Dota 2 hero roster - Find the character that's right for you

I'm fairly certain I'll be sticking with LoL but I do miss some of the old DotA champions. But unless they have added some sort of equivalent to AP so that casters can actually scale, fixed all of the potential for permastun, cleaned up all of the orb business, balanced it out so that agility champions aren't crazy op, and done away with denying; I just can't see myself switching over.

Dude all the characters are free. Why not just give it a try?

I never said I won't give it a try (though it's possible I won't just because I've got so many games I want to play currently.) But I said I don't see myself switching over, unless it's changed substantially from Dota which I don't think it did since their goal has been to make it identical to Dota with better graphics and networking. And I can't stand creep denies. Their design philosophy is probably trying to cater more to the hardcore, I'm sure. But the skill differential between players is magnified to such an extreme level with creep denial that it's just not fun for either player. There is the less skilled player who already has to overcome his handicap of not being as good as who he's laning against and now his income is getting completely blocked, further making it impossible for him to have a chance against his opponent. Then there is the more skilled player who is already likely going to do well based purely on his higher skill and now he gets even more of an advantage by crippling whoever he is laning against, almost guaranteeing that he'll get fed and snowball out of control. Believe it or not, games generally aren't that fun if you are always either completely destroying or getting completely destroyed. You may say that completely destroying is in fact fun. But how many people would rather get a 20 minute win in LoL because their lane dced versus a 60 minute back and forth where your team rallies to pull off an ace and seal the game? You may argue that this is an extreme case but seriously, even the smallest amount of skill differential snowballs so quickly.

Denying isn't a bad mechanic. It actually used to be in LoL but was taken out due to too many people complaining. The reason it is not implemented in LoL (anymore) is because they don't want to throw too much on their playing audience. The reason that LoL doesn't include most of the advanced strategic elements that dota had is because their playerbase is aimed at the greater, average populace who only wants to think about 4 spells and getting items. LoL is the call of duty of moba fighters. They want their players having mindless fun that requires no kind of advanced strategy that strays from team fights and back dooring to win. There is no farm penalty to dying in lol, there is no neutralization of game out comes due to leavers, there is no "safe to leave" system, there is no destructible terrain pathing, they give too much leeway and give handycaps to lazy players who cant win on a level playing field (teleport backing, summoner spells, runes). And to top it all off....riots balancing team has absolutely no idea what they are doing. (beta tf, beta shaco, launch xin, season 1 jax, evelyn, item stacking) Whats sad is Valve has done more with dota in a few months than riot has done with LoL in 3 years.

Let me start by saying I'm at the very least glad to see we can be civilized while discussing this. I saw some of the posts above and feared it would turn ugly. On with the debate: 1.) A single champion's spell that costs mana and has a 15 second (I believe it was) cooldown =/= every champion passively having the ability at the cost of a single attack, which doesn't actually cost anything. And as you mentioned, even that single champion no longer has the ability to do so. Moving on... 2.) Actually you did, that's why I quoted you verbatim. But I understand, we all slip up. I won't deny that Dota has **different** strategic elements. But last I knew, one champion utilized the day/night, loss of gold on death is discussed below and I feel it hinders the experience much more than it enhances it, you can only port back to base for free unless you elect to give up one of your spells for teleport, and couriers are pretty much offset by the ability to blue pill back to base. I always felt that droppable items had potential but they always seemed to instead be used as a gimmick, really. 3.) I understand that getting killed in Dota bears a much harsher punishment than in LoL. I would argue that it is far too harsh. Getting killed in LoL gives your killer (and any who assisted) more gold. By being dead, you leave your lane up to be pushed which gives your killer free farm. You lose out on all of the gold from the creeps that die while you aren't there to last hit them and you lose out on the experience by not being there. That is already a pretty freaking steep penalty. Dota escalates that by taking away another chunk of your gold on top of all of the other penalties. This encourages passive play, as does being able to deny. When denying, you can sit behind your creep and go about your business. If this isn't allowed you either have to take the risk of being in the fray closer to the action or you can apply pressure to try and zone out the enemy team. Passive play=unfun play. So I suppose we're in agreement that " death is much harsher penalty" but I've already pointed out why that's not necessarily a good thing. 4.) Parts of that sound like a pretty alright system but other parts don't. Queues do reset now if someone is unable to load the champion select screen in LoL. I think LoL would benefit from having the option of doing this if someone leaves under a certain time period. But I don't find nullifying experience points or item gain at the end of a match is fair for the winning team. If they are doing so well that they force a rage quit, that shouldn't result in them not being rewarded for it and allowed to take advantage of the situation that they caused. And besides, with all of the systems that they have in place to prevent people from leaving, it's really not that big of an issue unless the servers are having troubles (which they recently did but they have improved tremendously on this front over the past couple years.) 5.) This point is only valid to lowbies. Once you've reached level 30, you'll have enough wins and enough ip that it really shouldn't be an issue. Until you've reach level 30, you're still in the learning phase (something that is painfully absent from Dota. I still don't know how I kept playing through all the hate and constant failures because I was still getting used to the game but playing against regulars.) It doesn't really get competitive until level 30 at which point you can start playing ranked. If everyone has access to them and the champions are designed with that knowledge, I'm not sure how it's not an even playing field. Yeah, fiddle can miss an ult and flash to make it not miss. But they could have just as easily designed fiddle's ult to be castable at a longer range if the spell flash wasn't available. Now it creates a choice for the player. Just because not all the runes are equally useful doesn't make runes in general bad. Maybe Radiance sucked on Puck, that doesn't make Radiance useless. I think runes are a great advantage over Dota. It allows the player to further customize their champion through a means other than item selection and spell choice. 6.) No, it doesn't. You still only use the blue pill if you feel you absolutely have to (for the same reasons dying is really bad listed above). The only difference between it in LoL and Dota is that when you absolutely have to back, you get there instantly instead of having to walk all the way back. This does make your losses 1/2 as much but it speeds up the game tremendously. There's also the option to get the teleport boots in Dota too. And there's a support class in LoL too, the person who sacrifices items to help the team. But in LoL, they help the team through map awareness which is far more engaging imo.

I know what you mean. League of Legends has a tutorial and sets you against players of your skill level in matchmaking. This gives a much smoother learning curve compared to Dota 2 where there is no tutorial and you can be set against any skill level in your games. One of the main reasons I stopped playing Dota 2 is because of this steep learning curve. Every time I try to learn I just get crushed by people who have already been playing for 6 months.

3) arguing something is "too harsh" a punishment is pretty pointless when noting the fact that dota's playerbase isnt looking to get handed anything. I't has said reprocussions because they know the playerbase wants a richer, deeper strategic element that takes WORK to achieve a victory, rather than mostly luck. It doesn't encourage passive gameplay because the reward outweighs the loss. AKA the risk is worth the effort. Good players know this. 4)The tribunal is the WORST idea I have ever seen, and does nothing but piss off leagues playerbase. Giving power to the 12 year olds that their community is filled with doesnt help the situation. And while were on the subject, leaving is far too "looked down on" in LoL than it needs to be. There are no reprocussions to leaving a queue in dota, and then serious ones for leaving a game. LoL doesnt understand the concept of a "lost cause" when you queue up and notice your team is all brazilan with 5 carries all calling mid. 5)I don't think your catching on to my point. there is no reason whatsoever to have pre game BUFFS that only depend on HOW MUCH YOU PLAY. Dota is an EVEN playing field no matter what at the start of the game. period. Runes and Masteries are literally only there to give players a sense of "earning" to play the game addictivly. I have 800+ wins in LoL, I have rune pages and what not, and there is absolutely no reason a player should be able to start with HUGE early game buffs against a player who spent his ip on champions. There is a reason DOTA has ALL the champions unlocked at the start. Because it is raw competition and not an addictive race to give you an advantage over others. The concept of a "lowbie" is a further example of just how stupid riot is, and how little they know about fair competition. 6) I've already said what I had to about this. I have played both games vigorously, and I know the difference between needing to back in lol and needing to back in dota. You even said it yourself, its only purpose is to "speed up the game". I dont know if you have ever played an RTS or boardgames like warhamme 40k, but games don't need to be short. I'ts a long haul for players that want to put their wits and patience to the test. Wanting games to be a short as possible only proves the game is boring and unfun to play all together. Oh and the option to teleport back in dota requires an item slot, and almost Double the gold of normal boots, not to mention not being able to use a scroll without a slot open. Don't get me started on supports in LoL. its clear riot does not want full support classes based on their balancing habits. "map awareness" is something every single good player should have, and compared to leagues, supports in dota waste half their farm on consumable items leaving them with slow farm and slow item builds at the reward of giving carries easier farm and roaming, which snowballs into late game.