DotA vs LoL...which is better?

[EtherealBeaver]

What you call 'sluggish' we call, 'stops ranged characters from kiting the shit out of melee.' They have turn speeds, which means you have to think twice about whether you can escape from any particular situation in time.

I find it interesting that many people who play LOL still think that it was a remnant from the old WC3 engine that turnrate is in dota. It could easily be turned to 0 in the editor, eliminating the turn time and there are even skills in dota (batrider) who extrapolate on turnrate times so how some people still think it was just there because it couldnt be fixed is beyond me.

 

[RJ 17]

I appreciate everyone's input on this, I feel I've got a much better idea about what I'd be getting into by going one way or the other. A question I meant to put in my OP though:

As I mentioned, I played the WCIII DotA map...is the stand-alone game based off of that or was that map based off of a stand-alone DotA game already?

If the stand-alone is based off the WCIII map, then I've a follow-up question: how similar are the heroes in the stand-alone to the ones in the WCIII map? Exact same including abilities and everything? I recall always liking to play the Venomancer 1) Because he's a hydralisk :3 and 2) if you're sneaky you can get some really good poison kills even if the target tries to run away.

So would I be dealing with essentially all the heroes that I remember from the WCIII map or are they pretty different?

 

[EtherealBeaver]

I appreciate everyone's input on this, I feel I've got a much better idea about what I'd be getting into by going one way or the other. A question I meant to put in my OP though:

As I mentioned, I played the WCIII DotA map...is the stand-alone game based off of that or was that map based off of a stand-alone DotA game already?

If the stand-alone is based off the WCIII map, then I've a follow-up question: how similar are the heroes in the stand-alone to the ones in the WCIII map? Exact same including abilities and everything? I recall always liking to play the Venomancer 1) Because he's a hydralisk :3 and 2) if you're sneaky you can get some really good poison kills even if the target tries to run away.

So would I be dealing with essentially all the heroes that I remember from the WCIII map or are they pretty different?

They are the exact same because dota2 was never meant to be an extrapolation on the concept but rather an effort to make it a standalone game and make the engine better looking and more efficient. When dota 1 eventually dies, the new engine will also allow more new interesting effects but honestly, most of them are already available with JASS/World Editor so chances of completely new stuff when dota 1 eventually goes out of production is pretty low. The only thing I can really remember is spell redirection and only because it would require all spells to be rewritten as it is now - technically it is possible with JASS but its just not worth the time to code it.

 

[FancyNick]

I played League for awhile but then switched to Dota and haven't been back since. Both are good games and as others have said, League is the more accessible while Dota is the more complicated. My biggest gripe with League is the character unlock. Dota has just been more my pace. Which ever game you play, remember this, these types of games are labors of love. You will spend wayyyy too much time on them.

Also, there's Smite. Not my cup of tea but it's there

 

[freaper]

If you're gonna play both, start with DotA. If not, pick the one which most of your friends play. If you have no friends (playing MOBA's) go for LoL, as long as you're not EU West. If you are part of EU West, may God have mercy on your soul.

 

[Lyri]

Dota is better in every way

Yea, no.
Dota 2 character control is sluggish, whereas LoL feels tighter and more responsive. It's like controlling CoD vs. controlling TF2.
Also, LoL CC doesn't last as long as the insane times on some of the Dota spells. Along with that you generally don't dump your entire mana in the space of a few seconds. While Dota may be the "deeper game" due to its extra complexities, that makes it far less accessible. LoL is also much, much easier to run on weaker PCs.

Anyway, those are just one of the ways that Dota 2 is inferior. However, both games have advantages and disadvantages, many of which have been listed in this thread. Dota 2 heroes are free whereas LoL champions have to be bought with RP or earned with IP. Also, Dota 2 has Steam as a launching platform, which is better than the shocking LoL client.

Personally, I play LoL. Could you tell?

DotA feels more sluggish because every hero has unique animations and turn rates, unlike League which has an across the board figure.
Batrider used to have an awful turn rate, until they buffed it which brought him into a more competitive element.

CC does not last as long in League because ability damage scales up with items, whereas in DotA it does not. The 250 dmg stun will always be 250 dmg, regardless of how many staves of wizardry you have.
Mana is conserved much more in DotA, removing the spammy element (fuck manaless heroes) that League has.

The complexities of DoTA are way past basics and are likely deeper mechanical nuggets that most casual players simply won't have to deal with.

I appreciate everyone's input on this, I feel I've got a much better idea about what I'd be getting into by going one way or the other. A question I meant to put in my OP though:

As I mentioned, I played the WCIII DotA map...is the stand-alone game based off of that or was that map based off of a stand-alone DotA game already?

If the stand-alone is based off the WCIII map, then I've a follow-up question: how similar are the heroes in the stand-alone to the ones in the WCIII map? Exact same including abilities and everything? I recall always liking to play the Venomancer 1) Because he's a hydralisk :3 and 2) if you're sneaky you can get some really good poison kills even if the target tries to run away.

So would I be dealing with essentially all the heroes that I remember from the WCIII map or are they pretty different?

If you have played the DotA map on Bnet, then yes DotA2 has total parity with exception of some heroes.

- Legion Commander
- Ember Spirit
- Earth Spirit (New hero to DotA WCIII)
- Pheonix
- Abyssal Underlord (Pit lord)
- Techies
- Oracle (New hero to DotA mod)
- Soul Keeper/ Terror Blade
- Winter Wyvern (New hero to DotA WCIII)
- Zet, Arc Warden (New hero to DotA WCIII)

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

 

[Therumancer]

I really don't have much experience at all with MOBA's beyond the WarCraft III custom-maps that were based off of DotA. I recently got Steam (finally, I know, I'm just a wee bit late to this particular party) and have been wondering what games I should start building a collection out of. Of course I picked up Team Fortress 2 seeing as how it's at the delicious price of Free, but now I'm looking to branch out.

As I mentioned, I played the DotA custom maps in WCIII and always had a fair bit of fun with those, but I also here (some) good things about LoL. So I'm looking for some opinions on which would be the better MOBA for a newb like myself to try and get into: DotA or LoL?

From pretty much every article/thread I've read on this site, it seems like the LoL player community is full of a LOT of royal douches...could just be "only bad news gets reported" but judging by the comment sections in a lot of those articles/threads there actually seems to be a trend of "prickish" people playing LoL.

On the other hand, everything I've heard about DotA seems to be that a good 90% of the people that play it are Russian. Not that I have any problem with the Russians, just seems like it might be a bit difficult to play a team based game if I can't understand my teammates and they can't understand me.

So are these rumors/stereotypes accurate? What are your suggestions for picking one over the other?

I'm not a big MOBA player, especially with developing tendonitis I can't play them very well. That said DOTA2 seems like the better game from the time I was goofing off with them. That said, both games have huge, toxic fan communities, so your not likely to get a better social experience from one as opposed to the other.

As far as the Russian problem, it's a big problem with MMOs of all types nowadays, whether it's Chinese, Koreans, Brazilians, Swedes, Russians, or whatever else. The thing is that the guys running MMOs don't want to set up and
enforce segregated servers, largely because it takes money to pay people to police them, and because of the backlash they tend to invite. For whatever reason you wind up with people outside of the US demanding to play on US servers despite any real difference performance wise, typically this comes down to business related reasons on a practical sense though, as there is something of a correlation between the number of non-US players and the amount of gold farming and spamming going on, though this is less of an issue with MOBAs in general. As a result you see a lot of people asking about server segregation when MMOs are being planned nowadays.

In general the formula seems to be that there is no problem with a Russian, Korean, Chinese, etc... person on their own, but when you see them coming in in massive groups it can literally wreck servers both due to language barriers and behavior. There is no way to really make this point "nicely" but where I used to like the idea of international MMO communities, over the years I've come to believe in keeping each region to it's own servers.

I find nothing more maddening than someone who doesn't speak English joining your PUG and then rolling need on all loot whether they need it for their character or not. It's not just about farming either, there seems to be something of a cultural divide when it comes to concepts like "Need Before Greed" as opposed to loot rolls just being a chance mini-game where there is no reason not to roll on everything. Apparently Neverwinter in particular has been trying to brainstorm a way around this problem due to getting an incredible number of complaints even compared to other games (largely because very little equipment binds, and anything you can win can go onto the auction house).

 

[The Wykydtron]

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.

Umm, Dota 2 uses Valve's source engine, not the Warcraft 3 engine. Pathfinding and controls, while very similar to Dota (well, from what I've heard. Never played the original Dota), it is that way due to intentional design decisions, not what engine they are using.

However, based on my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong), the League of Legends engine was slapped together as quickly as possible to get it out before Heroes of Newerth, and is a lot buggier than Dota 2 (Valve has never had to disable ranked play because of broken skins).

OT: In the Dota vs LoL debate, I would pick Awesomenauts. It is a lot more fun and a lot less complicated or stressful then either of those. And it has a bitchin theme song.

Pretty sure DOTA doesn't even have a ranked system. Just like 10 different variations on how to pick and ban. Yeah the DOTA engine was probably intentional, it was just intentionally shit. :/

Maybe the League engine was a bit weird on release but as far as i've seen (been playing since April 2012) the engine is really tight and snappy. Your character moves to where you want her to be instantly and I really can't remember any major bugs map/engine wise.

It depends what you mean by "engine" problems, the servers have fucking aneurysms (read: EU West is a fuckin' shambles) which is why queues sometimes get disabled or Riot manages to lag an entire team of players out of the game. That's not an engine problem precisely.

Item bugs and Champion bugs happen sometimes (Syndra was a nightmare on release) and there was just a problem with stacking items and the undo button, also some people managed to unlock the 10 Champion lobbies and practically wreck EU West. It is a really funny thing though.

 

[Denamic]

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.

 

[dogenzakaminion]

Ive played my fair share of LoL and DotA2, and I prefer DotA2. Both games are close enough that whichever one you choose, you will be getting a good MOBA experience gameplay wise. One thing no one seems to have mentioned yet is that LoL has Dominion, as well as Summoners Rift (Summoners Rift being your basic top, mid, bot lanes with creep waves). You might want to check out LoL just for Dominion mode, as it can be great fun. Its basically a 5 point hold and capture mode, but games go a lot faster and with more hero on hero action.

That being said, as a new player, DotA gives you the option to always play any hero you want. The entire roster is open without having to pay or unlock anything, giving more of a chance to experiment with various heroes to see what you like, and then get good at it.

As for the Russians, yeah, there are a lot. The server system is kindof fucked where even if you pick NA region, it groups you with EU East. Dunno what the point is in that but whatever. There will be nice games and bad games and nice people and bad people. That goes for both games. They're both free, so why not just take a stab at both. Both have great, active communities and frequent content updates.

And if you really don't care give SMITE a go. The stupidest fun in MOBA-form you will ever have.

 

[Zepherus14]

Here's my logic in this subject.

Does DOTA2 have a giant sentient Armadillo? No... [footnote]Actually I have no idea, if it does then wow, someone copied someone here. The world just isn't big enough for two giant sentient armadillos...[/footnote]

Does LoL have a giant sentient Armadillo? Yes!

Thus LoL is the better game![footnote]Honestly I've only ever played LoL. I'm not hardcore enough to want to try to switch over since LoL fills my need for MOBAs with the limited time I do have. Thus I have no say on which is better than the other, other than I enjoy LoL for its giant sentient armadillo killing machine. Who is Rammus. Who is awesome [/footnote]

 

[The Wykydtron]

Apparently they just took the original DOTA Warcraft 3 engine or what have you and HD'd up with zero attempt at improvement.

What? It runs on Source like every other Valve game from Half Life 2 to Portal 2, where did you get that information from as it's impressively wrong.

No I mean they practically copy pasted how the original Warcraft 3 engine felt onto Source and HD'd it, that's almost the same shut up.

Zero effort to make things not sluggish as fuck. Hey maybe some people are into that kinda thing, I just prefer controls that you do not have to fight through to reach the fun.

Oh and on a personal side, I find DOTA's characters more boring somehow. No idea how. They all have some cool as hell moves, 1000+ crit damage, timestop field, AntiMage in general everyone has like a 5 second stun or some such thing yet I can never get into the characters themselves. Their move and attack quotes are just one or two words taken from a general stock, they spend more time commenting on that one last hit they just got or how they totally denied a minion lolol, I dislike how every bloody character only opens their fat mouths properly every time a kill or death happens, the voice acting is mostly dismal except AntiMage. If I have to listen to Luna or Witch Doctor again I will have to hurt something and there are no emotes.

Honestly, I know it's a little thing but it really matters to me. I spend entire fights in League mashing my laugh and laughing at people in lane does get them to commit to stupid as fuck dives. The dance, taunt, laugh and jokes do wonders for character building. I would never be as good a Nami as I am if not for how broken her laugh looks if you spam it.

 

[DrOswald]

I really don't have much experience at all with MOBA's beyond the WarCraft III custom-maps that were based off of DotA. I recently got Steam (finally, I know, I'm just a wee bit late to this particular party) and have been wondering what games I should start building a collection out of. Of course I picked up Team Fortress 2 seeing as how it's at the delicious price of Free, but now I'm looking to branch out.

As I mentioned, I played the DotA custom maps in WCIII and always had a fair bit of fun with those, but I also here (some) good things about LoL. So I'm looking for some opinions on which would be the better MOBA for a newb like myself to try and get into: DotA or LoL?

From pretty much every article/thread I've read on this site, it seems like the LoL player community is full of a LOT of royal douches...could just be "only bad news gets reported" but judging by the comment sections in a lot of those articles/threads there actually seems to be a trend of "prickish" people playing LoL.

On the other hand, everything I've heard about DotA seems to be that a good 90% of the people that play it are Russian. Not that I have any problem with the Russians, just seems like it might be a bit difficult to play a team based game if I can't understand my teammates and they can't understand me.

So are these rumors/stereotypes accurate? What are your suggestions for picking one over the other?

I am a lol player. Main support.

The lol community is no where near as bad as everyone says it is. Generally speaking, if you start fights with people then you will draw out the jerk in others. Remember, you are playing a highly competitive game with competitive people, many of which have way too much free time on their hands and are all behind a shield of anonymity. These are the sort of people who will not back down from a dick measuring contest.

If you are friendly and nice you will rarely have problems. I would say I have a problem with an idiot in about 1/3 games in which our team is losing. And that is usually just one person flipping out and blaming everyone else for their failures, which is easily ignored.

As far as game quality, I really like lol. It is fun. But play with a friend. I never, ever play without a friend. It is so much better that way.

I can't really speak for DOTA II in any way. I never played it.

 

[Zepherus14]

I really don't have much experience at all with MOBA's beyond the WarCraft III custom-maps that were based off of DotA. I recently got Steam (finally, I know, I'm just a wee bit late to this particular party) and have been wondering what games I should start building a collection out of. Of course I picked up Team Fortress 2 seeing as how it's at the delicious price of Free, but now I'm looking to branch out.

As I mentioned, I played the DotA custom maps in WCIII and always had a fair bit of fun with those, but I also here (some) good things about LoL. So I'm looking for some opinions on which would be the better MOBA for a newb like myself to try and get into: DotA or LoL?

From pretty much every article/thread I've read on this site, it seems like the LoL player community is full of a LOT of royal douches...could just be "only bad news gets reported" but judging by the comment sections in a lot of those articles/threads there actually seems to be a trend of "prickish" people playing LoL.

On the other hand, everything I've heard about DotA seems to be that a good 90% of the people that play it are Russian. Not that I have any problem with the Russians, just seems like it might be a bit difficult to play a team based game if I can't understand my teammates and they can't understand me.

So are these rumors/stereotypes accurate? What are your suggestions for picking one over the other?

I am a lol player. Main support.

The lol community is no where near as bad as everyone says it is. Generally speaking, if you start fights with people then you will draw out the jerk in others. Remember, you are playing a highly competitive game with competitive people, many of which have way too much free time on their hands and are all behind a shield of anonymity. These are the sort of people who will not back down from a dick measuring contest.

If you are friendly and nice you will rarely have problems. I would say I have a problem with an idiot in about 1/3 games in which our team is losing. And that is usually just one person flipping out and blaming everyone else for their failures, which is easily ignored.

As far as game quality, I really like lol. It is fun. But play with a friend. I never, ever play without a friend. It is so much better that way.

I can't really speak for DOTA II in any way. I never played it.

Have to agree with you. Even with your choice in role, love me those supports.

 

[thirion1850]

As a game? DotA. End of discussion. Far deeper, far more complicated, far quicker paced with a crazy high skill ceiling and a great amount of variables to mix up every game. There's a good reason DotA 2 allows everything you need to play the game from the very outset rather than restricting the player with micro-transaction crap. It's a truly competitive game and plays like one.

Now if you want a more casual-- and there's NOTHING wrong with casual/relaxed/for fun, I have no idea why that's supposedly a derogatory term now - game, then take a crack or 10 at LoL. It's great fun! Hell, I've actually used League of Legends in order to learn the Dota genre of game so I could properly tackle it when I got my courage up. After 2 years. On the bright side, leaping into Dota was a breeze after that and I've never really looked back. Also, grab a few buddy teammates because solo que is terrible. And don't pick Heimerdinger. Poor poor Heimerdinger, when will they fix you?! Q_Q

Also try SMITE. The game's on par with LoL but I love the shift of perspective.

 

[Launcelot111]

DOTA demands more tactically and mechanically in order to succeed, and it has more complexity in its mechanics and champions (which is both a good and bad thing). DOTA also seems to reward snowballing and block comebacks more often. Once you get to late game, spellcasters remain strong in LOL as ability effects scale with items, while DOTA depends on autoattacking and setting things up for your carry as mages fall off due to flat spell damage.

A lot of DOTA abilities and items are a little esoteric in effect and take some research to figure out exactly what they do. LOL has a little of that, but the abilities are more clearly represented visually so it's easier to figure out exactly what's happening without consulting the wiki.

The character unlocking system is probably the most frustrating thing about LOL, as most of the interesting heroes are in the more expensive tiers, which would a few weeks of playing just to save up for one hero in the highest tier.

I play both and go back and forth depending on my mood. LOL tends to be more predictable (with a fairly rigid meta), but DOTA can be much more frustrating, as a bad teammate can ruin you much more.

 

[KazeAizen]

I really don't have much experience at all with MOBA's beyond the WarCraft III custom-maps that were based off of DotA. I recently got Steam (finally, I know, I'm just a wee bit late to this particular party) and have been wondering what games I should start building a collection out of. Of course I picked up Team Fortress 2 seeing as how it's at the delicious price of Free, but now I'm looking to branch out.

As I mentioned, I played the DotA custom maps in WCIII and always had a fair bit of fun with those, but I also here (some) good things about LoL. So I'm looking for some opinions on which would be the better MOBA for a newb like myself to try and get into: DotA or LoL?

From pretty much every article/thread I've read on this site, it seems like the LoL player community is full of a LOT of royal douches...could just be "only bad news gets reported" but judging by the comment sections in a lot of those articles/threads there actually seems to be a trend of "prickish" people playing LoL.

On the other hand, everything I've heard about DotA seems to be that a good 90% of the people that play it are Russian. Not that I have any problem with the Russians, just seems like it might be a bit difficult to play a team based game if I can't understand my teammates and they can't understand me.

So are these rumors/stereotypes accurate? What are your suggestions for picking one over the other?

Go LoL first. My brother tried dipping his feet in DoTA and he found that while similar the game has nuances and stuff that make it more complex. LoL is definitely more new guy friendly. Any MOBA will have a giant learning curve but LoL's is easier to manage. It has a pool of decent champs that aren't hard to use and allow you to play without getting pooped on.

It also has a fair amount of meta game which hell I'm lvl 30 and I'm still learning it. It also has a more dedicated team who update the beast constantly. The only thing hidden behind actual real world purchases are the skins to the various champs. Everything else is free if you put in the time. It also has a rotating champ roster week to week. About 7 or 8 different champs are free each week which actually allows you to discover and play with new champs you may not have yet. It may be a grind to get stuff but there is no lack of fun to be had and really doesn't feel like a grind.

 

[EtherealBeaver]

I am a lol player. Main support.

The lol community is no where near as bad as everyone says it is. Generally speaking, if you start fights with people then you will draw out the jerk in others. Remember, you are playing a highly competitive game with competitive people, many of which have way too much free time on their hands and are all behind a shield of anonymity. These are the sort of people who will not back down from a dick measuring contest.

If you are friendly and nice you will rarely have problems. I would say I have a problem with an idiot in about 1/3 games in which our team is losing. And that is usually just one person flipping out and blaming everyone else for their failures, which is easily ignored.

As far as game quality, I really like lol. It is fun. But play with a friend. I never, ever play without a friend. It is so much better that way.

I can't really speak for DOTA II in any way. I never played it.

As spoken by a true player with a ton of games under their belt. The dota community isnt as toxic as people say either once you have a bunch of games under your belt. The problem is that until you get to the rank/elo where you play with dedicated players, you are playing with people who tend to not understand the game and who tend to get frustrated because they dont understand what is going on. I have alt accounts and have tried being in the dota trench/lol elo hell and it is really frustrating at times. What you have to do to escape it is just to take all the advise you can if you need it, give friendly non-provokative advise where you deem fit and keep a positive attitude.

In my experience, keeping the team optimistic and happy is half the battle to be honest and I have a ~70% win rate in both games - which I like to belive comes from my teambuilding because honestly I dont belive im much more than an average player at best.

 

[Draken Steel]

DotA is more tactical, hardcor,e with a higherskill cap. LArger variety in skills, some really neat ideas an uniquie champions. The sheer variety of abilities, chaampions, and items in DotA is quite nice, tho very daunting to fight.

LoL feels far more responsive, is far more forgiving, you are not punished nearly as hard for deaths, and the champions are balanced more evenly across all times (obviously osme are better early, while soem sclae late game, but dota has this to the extreme). overall it feels more fighty, with more skirmishes and harassing and small fihts, as oppsoed to DotA's mana making it feel very all in.

Overall, I vastly prefer lol. I like DotAs variety, but losing gold on death , denying creeps and towers, the extremely limtied mana, the caster scaling, and above all the character sluggishness, are all big turn offs for me.

 

[DazZ.]

No I mean they practically copy pasted how the original Warcraft 3 engine felt onto Source and HD'd it, that's almost the same shut up.

Ahh right, yes that exactly. They have tried to emulate it pretty much precisely, bugs and all.

Zero effort to make things not sluggish as fuck. Hey maybe some people are into that kinda thing, I just prefer controls that you do not have to fight through to reach the fun.

I started with League, and played the hell out of it for a good few years and I've played Dota for most of this year. The turn speed is something I've got used to and now prefer, mostly for the following reason. Abilities have a punch behind them in animations sound and feel. The main one I think of whenever I say that is Earthshakers Q, when he slams it into the floor it just feels so much beefier, also his turn speed is fairly low so he just feels tankier. I don't like the whole zippity doo bop movement of not fumbling about in LoL when I'm a tank, Lulu it suits, Earthshaker it doesn't.

It's the same as "gun feel" as I attempt to describe it, the guns in CSGO have huge recoil and all of them can kill with 1 bullet to the head and just feel lethal to use. However the guns in say Payday (worst offender) and to lesser extents BF3 and CoD feel like peashooters, but they're much more easier to hit with. It's like that with the game feel of Dota and LoL, one is forgiving but doesn't feel like the character is a big burly tank, it feels like he's a dainty ballet dancer who can zip about wherever whenever.

But the whole "Reach the fun" part is completely subjective, I adore the feel of Dota over LoL and going back and being Ahri or even J4s ult, all abilities just feel weak in comparison, certainly when CC is just a tickle. Again, opinion which is why I left this stuff out of my first post.

Oh and on a personal side, I find DOTA's characters more boring somehow. No idea how. They all have some cool as hell moves, 1000+ crit damage, timestop field, AntiMage in general everyone has like a 5 second stun or some such thing yet I can never get into the characters themselves.

I love some of the background stories of LoL characters, but their abilities all seem to be the same sets of things, ADCs mostly have this problem where they all have 1 mini cc, one dash getaway a burst and an ult that sets them apart. Junglers seem to be most different where they can be more flexible with the kit but the whole insanely strict meta means you can't have people that are complete gamechangers like Wisp or Spirit Breaker.

Their move and attack quotes are just one or two words taken from a general stock, they spend more time commenting on that one last hit they just got or how they totally denied a minion lolol, I dislike how every bloody character only opens their fat mouths properly every time a kill or death happens, the voice acting is mostly dismal except AntiMage. If I have to listen to Luna or Witch Doctor again I will have to hurt something and there are no emotes.

Luna's voice is horrendous. Well her voice is ok, her fake Scottish accent is horrendous. Witch Doctors is glorious though. Best thing about Dotas voice acting is the interaction between heros, if you put enemies like Tidehunter and Kunkka in the same lane they'll mention they don't like each other. Also just look at the amount of responses [http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Kunkka_responses] there are for Kunkka killing Tidehunter. That's not uncommon between heroes that they'll speak to each other about lore and reference stuff, and I wish LoL had more of it.

There are taunts, and they come with animations but they're an unlock, also you make the hero laugh if you type lol, but it's not nearly as spammable as league. So plus side there are more varied taunts, downside they're unlocks and less spammy, along with no /jokes or /dance.

To sum up, main reasons I switched was abilities feel beefy, supports have a fuck ton more to do early game (as in, they have something to do other than stand in a bush and ward once every 2 mins), there isn't a set meta that forces you into 1 team lineup, heroes have much more interesting abilities, you'd never see Pit Lord where he can teleport his entire team to anywhere on the map in LoL, also Heroes don't NEED only 4 ability slots (Outside of Elise, Jayce & Troll Warlord melee/ranged switch style) like Invoker who has around 10 spells. Control groups like Starcraft and other RTS games where you can control more than 2 units at once (holding alt for Annies ult is controlling 2, but Dota you can have at least 20 with Broodmother or PL). Heroes don't sort of die out to make way for new ones, where there was like a good year or two where Eve wasn't played, during TI3 I think it was only around 10 heroes weren't picked or banned, I'd put a fairly hefty wager you wouldn't see that sort of verity in LoL comps although if someone could link me stats that would be lovely, I'm interested. I don't know much about the current LoL meta but I can guarantee there will be people who aren't picked because they're nerfed to the ground and you'd get shouted at for picking them, currently I can't think of anyone in Dota that doesn't have a use, it may be a niche use like Broodmother early tower pushing and countered easy but it's something unique, and with League characters being so similar the nerfed ones just lay dormant with someone else doing exactly the same as them but better.

This was much longer than I intended it to be...

Edit:

Just like 10 different variations on how to pick and ban... also some people managed to unlock the 10 Champion lobbies and practically wreck EU West. It is a really funny thing though.

Yeah there is no ranked system, but if you're into those sorts of all one character funny games that's built into the lobby system in Dota, where everyone can be the same character or you can just have as many of anyone you want, you can even have a team of Roshans vs another team of Roshans.

Also there's wtf mode, where everyone has infinite mana and no cooldowns, which is just ridiculous(ly funny).