well when I have to consider what I am building, my wards, my cool downs, all of the same for my teammates and opponents, when to last hit, and all the rest. This only gets worse when I have to memorize just how long range my dash goes so I don't click too far away and waste a third of the distance, or just how the turret's range is going to mutate after I've pissed it off. I don't want to have to think about even more when I play a MOBA. That does not make me a coward.

 

[DaViller]

snip

You should consider that theres usually only one courier per game. This means careless and uncoordinated use not only puts the courier at risk but potentially harmes your teammates. For example if your solo mid is struggeling and needs the courier constantly for bottle refills. Now its wagering your gain against potential loss of your teammates as well.

Also on this whole dota is more passive and doesnt allow for comebacks issue.

If you watch some high level dota play you will find that dota is a very aggressive game. From what i've seen from competetive matches in lol and dota, though i gotta admit my lol knowledge is dated in that regard, dota features more kills and fights then lol.

To the comebacks i would like to show you this

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/yo1k6/how_often_do_comebacks_happen_in_pro_dota_2_with/

these statistics are a bit dated but still at that point dota had a 26% comeback chance from an early enemy lead while lol only had 18%. Please take this into consideration.

 

[infinity_turtles]

these statistics are a bit dated but still at that point dota had a 26% comeback chance from an early enemy lead while lol only had 18%. Please take this into consideration.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that the pro LOL scene hasn't been very competitive for the past year or so. Really throws those statistics off. Dota 2's competitive scene is just a lot more healthy at the moment.

Second, and this is the most important bit, no game that locks 90+ percent of its characters behind a paid barrier will ever be as accessible as a game that makes everything available up front. You can argue doing so makes initial character selection more difficult, but it's bull. It takes no real effort to pick one and stick with it to learn the basics, then branch out. And it's unbelievably easy to search for characters who specialize in the sort of play styles you learn that you enjoy. And you won't pay a dime and risk wasting money trying new characters. That is key. Any game that requires you to pay absurd amounts of money, or do absurd amounts of grinding in order to find the best character for you is the exact opposite of accessible.

But when it comes to accessibility, the difference is night and day. Don't even get me started on the level, matchmaking, and hero pick restrictions in LoL. Or, for that matter, the runes. (Yes, brilliant. Let's give veteran players even BIGGER advantages over the new players. Because that's how we do fair play.)

A game that locks out at least half of it's core gameplay content behind pay/grind barriers is, as you put it, "...the exact opposite of accessible."

Going to go ahead and say that yeah, locking things off does make things more accessible. Not because too many choices makes it too tough, but because it lowers the options of your opponents at the start too. It gives you time to adapt to the norm before you have to start worrying about all the potential things you have to counter. Jungling at low levels without runes and masteries is extremely difficult or impossible on some of the better gankers, mid-game tower diving is much more risky, and so-on and so-on. And yes while having to buy champions makes it more difficult to find a champion you like, I'd say the free champion rotation mitigates that to a large degree while also, again, making your opponents choices more narrow at the start. The accessibility doesn't come from it being easier to make choices, but from the opponents having less ways to screw you over that you need to account for. LOL eases you into things before letting your opponents have the full bag of goodies to screw you over with.

 

[Paprik]

What I think LoL did better than DotA:
- champion/item balance (half the skills/items of DotA would be considered retardedly broken in League)
- cleaner in game UI / map (can't even tell what's passable terrain in dota, since it's all grey and you can destroy trees)
- kills don't snowball that hard (DotA awards way too much XP for kills imho)
- DotA 2 sticks way too much to the original, so it retains clumsiness
- less micro management (can be important for a newbie and people who hate RTS)

What I think DotA did better:
- client / out of the game UI
- all characters are free
- more diverse abilities = maybe more fun (but also way more are passives = more boring)

Both are addictive, popular and have crap communities.

 

[Skoosh]

I started playing years ago on Warcraft 3 with DotA. It's a great game and pretty much started a whole new genre.

A few years ago with WC3 dying, I tried out LoL and HoN (which I never hear of now, haha, forget about this one), and then DotA 2 once that was available. All-in-all, I think League is pretty solidly better, however they all have advantages, and for few Dota2 may be the better choice. I mostly play LoL now, but do play DotA 2 still some with particular friends.

OP had 2 main concerns: community friendliness and language. On the first point, sorry, all MOBAs have pretty much the same terrible community, they just come in different flavors. These games are high-learning curve, high-stress, with just enough time investment at about 30-45 minutes to make people furious when everything isn't going perfectly. As for language, definitely go with LoL. They have split it up into so many servers that I almost never come across non-English speakers.

Now on to the rest. Hero diversity (I know LoL says "champions" but I did grow up on warcraft) I'd say goes to LoL. DotA 2 carries over the vast majority of its heroes from the original DotA, so playing it is an amazing amount of nostalgia and has the advantage of instantly familiarity for many. The downside is many of their moves are fairly straight-forward. Oh, this is my variation of stormbolt, this is my variation of cleave, etc. A quick glance over and familiarity with WC3 spells and you can figure most heroes out pretty fast (obviously there are some exceptions). League, however, you often have to read the spells a bit more carefully. Their spells tend to be more complex and situational. Many heroes fall into roles more neatly than DotA, however they will play significantly different from other heroes within the same role. In general, DotA heroes are more versatile, however part of this is from their similarities.

Core mechanics, however, DotA brings in some complications that LoL does not have with denies. This is the big reason people say it's harder, as playing with denies requires significantly higher APM (actions per minute) than in League. This is also why DotA player transfer to LoL a bit better than vice-versa. They are used to working a bit harder early game for those creep kills and denies. However when it comes to hero-to-hero interactions, the advantages stop.

Other big difference: choice at start. As soon as you install DotA, you have exactly the same shit as people that have played for years have. You can pick anyone and that's all there is to it. LoL has a lot more complexities pregame with runes and masteries altering stats slightly, extra spells that you can take with on any hero, etc. They stagger this with only having some of the content being available at the start, which is great for new players. It's frustrating however for a few old pros with new names or very quick learners. League also limits hero choices, with only a few being available at start (however they rotate every week, to help keep it fresh). For new players, helps them focus on learning just a few at a time, where dota unloads it all at once. However to unlock all your favorites it could take months, where as dota has it all right away. A trade off between availability and accessibility. By high-level play, both are difficult in slightly different ways, but fairly even. League is easier at the start and grows to be way harder, dota starts hard and gets a good bit harder.

Again, I'd recommend League over DotA, however both are very fun. Guinsoo was the main guy that made DotA allstars (on WC3) into what we know today, but he also works for Riot on League now. When it comes down to it, we've got a lot of the same people making both of these great games. Don't let the haters on either side fool you into thinking one is trash compared to the other. They are just different. It's okay to have more than one MOBA, just as it's okay to have more than one FPS or RPG. I prefer Persona over Tales of, but there are still some amazing Tales of games.

 

[Lyri]

Everything else is in, I believe and works in the exact same way.

Not quite. Very close, but not exactly the same. Many skills have only very slight differences, but a few of them have significant changes. Like Axe's culling blade. In DotA 1, it did 100 000 000 damage to targets below a threshold to 'guarantee' a kill. However, skills like Shallow Grave and Borrowed time blocked it. Well, Shallow Grave only prevented you from dying from damage, whereas Borrowed Time would take that damage as healing. In DotA 2, Culling Blade does not do damage when the target is under the health threshold; instead, it outright kills them, even when under the effects of Shallow Grave or Borrowed Time.

There's more, but it's late and I already vomited more letters than I intended, so goodnight.

Yes but those are due to how the game is coded, so making somethings work as intended is impossible in DotA1.
Shallow Grave also does not block Axe's ult, part of the reason why it does so much dmg in DotA1 iirc.

Also that is not how it works in DotA 2, Culling Blade purges all buffs/debuffs before doing damage.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

What I think LoL did better than DotA:
- champion/item balance (half the skills/items of DotA would be considered retardedly broken in League)

Why's that a good thing? You can be balanced without nerfing everyone into the ground. Dota skills are more OP than the league skills, but... how does that matter? Dota skills aren't balanced around League, they're balanced around Dota. Do you like having your powerful skill on a 2 minute cooldown? Waiting 2-3 minutes to use my fun spells (that even then aren't too powerful) is not fun.

Honestly the cooldowns are one of the main reasons I prefer Dota. I don't like having several minute gaps in between my fun spells, and it's boring to be able to spam bad spells in lane without thinking about mana at all. That's why I like Leblanc, she's not reliant o a really powerful spell on a long cooldown, and you can't just brainlessly cast your spells in lane because you'll probably run out of mana.

 

[AwesomeHatMan]

LoL has a lower skill cieling, many skills are similar, it is generally less advanced, has simpler characters and much of the tactical stuff (like denying or roshan) has been removed in LoL).

No tactical stuff like Roshan??? Have you heard of Dragon or Baron Nashor??? I wasn't going to comment on this thread but that statement was ridiculous.

As for which game should you play? I personally prefer LoL. DotA players seem very proud of how they kept the denying mechanic which does take more skill but I like how it's missing in LoL as it means you focus more on early harass rather than just farm and deny. Now I'll admit I haven't played DotA2 only the original in WC3 but to my knowledge DotA2 focuses on just farming up more than teamwork, ganking and objectives when compared to LoL.

As for other differences I miss the tree paths and rises from DotA but I prefer the red/blue system in LoL to runes in the river.

All online communities are toxic when big enough because many people in general are. In the end I'd say LoL because you may be surprised how many of your friends play it and games are best when played with friends

 

[General Twinkletoes]

LoL has a lower skill cieling, many skills are similar, it is generally less advanced, has simpler characters and much of the tactical stuff (like denying or roshan) has been removed in LoL).

As for which game should you play? I personally prefer LoL. DotA players seem very proud of how they kept the denying mechanic which does take more skill but I like how it's missing in LoL as it means you focus more on early harass rather than just farm and deny. Now I'll admit I haven't played DotA2 only the original in WC3 but to my knowledge DotA2 focuses on just farming up more than teamwork, ganking and objectives when compared to LoL.

I don't think that's the case. The towers being weaker and the fact that heroes don't have a get out of jail free card with flash means the early game is less passive.

 

[kingthrall]

still find it funny this thread is going, when nobody seems to be able to compare my game to lol/dota. Looks like my game wins on all fronts. Maybe you should look it up on ebay for 10 dollars, and then facepalm yourself on all the time and money wasted on this populist crud.

 

[Syntax Error]

Dota is better. LoL can't DENY it.

EDIT:
It always gets rubbed in because that one mechanic opens up a whole lot more on how a game can pogress. I asked my officemate who plays LoL about the average game length. He said LoL games tend to finish in 30 minutes, while from my personal experience, DotA games tend to go on for at least 45 if the teams are evenly matched. This can be traced to denying.

See, the absence of denies means that the lane farm is contested on;y by your lanemate, but let's assume proper lane composition and you are playing as a carry while your mate is rolling support (he's not taking farm from you). Because you can't be denied Gold/XP by the enemies, you get farmed faster. Because of the faster farm, you get your items quicker. Because you get your items quicker, you can lay waste to the enemy support more often, which brings in more gold and more items and more kills. All these just because your enemies can't do anything to impede your farm in the lane.

Granted, there's merit to that (faster games being the primary one), but that's probably the reason why hardcore DotA fanatics hate the simplification.

 

[EtherealBeaver]

No tactical stuff like Roshan??? Have you heard of Dragon or Baron Nashor??? I wasn't going to comment on this thread but that statement was ridiculous.

Killing roshan is a much larger time investment and the gain is much more game changing and significant in terms of options and stragetic options/limitations.

Who should get the aegis? Do we focus on killing the one with aegis? Do you just rush in, suicide and use the positioning to set up initiation if you have the aegis? Do you use aegis for baiting? Do you use it to play defensively, ensuring your carry is harder to gank? Do you simply ignore trying to kill the enemy with aegis because he will revive anyway?

Obviously getting a free revival gives a ton more options and decisions assosiated with aegis than just that. It is more complex basically. Whether it is better or worse from a funfactor/design perspective is really mostly up to the player but both variants (baron and co. vs roshan) support their respective goal pretty well. One is simpler and less advanced in a less complex game, the other gives more options, is a bigger risk and can be used more strategically.

 

[KaosuHamoni]

If I have to listen to Luna or Witch Doctor again I will have to hurt something

Oh my lord Dan, I think I've broken you with my soundboard =D

[HEADING=1]SELEMENE COMMANDS[/HEADING]

Anyway, I like both, but for different reasons. LoL is where all my tryhard goes, because I'm actually reasonably good at it (Gold IV and rising), DOTA is where I go to play stupid-fun heroes with absolutely no regard for people's sanity (Lycan, Slardar, AXE, Sand King, Night Stalker, AXE, Spectre, Windrunner, AXE...)

So yeah, that's my take on it.

 

[DaViller]

Another reason why i prefer dota is laning. Denying gives active controll over where the lane will go and tower diving is less risky. Most lol players i met have problems adapting to that. They get zoned out and wait for the lane to push to theyr tower then 1 of 2 things happen.

Option 1

The enemy keeps them zoned out, anti pushes and denies them all theyr exp

Option 2

The enemy tower dives and straight up kills em.

Thats what i like about dota, you have more ways to screw your enemy over. This results in a more active and exiting laning. From my admittedly limited experience in lol the low lethality of spells in combination with the way to strong towers and flash leads to to many getaways and less overall agression. Dotas high lethalty coupled with denys means you are forced to fight and put yourself into danger if you dont want your exp gain be reduced to 0.

Thats my main problem with lol tower diving very early is to dangerous. Players should not be given a retreat that is this safe it takes tension away. I like that you cant feel safe in dota even if your under your tower.