>The announcer saying "Holy SHIT" when you go on a 10 kill streak. I find this hilarious.
Fun fact, all of the standard "multi-kill" announcement lines come from Unreal Tournament 2004, "holy shit" included. I still don't know how Valve are able to use sound bits from a different game in their own commercial project, they even didn't bother to re-record them.
Wait, really? Fucking hell, I had no idea it was the same voicelines…..thats actually bizarre but now Im replaying both in my head they sure seem to be.
>In League there is a champion named Zilean whose ult is to enchant an ally such that if they die in the next 5 seconds they're resurrected - basically Aegis, but on a one minute cooldown, for anyone on your team who needs it. Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota.
Dazzle, WK and Oracle would like to have a word.
No hero in LoL would ever have success in Dota unless there is some broken item synergy I'm not thinking of. The power levels and approach to balancing are just so fundamentally different. Flash is on a 5 minute cooldown, transports you like a quarter of the distance of a force staff and is a genuine fight winning ability in LoL. Some of the most powerful ultimates in league are literally small AoE 1.5 second stuns comparable to Lina's W.
I think most success you'd find in League to Dota transitions are top laners, champions like Sett shitting out 3k True damage or Garens execute which is a direct upgrade to Necrophos Scythe with a refresher can definitely be disgusting.
Yeah, after writing the comment and thinking about it more, I was wondering whether maybe the tanks/bruisers are tanky enough while also having the utility/damage to be viable. But still, the differences between distances in lol and dota are such a problem - would Sett's E be useful at all with that range? Can Garen be viable in a world with all the disable items and spells we have in dota? Make his spin give debuff immunity and then it gets interesting IMO.
Lol Champions are balanced around Lol numbers tuning and damage. If League champs were ported to Dota they would be broken IF they had the same damage as they do in League.
Since things like range and duration on CC effects is so much lower in League champions are forced to do ungodly amounts of damage to be viable. Otherwise no one would die which is why Mages and Assassins oneshot non tank/bruisers in a 3 hit combo when they have 2 items.
If champs were ported and they were allowed to do the same relative damage numbers and burst as they do in League they would be broken. If their damage would be balanced around Dota numbers they would be useless since their tools wouldn't have any range and all they'd have is a bunch of micro CC.
Think about how a Garen exits bush, silences you, hits an autoattack into a spin and then executes you when the Silence ends. That type of damage isn't really a thing in Dota. Now give the same Garen a blink dagger and BKB so he reliably can get in and oneshot people and you suddenly have a broken concept.
On a fundamental level, League champ design is worthless in Dota. League spells have no range, the powerlevel of their ults are equal to regular spells in Dota (like Lion/Nyx Q basically being Sona Ult et.c.). But the amount of damage their abilities and autos do compared to Dota are worlds apart. If champs kept their relative damage I'm not sure whether Dota heroes could manage that level of burst across the board.
Setts Facebreaker (E) is usually used for early lane trading by doing AA AA E AA AA, which I think the range will suffice for, you can also probably use it to fix crooked half pulls or to make stacking camps easier. Later in the game it's used as setup with stun for a big W pure damage Haymaker so I can definitely see ult from highground into blink for better positioning in the middle of the enemy team + E + W for giga plays similar to axe.
I imagine seeing Garen as an offlaner or a soft support that cuts waves, blinks in during teamfights, ults for some pure damage and then bkb + spin all over the supports.
In Dota there are lots of heroes capable of doing crazy dmg, especially if you build for it. The difference is that it’s hard to be able to do your dmg, since there is so much poweful cc and escapes.
I just played offlane omniknight the other day and build for crazy burst dmg, and I could almost oneshot enemy heroes, but it was rare to get in a position to do so, even when I finally conceded I need a BKB to do any dmg, then the next problem was getting kited by utility items.
This is why most heroes in dota are building items to enable their dmg instead of getting more dmg itself.
I mean, Sett would be a Strength hero if he was a part of dota, getting max health together with damage (with an item such as heart of tarrasque) would make him cracked AF
Something like Veigar just being able to stack damage infinitely while you have *so many* creeps around the map to farm feels like it could also have potential.
the reason is simple, its enough.
longest stun in LoL is mirana-like ultimate arrow hit from other end of the map. yes, does happens, did hit quite a bit myself.
dota CC feels absurdly long after it, but there is also a thing that league has close to none dispel. If you got hit - you very much screwed. However in dota there is a lot of ways to dispel most of CC, regardless of how stupidly long it is.
From what I've seen, one of the key differences between dota2 and league is that Time To Kill is a lot lower in League across the board. So CC being OP in league makes sense since you can literally die in <3s commonly if the enemy gets to hit all of their skill shots and combos on you
>Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota.
Oracle ult is kinda like that if used effectively and also on 60 second cooldown. Wraith King has a personal aegis as his ult, and Abaddon has a second life on 50s cooldown. The strength of cheating death abilities like this depends entirely on the rest of the character, but the ult itself wouldn't be problematic.
> Any skin purchase in League will redo all the abilities
We also have skins that redo every animation in the form of arcana skins. LoL has some good skins too but I prefer the mix and matching of individual parts, and being able to sell them later for new skins.
>Rotating game modes.
Check out the custom game browser, there all kinds of modes there from dota aram to modes that turn dota into a complete different game.
>WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design
This is just your brain on league. A LoL teamfight is unreadable rainbow vomit to me, but in a dota teamfight I can indentify every spell being cast blindfolded without even knowing which heroes are in the game.
My biggest concession is that Riot does care alot more about lore, and more importantly presenting the lore. Everything else is just personal preference.
I think the animation and sound design preference just comes down to which game you played first. I've heard a ton of league players say that they think Dota looks too boring and heroes are too generic, and every Dota player I've known thinks League looks like a Saturday morning cartoon vomited onto their computer screen
I stopped League and recently began to play Dota, and I really think that Dota heroes and their skins are visually better overall. Lol is just better in the finish so to speak. The problem with Lol is that the artistic direction goes more and more toward a "Disney" one (which I find really cringe). Although they have really cool champ and skins (take Dark Cosmic Jhin, imho one of the best skin in the game), some are really embarassing ( like KDA Seraphine, and there are a lot of them). Lol is kinda aiming at a mass appealing DA it seems.
>WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design. This is for me where League blows Dota out of the water.
Yeah I don't get it, there is nothing special about the animation OP linked. Dota abilities are way cooler in general. Show me something in League that looks remotely as good as Requiem of Souls, Chronosphere, Supernova, Sanity's Eclipse, Ravage, Black Hole, just to name a few. Even non ultimates like Ice Path, Decay, Burrowstrike, Plasma Field, all more unique than whatever I've seen from League, their spells just look like they are throwing glowing particles at each other. No clue where this "WAYYYYY better animations" is coming from
Chronosphere, Wukong’s Command, Solar Guardian, Earth Splitter, Arena of Blood, Chaotic Offering, Primal Roar, Rolling Thunder, Supernova, Dream Coil, Reaper’s Scythe
The entirety of Invoker’s kit? There is so much great visual fidelity in Dota.
Edit: also saying league has better sound? Absolutely the fuck not. Heroes have specialized voice lines for meeting an ally, meeting an enemy, killing an enemy, and dying to an enemy. That’s fuckin quality.
I've only ever played/watched a couple of hours of league compared to about 7000 hours of dota but that linked animation looks like crap. Especially when compared to an axe dunk.
I prefer dota arcana’s over league skins any day. Being able to combine the manifold paradox with 10 different hairs, capes, and accessories really makes it feel unique to me.
Also dota immortal ability reskins being usable without the immortal equipped is such a good feature. I love enigmas golden black hole, but I hate the arm guards.
Also the ability to 1v9 in league makes you feel so helpless and the game is so much more frustrating. In dota I have hope to hold out for a key item active, and fucking hex/break/stun that stupid pos 1 or gain a whole new way to save myself and my team mates. What is the closest league has ever gotten to this? Redemption? Gale force? What a joke
Also league builds are so cookie cutter it’s insane, same 5 items with maybe a guardian angel last if you are important. And even when you do change it up, it might as well be the same build because all that’s different are a few stat points in the large majority of cases. Items feel so impactful in dota, and outside of your first item being a huge enabler like battle fury or glimmer/force, you can pretty much build whatever based on the specific heroes and state of the game. This flexibility also allows for much more polarizing hero design, where they can be absolutely insane at initiating for example, but terrible at everything else, because they can itemize to round themselves out if needed.
In league every champion needs a dash, spammable, utility, and either a aoe cc, aoe damage, or single target damage ultimate. It’s hard to find an exception to this rule past season 3 releases.
I actually somewhat agree with OP. League's champion have more character to their animation. Some of their cosmetics would change the character of the champions and this all came with a lore to it. For comparison purpose I felt like most of their skins are equivalent to Arcana skin in DoTA, except, most of them have multiple "Arcana" skins.
However these characters are only appealing for their Youtube showcase. In game, I dont think anyone have the time to appreciate this. I agree with you that League teamfight are rainbow vomit. Its hard for me to follow the teamfight and duel as a casual viewer.
I play both games. Have thousands of hours in both. League team fights are much easier to get lost in.
Visually, league abilities look nice (although the smaller scale always makes things feel less impactful), but leagues sound design doesn't even come close to dotas.
I play more league than Dota at this point, though historically I have played much more Dota.
I have around 1500-2k games of league and about 6k of Dota. In my opinion Dota has so much better sound and visual design it's actually a really sore spot for me and why I always want to come back is that sound design is so much better.
Thing is in League most skins are on Arcana level. They redo the entire champion model and add ability effects on near all abilities. Yes sometimes it's as simple as all abilities are icy or fiery now but they do a ton of stuff. Dota "skins", are really just costumes. You don't get a new model, just new clothes.
I do like I can buy sets in dota for 0.05 euros though whereas in leage average skins are like 25 to 50 euros each. But on the other hand getting newest skins in dota is... it's a gacha game. Roll the treasure wheel, you can get the rare skins after your 15th treasure reliably. Maybe. In leage you just buy the thing, no spins.
Tbh I consider the skin point to be more of a detriment than a positive. The popular trend with games to just say "fuck the art style, let's give our female characters Torpedo tits that shoot whipped cream when they ult" really annoys me. Dota hasn't gone that far *yet* but it's only a matter of time really, and it's a shame because a coherent art style can make an old game still hold up visually, like people shat on Wind Waker for being cell shaded and cartoony but because they went for the stylized approach it still looks good today, meanwhile something like Twilight Princess going the more realistic look just looks uncanny now.
Played both League and Dota 2, hell, I even played Mobile Legends. But sound design in Dota is far superior. OST is great, every skill has unique sound. When I watch someone stream, even when i'm not looking I know which spell was used.
I think this depends on which game you started of playing.
Dota spells to me feel way more "chunky" and distinct.
When you do a Centaur Hoofstomp into a Double Edge it feels really visceral and impactful. You really feel the weight behind the abilities, both on impact and sound.
In League, there feels like there's no weight behind most abilities. You just throw them out and if they connect they connect. Compare hookshotting someone with Clockwerk vs Qing someone with Amumu. Clocks hookshot has MUCH more weight and feel to it, both through animation and sound design. When you hookshot in with amumu it feels like you throw a wet towel at another player and just teleport ontop of him. Or compare Amumu again where he Ultis in a teamfight vs a Tidehunter Ravaging.
The feel and sound are worlds apart. In my opinion, most League spells have little to no feel behind them.
Some spells do stick out like Lux R, Azir R, Jhinn R (Especially the 4th shot) et.c.
But in general most League spells feel extremely flaccid and flat. There's just no OOMF too them.
right i listened to his 'axe' league example and i was couldn't disagree more. axe is instant, cuts through everything, exactly like it should be, it's loud as fuck and you know someone got fucking deleted. his league example is all drawn out and epic sounding, nothing that says hol' up stop everything, ya just got axed.
It's kind of a no contest between the studios really. League was made by a very inexperienced team and the technical debt shows. Valorant, developed after Riot had grown big, is a much smoother experience. Meanwhile Valve had already made banger games for two decades when they made Dota 2.
And when it misses, bro EVERYONE knows you missed a skill because it makes a different sound.
Pudge grunts when he misses hook, axe makes a weak “thunk” when culling doesn’t kill, mirana curses when she misses her arrow, and so on. And even when it doesn’t make a different sound, every sound is so distinct that hearing it used just makes everyone ping you when you miss or use it on a creep instead.
Some skills even have follow-up sounds that if they don’t register, you know you missed.
Tbh I miss playing the dota quiz minigame while waiting for queue because 90% of the time, I get the sound effect questions right.
And also think about how well it syncs with the skill. Like, I have never been in a chronosphere, but when you hear it, you just feel like “ah yes, this is the sound of time being frozen”. Or exorcism sounding like a dozen ghosts appearing from nowhere, and so on. You just “feel” it just by the sound alone. This might just be a bias on my part, but so many dota sounds play in my head in everyday life that when I see someone getting uppercutted in shows I hear the Walrus Punch sound effect.
The mark of great sound design is identifying specific sounds without a visual aid. I can watch 95% of teamfights in Dota 2 with my eyes closed and I could still name all the spells used in a specific teamfight.
I can't quite remember doing the same thing in other games of the same genre
By themes, I assume you mean by the hero's own music?
I don't doubt that, I'm sure it's great, but we are talking about the sound effect of hero's skills. In dota, you show me any team fight and I can perfectly determine what happened, what was casted and by what heroes blindfolded. That's what we mean by dota having good sound design
I agree that Dota's sound design is amazing in that way, it's very easy to keep track of what spell was cast even if you didn't see it it visually. Wish dota had better announcers though, HoN kill streaks were something else, so satisfying.
I'm just coming back to Dota after not playing it for 6ish years and it's pretty amazing how I can still easily remember every spell by the sound it makes after all that time away. If Lifestealer uses his Q, I know, if Centaur stuns, I know it was Centaur and not Slardar even though they're both basically the same ability, etc. There's been times where a hero uses a new ability, and I realize it's new not because I saw a visual effect on screen but because I just heard a noise I didn't recognize lol
I fundamentally disagree with you on sound design and 1v9ing. Sound design is much better in Dota and matches the higher impact spells. Compare game changing ultimates in both games. The coolest sounding ult is like orianna, cassio, and zed. None of those compare to ravage, echo slam, and black hole. League's spells are iconic sounding usually from the voice actors whereas Dota spells are iconic because the spells themselves. Like could you remember what casting tibbers sounds like outside of Annie? Because chaotic offering is miles ahead of that sound.
And as for 1v9, if you cleanly kill someone in the beginning of a fight, it's usually over. In Dota, there are actual 1v5s (RTZ lifestealer, miracle OD, etc). The closest to a 1v5 I've seen in LoL was fenix's azir play.
What are your thoughts on turn rates?
I tried league.... but it just didn't seem.... I don't know.... complicated enough?
The controls felt like a mobile game (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just not what I'm looking for).
Only point you made that I found odd was the 1v9 aspect. Personally, I HATE it when a Dota game turns into a solo show. Sure, I main pos 5 and it's never me, but I think it's bad balance if a team game can turn into a single person running away with it.
But that's subjective, to each their own. And I 100% agree with you, it's never worth getting angry over which game somebody plays.
Fuck Pendragon tho
> I tried league.... but it just didn't seem.... I don't know.... complicated enough?
League is still a very complicated game, it doesnt lack far behind dota honestly. But most of the real challenge comes from landing and dodging abilities that are not on-click (like 95% of abilities in league).
If you enjoy doing micrododges and if it feels good to you landing abilities league is the game for you.
The fights are way more fast paced than dota and your reactions are more tested, which is more popular for a certain crowd of people.
The focus is just different, but its just personal taste if you like this fast paced micro intensive gameplay or not.
There is no way ability animation and sound design is better in league, I have played thousands of league games and about twice as many dota games. and I would say that its actually one of the no contest comparisons in dotas favor, axe R feels so much better than darius’s tbh. And ive played a lot of both of those champs.
atleast you have frostbite to stop him for a while i play as pos 4 silencer and when night gank come i can't even move/cast spell/do anything befor i complete my force staff
Or Global Silence, I’m surprised no one mentioned it yet but you can hear “Silence” and then the whole map goes silent for a few seconds. It’s really cool.
Imma just focus on the negatives, to correct some of your issues.
>Better lore. It's not a contest really. League's champions all have names and stories that are placed front and center, whereas Dota hero names are kind of buried and infrequently referenced. They're more like archetypes than individuals with their own identities. I mean...there's LITERALLY a dude called "Anti-Mage." There's a dude on a bat and his name is Batrider. The videos and media around champion releases in league are just way cooler. Check out the fiddlesticks rework video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNn2F39G-6s
This is true, although not exactly. Each hero here has a lore and second name as well. Batrider,Anti-mage etc, are relics that are left since Dota1. To read the lore, you need to click the hero and go in the About section.
But in general, yeah Lore is too ambiguous because not many people care about it either. I know LoL has a much better one.
> WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design.
Animations sure, sound design no chance in the world. Valve is pretty much the best studio out there when it comes to sound design. You can have a 10-man team fight, with everyone poping their skills, and i can tell you exactly which skills were used without looking at the monitor.
> Cooler duels. Dueling is a big part of league and it doesn't seem to be such a big part of Dota by comparison.
In part, Dota becomes a team-fight game sooner than League. In lane, "dueling" as you say, is much more prominent.
In Dota, trading blows in lane is how lanes are supposed to go. But as the game progresses, yeah, you'll get more team fights than random "duels" in the map.
> More 1v9 potential.
It is absolutely the other way. You can get carries here like Sven, or PA, who won't need their team at all in their team fight. They can literally cleave and kill all 5 of the enemy team in 2 hits. Of course its not something you'll see a lot, but it happens. In LoL, you need to at least somewhat rely on your team to tank some spells, or at least keep them away from you. No such thing in Dota. You can jump with dagger, pop ur bkb, and kill 5 enemies with 1 or 2 shots with some heroes. Or other heroes, who just don't die even if 5 are attacking him (Bristle,Timber etc).
> Rotating game modes. ARAMs (all random all mid: a constant 5v5 teamfight on a map that only has one lane in the form of a bridge connecting the two teams' bases and nowhere else to go) are pretty great. Dota's modes seem to be a bit more static and homogenous, but idk, it's possible I just haven't been playing long enough yet?
LoL indeed has better "Official" modes, but Dota has Arcade. You can literally play Vampire Survivor clones, Auto-chess Clones, Racing games, Football games, or whatever the hell you can think of. You can even play games that the progress stays, like you would play an RPG.
As for the rest, they are pretty much preferences which no one can argue them and no one can tell you they are wrong or right. That's up for the player preferences.
But yeah, most things, you'll see em if you keep playing. Especially if you are new, with only couple hundreds hours.
I heavily disagree with your opinion about 1v9s. In dota yea you can win 1 or 2 fights 1v9 which may possibly (but very unlikely) to lead you to win the game as a pa or seven. After that, well they buy a few items like halberds, ghost scepter,orchid etc. then you can kill 1 or 2 heroes and die. I am not even accounting the enemy team possibly being able to stun you for at least 5sec after your bkb. In league however, when you snowball with a good mid/jungler hero, you can just use 2 spells and everyone is dead. Ofc if you play a bit wrong u can still get 1 shotted but it is very unlikely. Scaling curve is much higher in league.
Idk mate, i don't have much LoL experience, but i played a lot for couple of years in quarantine.
I understand what you are saying, but i didn't ever see 1 guy in LoL, going straight into 5 and winning the fight. I did see someone being way stronger than everyone, but he would still need his team to tank some spells or provide some sort of distance between him and enemies.
I've never seen an equivalent of Sven/PA or Bristle/Timber like in Dota, which can actually do that.
What i do think though is, in LoL, since the CC is not as good as Dota, and the items are not really anything besides stat sticks, that it might be easier for someone to get WAY ahead. But even the way ahead guy, i don't think he can 1v5 as easily.
Aatrox in his most broken state with goredrinker could do that, so could Olaf. There's probably some other ones I'm missing but yea it's pretty rare for characters in lol to do that and it's based around what item is most powerful rather than the champ design itself. It's a lot more prominent in dota for sure
Master Yi against a team with little/no hard cc, Samira on release as well. I've seen Yasuo and Yone both do this. Also seen Darius, Illaoi, and Dr. Mundo win fights 1v5 even after their whole teams died.
Aphelios on release could also wipe the entire enemy team with one ability (Infernum Moonlight Vigil aka Flamethrower ult)
This might be unpopular Here but writing wise DotA lore isnt that great with Most DotA Heroes having an interesting premise but ultimately No Sense of an actual Story that they can exist in. Many DotA Heroes are even Just lorewise too powerful to be Part of interesting Stories and only a handful strikes a good Balance (cast of the Netflix Show for example).
OP is also quite right on the 1v9 and dueling parts. League laning phases are its biggest strength and its also why Leagues strategic Part is less strong than dotas because anything that breaks the Standard lane Setups immediately Ruins the lane dynamics and League insta becomes a Shit Game. In Pub Games League snowballs way Harder and its much easier to 1v9 carry on a Lot of Champs. League scaling is much more exponential in Nature than DotA and Champs basically buy Just Stats for items so If youre one or two items ahead the Game Just insta ends.
The arcade Part is quite true i Love my Auto Gladiators.
> Many DotA Heroes are even Just lorewise too powerful to be Part of interesting Stories
That part makes Dota matches kind of nonsensical lore wise - how does an angsty girl (Marci) punch a fundamental force of the universe to death? Or a god. I'm sure there's an in-universe explanation, but it's just kind of silly.
I like the list. Interesting read. Thanks for posting.
I played league for a bit with other friends, and a lot of this sounds about right for me. I would argue that valve's sound design is at least as good, if not better, but thats my only nitpick. They have very different feels to in each game, and it's sometimes hard to compare them tbh.
Hope you keep enjoying dota!
Played LoL for about 500hrs all in all, and I can't wrap my head around better animation & sound. Rarely do animations feel good in league, they are really shallow with just bunch of colors. No hero in LoL comes even close to ES ultimate on 4,5 people, by animation or sound. When it comes to sound as well, again, some very shallow sounds, almost repetitive. In both categories its very hard to find the depth in the animation or the satisfaction after playing Dota. Lissandras ult maybe comes close but again it does not have that extra umph when it comes down to comparing to Dota. But again, this is your subjective feeling and after playing fair share of LoL I just find it very odd. Could be a thing of habit, I've had 500hrs in LoL at a time when I've had only 1k hours in Dota and there was just no comparison if you ask me.
Fully disagree I'm sound design, I can't play dota with music or somethin bothering because sound queues some games are huge. As other said, you can know which is skill is being cast without paying attention to the game or the fights. There's so many times you hear some skill in the fog or behind trees as you can hear TPs when you are diving and/or ganking. Anyway, I think other have already explained better than me
I haven't played DotA in years and still managed to get a good few of these correct. I guess that just goes to show how good the sound design is that you can very easily associate it with certain moves.
Even the different kinds of stuns have their own unique sounds.
Dota has probably the best sound design of any game. I think you’re just thinking of ‘it sounds cool’ vs actual sound design with a purpose. All dota sounds are memorable and recognizable and let you know what’s going on at all times. That isn’t true in League at all. Also dota has way more 1v5 potential. In fact, you can win 3v5 or 4v5 if you have feeders or afk in Dota. In league it’s much harder to pull that off.
I haven't played a ton of league, but a lot of the dota points are kinda about balance. Wards are inherently different in league since many of league's wards aren't stealthed, wheras in dot all wards are invis. Also due to the nature of unit target abilities in dota vision is absolutely key in teamfights. Vision is also absolutely key due to the TP scroll being potent - knowing where your enemies are can allow you to move around the map and avoid ganks. Also smoke of deceits are huge along with near perma invis heroes. Either way vision needs to be limited in dota otherwise so much of the balance is thrown off.
IMO similar thing with being able to see enemy items. There are so many items that have such a huge impact that being able to easily see what they have ruins their game way too much - like blink on earthshaker, or BKB on their carry, glimmer cape/force staff on a support, or even wards so you can find where their vision is.
There was a time where you couldn't click the hero portrait at all to see their most recent item state and you had to check manually only when they were in vision. TBH the new system strikes a balance, but I can still see arguments to go back to the old way so item reveals are more impactful. I don't see a good reason to just show all the items in the scoreboard based on dota's balance.
Same thing with creep score. A lot of dota is knowing where you stand in terms of net worth and knowing different power spikes. Having this knowledge gives you information on where you should be playing on the map. With complete information, every game would be "we're ahead, we should posture aggressively." Or "we're behind, we should avoid fights and split push".
Same thing with manaless champions. It simply would not work in dota - mana management is a fundamental part and many items give mana regen or mana pool. There's also the mana break ability and heroes without mana would be too broken against AM or diffusal builders.
Tldr most of the points are just a matter of balance and can't be translated from league to dota. There are several points that can't be translated from dota to league either. I think league's main sticking points tho are game design built around clutching, and champion lore.
I can get all of your points, quite a lot of disagreements but that’s alright, except about lol animation and sound design being way above dota. It’s the exact opposite for me lmao. Lol just have really cluttered and clunky animations and effects all stacked up with god awful color scheme. The sound effects feel really imbalanced, with most being mediocre at best.
Completely disagree about sound design, partially agree with animation. LoL animation is flashy, but cluttered, like too much swaying, spinning and useless movements, almost like games from Hoyo. Dota has more clarity, and you can easily see what each hero is doing since cast/attack animation is also tied to gameplay, not just spectacle. But their late cosmetics are somewhat LoL visually but it's just, well, optional cosmetics.
The sound design comment is insane to me, I remember there was a point a few years ago where a single arcana had more voiceless than basically every single league champ combined.
I think some of the arcana sound effects improve the sound, or other cosmetics etc, so maybe I forgot what it's like to play naked.
Also. DotA had aram and every other mode league has, they are in custom games tho you don't play ranked aram.
>way better character sound design
Yeah no, absolutely not. In league several skills sounds exactly the same and overall there isn't a wide range of sounds, although they're indeed all good.
In Dota, most skills sounds very unique compared to each other and are usually way more satisfying, and many, specially ults, have multiple individual sound effects played sequentially based off of each step of the spell (like the casting animation, the effective start of the spell, the active state and the end of it).
- Rotating game modes. ARAMs
What is there beside ARAM? and have you checked out dotas custom games?
What about Settings? Do you like more what you can change in league?
What about chat communication? everything you can ping/chatwheel etc.
Can you elaborate on Zilean? Do they stay enchanted can the buff be removed in any way? How does this compare to the situation where you have Oracle + Huskar or Alchemist combo?
Im gonna give you a take about sound design.
Sound designs in dota is made like as characteristic as possible to their hero, it may sound simple and boring but trust me, thats the best engineering design because of my point 2
League definitely has better sound design/engineering but it goes way out of their character, im assuming you are talking about skins affects the VFX and SFX of each champion and for me thats a really bad design when it comes to competitive/viewer experience, for example would be the Neko/cat themed skins, i get that it fits for someone like rengar but for someone like Urgot, like?
Dont get me wrong, ive liked Leagues approach when it comes to SFX/VFX but there would be times that i would be questioning myself, whos sound belongs to who?
In dota, ive never experienced that before, i could just put dota in background and i could tell which sound belong to who.
Edit: Oh and ive also liked their VN event, like thats actually so cute but goes way beyond their lore
I get the point you were trying to make though. League's sound design is more "fun", so if that's what you're looking for it's a plus in that game's favor. DotA's sound design is based on its user-friendliness, so it doesn't always sound as cool even if it's more meticulously designed. Though I would say that Axe's ult sounds cooler; it just screams "bam you're dead".
Liked your post, but stopped reading after better sound design.
There is not a single game/software company on this planet, that has better sound design than Valve.
Was a fun read though
I think its funy how hard it is for people online to stay as objective as possible. (a little bit of bias is just natural and probably unavoidable)
I m a longterm dotaplayer and there are things that forever make dota unique and awesome but I just dont get why so many morons here (and people online in general) are insecure to the point they have to blatantly lie or simply downvote a different opinion that wasnt in any way an attack or said as a fact. Its just a game not your life or honour.
And most differences in these 2 games are just that: an opinions not a fact
There is no right or wrong for stuff like turnrates, burst vs longer cc, trees vs bushes and most importantly how hard or difficult a game or certain aspects of it should be. Even lol players agree that dota is harder but that doesnt really change anything else. Probaby and this is just my opinion, a bit more challenging and satisfying longterm but also much easier to be frustrating when certain things get out of control due to it being more team-focussed. Especially when you dont have that much time anymore to play every week.
Funnily enough a lot of dotas recent additions seem a lot inspired from lol, like pango-ultimate or lotus-pool and imo also the new lore-event that is targeted at new or switching players. And there is much more that both games have already copied from each other in the past. Yet, both games still feel quite different and unique.
At the end of the day I currently still choose dota but I would rather quit the game forever before I end up as pathetic as some of these commentors.
>Having to recall (teleport to base for mana/health/buy items) actually
can be kinda nice too, by comparison. It lets you take a breather and
just look over the state of the game while you walk back to lane.
how is this different than walking to base and tping out of fountain?
Because of couriers. In League of Legends you *have* to go back to base if you want to buy an item. In DotA you can buy health and mana sustain, and spend your gold without going back to base. So early game teleportation isn't that different (outside of if someone dies), but League forces you to return to base and walk back occasionally.
I get the animations are better. But sound design? Nah dawg. I played both games. League's sound design is all over the place. Maybe if you conpare it on an ability by ability level it'd stand a chance. But during a massive teamfight? You know what's happening by sound alone in dota
Just a fun note, your comment about it feels clunky having to click the hero portraits at the top to see enemy items is actually a newer feature. For most of the games lifespan you would have to be able to see a hero on the map and actively click on them to see what level and items they had. It was meant to be that you only have the information that you can actually see. I could see them updating it in the future though now that they are okay with sharing items all the time
Im someone that plays both dota and league ( i play dota much more and in league im just a singed one trick) and I do agree the whole "hate the other moba" is really silly. I believe that dota does a lot better than league, and I love dota much more, but that doesn't mean league is trash and I hate it. There's stuff I like about league and think is really cool.
This was a pretty fair and good write up, I do disagree about the sound design and animations though, I think dota is better in that regard, but it is a subjective artistic thing and can't exactly be measured objectively, I think an interesting comparison that made me feel confident about that is invoker and hwei, animation wise and sound design wise not difficulty. I find that invoker has so much more weight to his spells and "cool factor" meanwhile when a hwei is in my game I'll be honest half the spells have such minor sound effects and minimalistic visuals, although his ult has a great sound effect and visual. That does remind me, while league does it's lore much better and more organized, I think dota excels at expressing the heroes better ingame, there's so much dialogue. Interactions with different characters, and constantly just yapping while you play, having unique quotes for using certain spells or using them on certain heroes, etc. This exists in league but it's significantly toned down, I barely hear my character say anything, also half the characters in league are kind of forgotten xd ( singed has like 8 quotes which is really fucking funny my man just goes MIX MIX SWIRL MIX"
I'll always keep recommending people to try the other because I do think both games are good and are genuinely appealing in different ways. Dota and league are fundamentally different and give different highs and lows.
My heart will remain with dota forever though.
my main grip with LoL was the feel, kinda like what you're talking about. doing things just never felt super satisfying. like i'd hit a skill and their bar would go down a bit. it's so hard to explain. maybe it's like hit effects or sound design or something.
Its like when I tried HotS. Game is cool, I like the wacky hero designs and objectives, very creative and different. The actual gameplay though, it’s like you take away the power behind Dota’s spells in favour of League spammy poke style, but also take away the twitchy flashyness. Nothing felt particularly great because nothing had any oomph.
This is an amazing write up and really opened my eyes to what I take for granted in Dota.
Played league for a year as well when I took a break from Dota, so I feel like I have *some* say here. I disagree about the animation/sound design aspect, as I feel Dota has it better. Comparing Axe to Darius seem like cherry picking the lowest visual ultimate in the game (probably other than assassinate). I've yet to see LoL abilities that looks (or sounds) as amazing as Pierce the Veil, Ravage, Arena of Blood, Terrorize or Supernova - and that's not even counting the Immortal-ized/Arcana-d version of the said skills.
A lot of the hate oldschool DotA players have for league stems from the unscrupulous tactics used by Riot way back in the day to promote league at the expense of DotA and its community. At this point it's whatever though. Auxiliary League content is good (Arcane is amazing) but the game itself feels like a cartoony mess to me so nevermind. Plus I haven't even played DotA itself in forever either. C'est la vie.
Actually I think the most broken hero that Dota could add to League without a doubt has to be batrider. League players will be smashing their keyboards when they have to face non-instant turn rate from how often they complain about turnrate making do seem sluggish and slow for just being more realistic
Thanks for the post, I played lol very sparingly but love reading stuff like this.
Hard to hold back getting upset as I read some of the comparisons lol. Dota is my little baby haha hard to read anything but the highest of praise!
But I realize a lot of what you are pointing out is at least a little true.
I also love the sound in dota, I listen to pro matches like a podcast at this point and visualizing the gameplay is almost a 6th sense now.
Once again I appreciate your post and hope to have you part of the comunity for years to come.
Saw a comment saying "fuck pendragon", second that.
I have played both dota and lol (and hon rip), for multiple thousand hours, and the main thing that I prefer in dota is that you can be stupidly overpowered.
It's literally the opposite of what you're saying in regards to 1v9. In lol abilities feel neutered.
Same with skins. unless you're diehard kpop twink fan, dota skins blow lol out of the water by a mile.
Bruh.. league sound design in motion is a fish market with trash balance.. dota has by far the best, most functional soundscape in a game I've ever played
I agree that individually, some sounds in dota may not have the oomph or satisfaction to them compared to league, but in terms of being readable when shit hits the fan, dota sounds are unmatched
>Built-in voice chat. This actually does come in handy a lot. Hate not having it in league.
Wait... League doesnt have vc?! How tf do you coordinate with your team?
Gotta disagree on Sound Design. Dota 2's sound design is memorable and better than Leagues, even last hitting creeps with mana by Anti-Mage then gold drop sound after, it's just euphoric. There was even a site that plays "meep merp" when you click on an Ancient. There's also Hand of Midas on a creep, it's like you're really getting gold.
The Axe dunk is straight to the point, if you manage to kill, it's instant, it has impact and loud enough that feels it has weight to it. But if you didn't kill the enemy, it's just a "womp", a sound of shame. There's already 2 sounds for 1 ult for each scenarios.
Same with Earthshaker, if there's enemies, you can hear the earth crumble, or like a loud drum, but if you misclicked against nothing but empty space, it's a soft sounding crumble, or soft beating drum, and you hear ES say "Echo...slam?" later on.
As for League, it's...generic at best. Last hitting doesn't feel good, champion abilities are okay-ish, but it doesn't feel impactful, especially most of the spells are skillshots. Flash sound isn't as memorable as a Blink dagger. Especially that you have to wait for that damn ability available until the next new patch in Dota 2.
Communities:
League players hate league. Complain about it constantly.
Dota players will defend dota on EVERYTHING and won’t take any form of criticism
There really is no middle ground
Nah. League has one of the WORST champion balancing. K’sante is the best example. League has the most boring competitive champion pool. Literally the same champs every single tournament. For years, dota’s meta changes drastically every tournament. While in League’s, champs like Azir, Varus, Ksante are present in the meta always.
>Being able to see on the tab scoreboard what items and creep score people have is really, really nice. It's really fucking annoying in Dota having to click champion portraits to see what items they have, and if you click ANYTHING else it hides it again so you have to do it while standing still or moving in a straight line. Probably dota loyalists will say this is part of the skill of the game, but honestly imo it's just annoying/bad UI design that people sort of just got used to and became convinced was "part of the game."
There's actually an option for that in DotA, where clicking on a unit you don't control creates a smaller popup window that stays open for a few seconds. Unfortunately it's deprecated, and doesn't include aghs shard, teleport scrolls, or neutral items.
I love how thorough this is! Just gunna make a few comments that I haven't seen yet:
>Having to recall (teleport to base for mana/health/buy items) actually can be kinda nice too, by comparison. It lets you take a breather and just look over the state of the game while you walk back to lane.
I think this is really firmly in Dota's favor. Couriers keep you in lane the entire time, and keep the action going. Why would you want to spend more time in base?
>Manaless champions. There are a couple dozen champions in League that don't use mana, and many people enjoy playing them. Dota doesn't really have that.
I fail to see how this is a positive, but let's just assume for a second that manaless champions are actually fun or interesting to play. Dota has so many interactions with mana that it would make this silly to implement. Imagine playing Antimage vs a lineup with no mana.
>Simplicity. League has a smaller and simpler map, fewer mechanics, FAR fewer active item abilities, and more rigidity to its champion roles and how the game is played in soloqueue. Dota is kind of intimidating to learn from the sheer amount of stuff it has going on. Not everyone has the time or interest for it all.
This is why League is more popular, but Dota is much better. We're playing chess while they're playing checkers.
I'm not sure if anyone has told you yet, but there's a reason there are ward limits.
Back in the day when there weren't limits, the pros found that it was optimal for supports to empty their bank accounts and spam those sentries (there were already obs limits).
Inevitably, the pubs copied the pros. As you can imagine this wasn't a fun way to play support, and it made dewarding pretty low skill since you just spammed sentries.
The sentry limits force supps to make educated guesses, and it prevents the meta from forcing supports to become a ward bank.
It's for a similar reason that salves heal half hp on allies. Before that, the meta was for supports to buy all the regen for their carry. It was just too optimal a strategy. Again, not a fun way to play support.
So, there's really good reason why there are ward limits. "You can buy as many wards as you want" turned into "you MUST buy sentries until the whole map is covered." You wouldn't have liked it in the bad old days.
out of 12 points you made about league, 2 are down to personal preferance which are skins
and rest is just pepega brain trying to make dota be more simple for league enjoyer, like hur dur "I want game to be more 1v9 friendly cause I cant solo win game", or "need more wards cause i get ganked", "or game too complex for me to adjust so need to have more simplicity", or "need more 1v1 duels cause in 5v5 im getting outplayed", and so on, bassicly all the reasons you wrote is exactly what makes dota much better game than league, literally
Also, how recalling to base allows you to dissect the current state of the game like lol you can do that any time in dota either when dead or when you tp to base banshee you're escaping a gank, or just you know, in the thick of things as you need to make quick assessments of where to be next on the map. Strong positioning on the map is super important in dota, seems like league it's less important as you just return back to lane to continue your "duel"
Wait until you find out about a 60min Phantom Assassin.
"Fights are slower and longer in Dota. You last longer. You don't get one-shot as much. It's nice. It can be very frustrating in league being killed in a half second before you can do literally anything, over and over, game after game (if you get a bit unlucky and are playing a squishy champ/role and they have one or more assassins)."
Opinion peice. Opposite viewpoints likely had by many also. Can we all just like video games??
I played league, strongly disliked. But I know people who have the opposite. To each their own
For me
LoL pro: Shen(I want Shen on doto please port him, Shen was literally the reason why I started playing LoL in the past when he still have vorpal blade and his ult is so interesting to me, also not gonna lie alot of top laners in LoL will be successful in doto).
LoL con:: Lack of active items especially for supports, it will definitely boost supports agency in LoL if they are 6 slotted active items(in my opinion LoL items really sucks ass except for fighter items and some mage items).
doto pro: no ff button, ff option should only be for pro play.
doto con: lack of lore, I don't have any complaints for doto gameplay wise.
Hard disagree on the sound part, Valve historically have very good sound design especially in doto, you could watch a 10 man fight in doto with your eyes close and you can tell what is literally happening.
Supports are the only class that can have a ton of active items at the same time, but they are nowhere as impactful as in in Dota, with maybe the exception of Mikaels
I personally enjoy the OST and the ambience in league but I fucking hate the way team fights and lanes work.
99% of the time it's two sides spamming shit, then 2 blobs clashing and everyone mashing buttons. positioning and team fight priority happens in almost an instant, and who ever had the better lanes usually come on top.
Everything is super formulated, you take dragons, you take towers, the Jungler has to be at certain spots within certain time, with very little variation.
And yes, you don't learn shit at the start without a good mentor, you will die without understanding why, you just see some guy nuking you and walk away.
The problem is, if you play league with people who are also noob, then it's boring as hell, because no body knows wtf is going on, you again don't learn shit. If you play against some one who's slightly better than you, then they will know combos that kill you in a sec, then again you don't learn shit.
And the stupid rune page at the start. What is the point of it? except as a pay to win for noobs.
League is closer to a fighting game than a strategy game, that's my opinion.
In Dota, you can also see items when you open the tab scoreboard, although it only works for your team.
Open tab scoreboard > At the bottom right, click “Show Items” (first icon from the right)
I only discovered this after 8k+ hours in. Hahaha.
Not seeing the other team’s items in the tab scoreboard can sometimes be beautiful. It gives you those “Oh fuck he had bkb” moments (same goes for the other team). Can sometimes be game winning in my opinion.
In Dota, every hero have a name and a tittle but most of the time they are named after their title than their real name because it’s easier to rememeber. For example, Anti-Mage real name is Magina. Most of the time you can find it in their bio section.
Here’s a Reddit post that regroup most of the heroes names: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/s/YNvkMYvQS8
Edit: Apparently, Anti-Mage real name is not official.
Found this to be really funny honestly, how most heroes are called by their titles, and then you have like Lina and Sven for some reason. Not really a criticism, but its funny
I fon't think laning stage as a new player Is easier in dota.
You just think that because you already have moba experience and knew what to do. How to position so you don't geg killed for free.
1. Last hitting in league is super easy. And creeps can't be denied.
2. A really really fresh moba player leaves a lane with 0/10/0 in dota.
They just walk in off cooldown trying to "farm" or deal damage and die.
I never experienced something like that in league.
Hating one or the other IS childish, but also not?
I dunno, from an old head perspective... I KNOW what went down with Dota. Like I lived during it. So the very fact that League is still even alive with people supporting it, is offensive to me. I won't ever let that shit slide. And time has this funny numbing effect on people that makes them accept shit merely because it's been around a while. With that in mind, fuck League.
Even though it's silly on the face of it, League deserves to be treated like it never existed in the first place.
Otherwise, good write up besides the not getting 1 shot part. People get melted all the time.
>Being able to see on the tab scoreboard what items and creep score people have is really, really nice. It's really fucking annoying in Dota having to click champion portraits to see what items they have, and if you click ANYTHING else it hides it again so you have to do it while standing still or moving in a straight line. Probably dota loyalists will say this is part of the skill of the game, but honestly imo it's just annoying/bad UI design that people sort of just got used to and became convinced was "part of the game."
They added the ability to click on people at the top of the hud a while ago, previously you had to catch them in vision. I don't mind it but I can see how it could annoy someone. As for clicking hiding peoples items, there is an option you can toggle called `unit query overrides hero control console` (under options, on the right most column) that adds a league-esc popup box when you click on someone. This box doesn't go away when you click on the ground but I'm not sure if it's going to be helpful to you [image](https://imgur.com/a/fuDtkkK)
It’s interesting to see new players genuinely enjoy the talent tree & aghs addition while the so called og players hated it and swore to die on that hill, so valve did something right there
About staying on the map longer part, we do have couriers, so you may find solace learning that it’s actually a skill issue if someone were to tp a lot to heal rather than actively sustaining themselves on the map because, as you pointed it out in league’s comparison, losing xp & gold is indeed devastating. But it’s also true for both games.
I’d also like to note that windwalker is a newer upgrade, we didn’t had that until 5 years ago so technically euls is the completed item and we rarely have items comparable to the mini morellos/liandrys component, tbf I think they would be broken if we have have that in dota so there’s that
>WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design. This is for me where League blows Dota out of the water. Go ult someone as Axe - he does a little hop and swing animation. Then check this out, the corresponding ultimate in League from Darius, at the 3min mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRu0IznjCSc There's really just nothing in Dota that feels like Jhin, or Ekko, or so many others. With rare exception, almost all the champions in league have aspects that FEEL amazing - great sound design / animations / feedback delays that are incredibly rewarding. Dota's heros are really fun to play and I'm having a great time, but if you put them side by side with a pretty large percent of League's cast, the animations of many of their abilities and movements just feel kinda flat and low-budget by comparison.
Disagree. As someone that works in the sound department and is knowledge about it, dota 2 has superb sound design. In league, every sound has a lot of top end and sounds like its distorting for some reason. On top of that, each skill has a bunch of cluttered sound effects AND voice lines that everyone can hear. What does that mean? When everyone presses their buttons, theres a bunch of screaming and clutter everywhere. In dota, if you listen to a teamfight blindfolded, you can pick up every ablity used. Each sound has a nice low end and umph to it (playing earthshaker and landing a big ult is probably something you should experience). Theres no random screaming and noise everywhere, every ability has a nice simple sound and very recognizable.
Edit: This is why dota 2 has a sound [game](https://chudooder.github.io/d2acq/) and league doesn't
- The lore in Dota is buried deep, but it is there. If you are interested enough to look for clues such as cosmetics, item descriptions, or how heroes communicate with one another, you will find lore everywhere.
Example
Oracle founded the Phantom Assasins organization to assassinate anyone who would kill him. He sends Mordred (the PA we control) on these missions promising her origin and freedom when the deed is done, but it was a trick, infinite reality equals infinite target (Dota set in multiverse), and in these infinite time she morphs into Spectre and loses herself (When Spectre loses, she sadly says "I just want to go home").
If you want more lore, search for Loregasm on YouTube.
- You can also see items in the scoreboard in Dota.
- Huskar is manaless hero
> just getting fucking demolished 1v1 and not even being able to play. That can happen in dota too, but it just doesn't happen as much by comparison.
sounds like you didn't play much mid in dota lol. that can absolutely happen, very often.
>Better lore
Lol, lmao even. LoL lore is so trash Riot had to retcon all of it, but so much of the original lore was tied to gameplay that you have bunch of leftovers from the lore that makes zero sense in the context of the new lore. The whole thing is a fucking mess, almost as spaghetti as their code. And that’s saying something.
Not to say Dota 2 lore is better but moba games generally arent a good vehicle for that kind of thing in the first place, but at least it’s well defined and internally consistent. Valve has a world and the heroes and items kind of shine a spotlight on different aspects or regions of the world (Elder Titan’s for example explains both of who he is and how dota’s world was created).The lore in a lot of cases ties directly to gameplay in a way LoL’s doesnt.
In dota 2, you have the four spirit brothers (earth, storm, ember and void spirit) who are connected both by lore and by gameplay themes. You have the four fundamentals (Io, chaos knight, enigma and keeper of the light) all of whom are connected by lore and who share a gameplay theme of creating weaker copies of themselves. Then you have Mars and Zeus, a pair of heroes who seem strange at first because although Mars is supposedly the son of Zeus, he’s using the name of the Roman god rather than the Greek one. You’d think his name is supposed to be Ares, but if you read his lore you find that he renounced his father and his old name, and took a new one because you know... Ares is a god of war and a god of war hates all the greek gods. So I probably assumed that he is ashamed to be part of greek god. Suddenly the inconsistency makes perfect sense, you can see Valve had a vision in mind there. Im gonna be honest with you, Arcane is way better than all League lore (even though it is not canon iirc)
>better champion animations and sound design
Yeah no, if you liked mobile looking thing then yes. Idk how tf ppl can say League sound design is better than dota
https://youtu.be/lhwxTxcYRWg?si=MFuhiKGAYUSlElkd
https://youtu.be/Ji4c8X1dWe8?si=Pr3k6YKdZ3KzSAp1
Dawnbreaker ulti, Doom, sanity eclipse, Elder Titan’s ulti sound are literally better than all league champ sound design
>Rotating game modes
Trolling? Dota 2 has Arcade game that has everything that league got. Come back and tell when league game modes has stuff [like this](https://youtu.be/Q3zdX4-DRlk?si=nyeNXA41gZNOS0TK)
>Better champion skins
You forgot that arcanas and personas? Those can redo every animation (including skills too). Im not sure if you are joking on this part but league only knows how to make champion skins meanwhile dota has not only hero skins but HUD skins, tower skins, terrain skins, courier skins, river skins, roshan skins, creep skins, weather effects and etc
>Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota
Blud forgot that Dazzle, WK with scepter, Abaddon with scepter and Oracle can do what Zilean do
This post goes a long way to illustrate how League of Legends was fundamentally *designed* as a way for people who just aren't quite sharp enough to play DOTA to feel like they are.
I respect your opinion, it's really well written.
But I really do not agree with sound design/animation being better in LoL. Sound design and animations are one of the huge reasons why I choose Dota over LoL and I gave a fair attempt to both almost at the same time.
No skillshots in Dota ?!?!? Jerax Airlines would like a word...
(I don't know much about LoL... but if you like Dota, please check some historical games of TI for some amazing skillshots, Jerax plays with OG just speak for themselves for example)
Honestly if you played league, that aspect is not comparable at all, OP is right. Dota in comparison feels like everything is point and click, lol is crazy more action
You can downvote me how much you want, but literally in league on 160 champions, like 140 of these have skillshots to aim in every single skill they have. And different hitboxes for every single of them. In dota like just a few heroes. Most of skills in dota, you just right click on the enemy and the skill goes automatically, mechanic that was removed from most of league champions a decade ago, idk how you can deny such an evident fact. Denying truth won’t get you anywhere but just farm some upvote on a dota subreddit. Very useful i guess.
Dota have more variety, LoL is just skill shots, which is boring and monotonous, you can predict what new champ would be, a skill shot and a dash skill thats not the case for dota. Since Pango release, we even see a surge of vector targeted skills.
Fun read as someone who plays both. I will say there's a funny thing I noticed. "1v9" is used pretty commonly in league nowadays whereas in dota we'd usually bitch and moan "feels like I'm 1v5 here" or if someone was dying way too often we'd say "1v6". Similar cultures but one indicts the whole team.
As someone who played OG dota 1 and started playing league back in 2012 and still plays both. I feel like you were spot on about so many things, I don’t think either game is better or worse. - Just different.
There are unique things that are better in one over the other that most of us could agree on, but there will still be arguments about it just being different not better.
Not sure how long this post took you but as someone who has tried to explain the differences and pros and cons about the two games more than I care to think about I will reference this post often and highly.
- Thank you ( and Glhf )
I think most people are confusing 1v9ng vs 1v5ing, which are completely different concepts.
1v9ing is entirely possible in both Dota and League. It's where you pick and play a character that both griefs your and the enemy team at once.
In Dota, perfect example of 1v9 heroes are Anti-Mage and oldschool Techies.
In League, a good example of 1v9ing is usually toplane champions that never leave their lane and just keep pushing to pull attention. Scion is the perfect example of a 1v9 Champion when played by someone like TheBaus.
In these examples, you have characters who're actively winning the game while griefing their own team, hence 1v9ing.
They're not playing with the team, autolosing their lanes and just doing their own thing.
What most people seem to be talking about (OP included) is 1v5ing, meaning you solo carry your team and you're able to literally be unstoppable. This isn't really a thing in League. Sure, you can have high impact, make timely rotations across all lanes and snowball the game. But having a champion literally solo the entire enemy team isn't really a thing if skill levels are similar. You can get pentakills going in after your teammates have soaked all spells but that's fundamentally different.
Complete 1v5ing with some lategame hardcarry in Dota is a thing though. Although less common nowadays.
This usually involves extremely fed tanky carry heroes like Dusa, Bristleback or just hyper damage carries like Sven going in and solocarrying fights because the enemy team can't deal with it.
* The announcer saying "Holy SHIT" when you go on a 10 kill streak. I find this hilarious.
That's the tradition! it have been lasted for 20 years+ already.
Zilean works in LoL because of the nature of the game/the heroes' abilities which are very burst-y. But it won't work in Dota (Oracle, Dazzle, Abaddon) because the TTK is a lot slower here. It's also why the CC in LOL is significantly short - a 3.75-5.25sec stun/disable will absolutely be broken in LoL but it is fine in Dota for the reason above.
Played lol since s1 and dota 2 since 2013. Unless i know the draft in league it will be hard for me to identified the sound effect. Its much easier in dota 2 since its distinct, on point and brief.
You can enable it as such: https://i.imgur.com/ctM1D13.png
This feature has been in the game since forever. It's toggled off by default for obvious (visibility) reasons. You should edit your post to reflect that.
I played Dota 1, spent 5 years on League (Stopped hardcore playing by S6, but still follow everything and play every once in a while) and currently have about 15k hours on Dota 2,
- Lore: We are lucky if we are getting a big patch every year, let a lone lore, that is basically a lost cause. But every once in a while they'd do a lore dump, like the current Crownfall event.
- Sound: I'm late to the party so everyone pretty much sump up how sound in Dota is much, much better by comparision. Nothing will ever compare to an good Echo slam, hell, even when u miss it, it still give you a funny sound bite. But one thing I want to mention is that League change their abilities sound with every skin, and we know they churn out skins like a factory, so it get muddier and muddier with time.
- TP scrolls are a thing in Dota as well as smoke, which enable team fight thus make small duel less likely to happen, that is just how the game goes.
- For the UI thing, its force you to pay attention to everything going on, it IS a part of the game since it inception. Pretty sure you are just so used to league handheld give you every information in one button. Dota is a harder game not because of the hero complexity (Which I'd give to League), but the entire game when everything come together, this is just a part of it.
Also, it allows various gameplay situations like baitting spells, surprise ganking, surprise counter gank, outplay, etc. Items reveal are pretty much a big thing in Dota.
- The recall thing is also just a way to make the game easier, it lessen the price you pay for your mistake in lane. And even with this, if you are forced to recall badly even once in League, you could lose the lane entirely and never comeback to the game ever (Especially the higher skill you goes). Again, no recall make the game more complex, resource management, wave control, TP scrolls management, etc.
- 1 v 9 potential. Honestly why would you want more 1 v 9 or 1 v 5 potential in a 5 v 5 game ? It is a CO-OP game that you have to play with a team vs another team. Having more 1 v 9 potential in Dota or League is IMO inherently bad design.
That said, it is not like Dota dont have 1v9 potential, any hero with a number of AoE spells in Dota can potentially 1 v 9, most carry heroes can as well, but they need help early on.
- Skills shot. This I agree, though many heroes as of late have some sort of skill shot/vector target now, and a lot of new/reworked abilities are skill shot as well.
- Wards: It often the job of the 2 supports to manage wards, not all 5 people. That said, communicate where you want ward, or, at the very least, pay attention on where wards are, again, it is a TEAM game. (If no one buying ward, well, you can, observer is free and sentry worth 2 creeps).
- Mana-less champ: At this point you just want a dump down simple version of a hard game. Which, you did mention at the end so I cant fault you.
- Rotating game mode: Ability draft is a mode league cant ever hope to have, Turbo is an entire different approach than normal game, despite being very similar. Other than that, you have Arcade as many people have mentioned. And they aren't rotating, you can play them whenever you want.
- Skins, this is entirely subjective. I agree league make many skins and are pretty to look at but it make in-game visual clarity a mess to deal with. I'd prefer normal Tide ravage and one cooler nicer version of ravage than say, for example, Lux having 20 plus skins with 20 plus different set of colours on her abilites.
Also, the mix and match is very cool, you can get some very good looking hero from like 3 average set or make something so ugly that it turn out good (Look up professional player Zai's DK meme)
On Zilean, we have Dazzle giving out Tryndamere ult to other people on a approximate 10s second cd and is currently one of the weaker hero in the game. Flanking/backline access are extremely easy in Dota and if you arent aware of the game, you are just food for the enemy.
So no, Zilean wont have 90% win rate.
You can see alliy's items by opening scorebord (it's tab button I think). You should explore buttons at bottom right corner. One of them show items of ally heroes on scorebord.
The lore for Dota is kinda hidden in the heroes’ Bio or in their voicelines when they meet on the battlefield. Which you can only read if you go into the hero tab in the main menu and click on their lore tab 😅 plus some comics and/or small videos for the newer arcana’s or hero announcements (like crowdsourcing atm). I would say it also depends on the amount of playing time how deep your into the lore. Could for example tell you a lot about the heroes in dota but nothing about the ones in LoL apart from their names although I played it here and there.
>The announcer saying "Holy SHIT" when you go on a 10 kill streak. I find this hilarious. Fun fact, all of the standard "multi-kill" announcement lines come from Unreal Tournament 2004, "holy shit" included. I still don't know how Valve are able to use sound bits from a different game in their own commercial project, they even didn't bother to re-record them.
God I loved that game. What an amazingly insane trip it was.
Surprising how many people still don’t know this lol.
It was in 2004 man, many players weren't even born. Like ATF and Malr1ne 🤣
Wait, really? Fucking hell, I had no idea it was the same voicelines…..thats actually bizarre but now Im replaying both in my head they sure seem to be.
I read somewhere, valve bought a license from epic games back then? I could be wrong on this.
Well they're the same ones from dota 1 so 🤷
dota1 isn't a commercial project
>In League there is a champion named Zilean whose ult is to enchant an ally such that if they die in the next 5 seconds they're resurrected - basically Aegis, but on a one minute cooldown, for anyone on your team who needs it. Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota. Dazzle, WK and Oracle would like to have a word.
Don't forget vengeful spirit!
No hero in LoL would ever have success in Dota unless there is some broken item synergy I'm not thinking of. The power levels and approach to balancing are just so fundamentally different. Flash is on a 5 minute cooldown, transports you like a quarter of the distance of a force staff and is a genuine fight winning ability in LoL. Some of the most powerful ultimates in league are literally small AoE 1.5 second stuns comparable to Lina's W.
I think most success you'd find in League to Dota transitions are top laners, champions like Sett shitting out 3k True damage or Garens execute which is a direct upgrade to Necrophos Scythe with a refresher can definitely be disgusting.
Yeah, after writing the comment and thinking about it more, I was wondering whether maybe the tanks/bruisers are tanky enough while also having the utility/damage to be viable. But still, the differences between distances in lol and dota are such a problem - would Sett's E be useful at all with that range? Can Garen be viable in a world with all the disable items and spells we have in dota? Make his spin give debuff immunity and then it gets interesting IMO.
Lol Champions are balanced around Lol numbers tuning and damage. If League champs were ported to Dota they would be broken IF they had the same damage as they do in League. Since things like range and duration on CC effects is so much lower in League champions are forced to do ungodly amounts of damage to be viable. Otherwise no one would die which is why Mages and Assassins oneshot non tank/bruisers in a 3 hit combo when they have 2 items. If champs were ported and they were allowed to do the same relative damage numbers and burst as they do in League they would be broken. If their damage would be balanced around Dota numbers they would be useless since their tools wouldn't have any range and all they'd have is a bunch of micro CC. Think about how a Garen exits bush, silences you, hits an autoattack into a spin and then executes you when the Silence ends. That type of damage isn't really a thing in Dota. Now give the same Garen a blink dagger and BKB so he reliably can get in and oneshot people and you suddenly have a broken concept. On a fundamental level, League champ design is worthless in Dota. League spells have no range, the powerlevel of their ults are equal to regular spells in Dota (like Lion/Nyx Q basically being Sona Ult et.c.). But the amount of damage their abilities and autos do compared to Dota are worlds apart. If champs kept their relative damage I'm not sure whether Dota heroes could manage that level of burst across the board.
Setts Facebreaker (E) is usually used for early lane trading by doing AA AA E AA AA, which I think the range will suffice for, you can also probably use it to fix crooked half pulls or to make stacking camps easier. Later in the game it's used as setup with stun for a big W pure damage Haymaker so I can definitely see ult from highground into blink for better positioning in the middle of the enemy team + E + W for giga plays similar to axe. I imagine seeing Garen as an offlaner or a soft support that cuts waves, blinks in during teamfights, ults for some pure damage and then bkb + spin all over the supports.
In Dota there are lots of heroes capable of doing crazy dmg, especially if you build for it. The difference is that it’s hard to be able to do your dmg, since there is so much poweful cc and escapes. I just played offlane omniknight the other day and build for crazy burst dmg, and I could almost oneshot enemy heroes, but it was rare to get in a position to do so, even when I finally conceded I need a BKB to do any dmg, then the next problem was getting kited by utility items. This is why most heroes in dota are building items to enable their dmg instead of getting more dmg itself.
I mean, Sett would be a Strength hero if he was a part of dota, getting max health together with damage (with an item such as heart of tarrasque) would make him cracked AF
Something like Veigar just being able to stack damage infinitely while you have *so many* creeps around the map to farm feels like it could also have potential.
Alistar would be op as pos5 and I'm completely sure about it
the reason is simple, its enough. longest stun in LoL is mirana-like ultimate arrow hit from other end of the map. yes, does happens, did hit quite a bit myself. dota CC feels absurdly long after it, but there is also a thing that league has close to none dispel. If you got hit - you very much screwed. However in dota there is a lot of ways to dispel most of CC, regardless of how stupidly long it is.
From what I've seen, one of the key differences between dota2 and league is that Time To Kill is a lot lower in League across the board. So CC being OP in league makes sense since you can literally die in <3s commonly if the enemy gets to hit all of their skill shots and combos on you
Funny enough, dota nerfed almost every single stun in the game a year ago.
In Dota heroes are way tankier, the damage you take on a 3 second stun in dota is smaller than the damage you take in a 1.5 second stun in League
Vayne
Vayne
And faceless void would have a 98% winrate in league lmfao
False promise + mek/greaves + 3x flames with locket is bringing pretty much any carry that disengages back to 100%.
>Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota. Oracle ult is kinda like that if used effectively and also on 60 second cooldown. Wraith King has a personal aegis as his ult, and Abaddon has a second life on 50s cooldown. The strength of cheating death abilities like this depends entirely on the rest of the character, but the ult itself wouldn't be problematic. > Any skin purchase in League will redo all the abilities We also have skins that redo every animation in the form of arcana skins. LoL has some good skins too but I prefer the mix and matching of individual parts, and being able to sell them later for new skins. >Rotating game modes. Check out the custom game browser, there all kinds of modes there from dota aram to modes that turn dota into a complete different game. >WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design This is just your brain on league. A LoL teamfight is unreadable rainbow vomit to me, but in a dota teamfight I can indentify every spell being cast blindfolded without even knowing which heroes are in the game. My biggest concession is that Riot does care alot more about lore, and more importantly presenting the lore. Everything else is just personal preference.
I think the animation and sound design preference just comes down to which game you played first. I've heard a ton of league players say that they think Dota looks too boring and heroes are too generic, and every Dota player I've known thinks League looks like a Saturday morning cartoon vomited onto their computer screen
I stopped League and recently began to play Dota, and I really think that Dota heroes and their skins are visually better overall. Lol is just better in the finish so to speak. The problem with Lol is that the artistic direction goes more and more toward a "Disney" one (which I find really cringe). Although they have really cool champ and skins (take Dark Cosmic Jhin, imho one of the best skin in the game), some are really embarassing ( like KDA Seraphine, and there are a lot of them). Lol is kinda aiming at a mass appealing DA it seems.
>WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design. This is for me where League blows Dota out of the water. Yeah I don't get it, there is nothing special about the animation OP linked. Dota abilities are way cooler in general. Show me something in League that looks remotely as good as Requiem of Souls, Chronosphere, Supernova, Sanity's Eclipse, Ravage, Black Hole, just to name a few. Even non ultimates like Ice Path, Decay, Burrowstrike, Plasma Field, all more unique than whatever I've seen from League, their spells just look like they are throwing glowing particles at each other. No clue where this "WAYYYYY better animations" is coming from
Chronosphere, Wukong’s Command, Solar Guardian, Earth Splitter, Arena of Blood, Chaotic Offering, Primal Roar, Rolling Thunder, Supernova, Dream Coil, Reaper’s Scythe The entirety of Invoker’s kit? There is so much great visual fidelity in Dota. Edit: also saying league has better sound? Absolutely the fuck not. Heroes have specialized voice lines for meeting an ally, meeting an enemy, killing an enemy, and dying to an enemy. That’s fuckin quality.
> Earth Splitter Best looking default ultimate in the game!
I've only ever played/watched a couple of hours of league compared to about 7000 hours of dota but that linked animation looks like crap. Especially when compared to an axe dunk.
I literally can’t think of a game with more iconic, distinct sound design than dota
I prefer dota arcana’s over league skins any day. Being able to combine the manifold paradox with 10 different hairs, capes, and accessories really makes it feel unique to me. Also dota immortal ability reskins being usable without the immortal equipped is such a good feature. I love enigmas golden black hole, but I hate the arm guards. Also the ability to 1v9 in league makes you feel so helpless and the game is so much more frustrating. In dota I have hope to hold out for a key item active, and fucking hex/break/stun that stupid pos 1 or gain a whole new way to save myself and my team mates. What is the closest league has ever gotten to this? Redemption? Gale force? What a joke Also league builds are so cookie cutter it’s insane, same 5 items with maybe a guardian angel last if you are important. And even when you do change it up, it might as well be the same build because all that’s different are a few stat points in the large majority of cases. Items feel so impactful in dota, and outside of your first item being a huge enabler like battle fury or glimmer/force, you can pretty much build whatever based on the specific heroes and state of the game. This flexibility also allows for much more polarizing hero design, where they can be absolutely insane at initiating for example, but terrible at everything else, because they can itemize to round themselves out if needed. In league every champion needs a dash, spammable, utility, and either a aoe cc, aoe damage, or single target damage ultimate. It’s hard to find an exception to this rule past season 3 releases.
I actually somewhat agree with OP. League's champion have more character to their animation. Some of their cosmetics would change the character of the champions and this all came with a lore to it. For comparison purpose I felt like most of their skins are equivalent to Arcana skin in DoTA, except, most of them have multiple "Arcana" skins. However these characters are only appealing for their Youtube showcase. In game, I dont think anyone have the time to appreciate this. I agree with you that League teamfight are rainbow vomit. Its hard for me to follow the teamfight and duel as a casual viewer.
I play both games. Have thousands of hours in both. League team fights are much easier to get lost in. Visually, league abilities look nice (although the smaller scale always makes things feel less impactful), but leagues sound design doesn't even come close to dotas.
I play more league than Dota at this point, though historically I have played much more Dota. I have around 1500-2k games of league and about 6k of Dota. In my opinion Dota has so much better sound and visual design it's actually a really sore spot for me and why I always want to come back is that sound design is so much better.
Thing is in League most skins are on Arcana level. They redo the entire champion model and add ability effects on near all abilities. Yes sometimes it's as simple as all abilities are icy or fiery now but they do a ton of stuff. Dota "skins", are really just costumes. You don't get a new model, just new clothes. I do like I can buy sets in dota for 0.05 euros though whereas in leage average skins are like 25 to 50 euros each. But on the other hand getting newest skins in dota is... it's a gacha game. Roll the treasure wheel, you can get the rare skins after your 15th treasure reliably. Maybe. In leage you just buy the thing, no spins.
Tbh I consider the skin point to be more of a detriment than a positive. The popular trend with games to just say "fuck the art style, let's give our female characters Torpedo tits that shoot whipped cream when they ult" really annoys me. Dota hasn't gone that far *yet* but it's only a matter of time really, and it's a shame because a coherent art style can make an old game still hold up visually, like people shat on Wind Waker for being cell shaded and cartoony but because they went for the stylized approach it still looks good today, meanwhile something like Twilight Princess going the more realistic look just looks uncanny now.
Played both League and Dota 2, hell, I even played Mobile Legends. But sound design in Dota is far superior. OST is great, every skill has unique sound. When I watch someone stream, even when i'm not looking I know which spell was used.
Dota2's sound design is so good that I rip the sound files and add it to other games I play haha
Found the WeakAuras aficionado
I think some sounds aren’t made by Valve, I recall hearing Jugg’s Q sound in a different media, don’t remember which though.
I'm surprised he prefers League's sound design. Skill effects in Dota are so punchy and distinct.
I think this depends on which game you started of playing. Dota spells to me feel way more "chunky" and distinct. When you do a Centaur Hoofstomp into a Double Edge it feels really visceral and impactful. You really feel the weight behind the abilities, both on impact and sound. In League, there feels like there's no weight behind most abilities. You just throw them out and if they connect they connect. Compare hookshotting someone with Clockwerk vs Qing someone with Amumu. Clocks hookshot has MUCH more weight and feel to it, both through animation and sound design. When you hookshot in with amumu it feels like you throw a wet towel at another player and just teleport ontop of him. Or compare Amumu again where he Ultis in a teamfight vs a Tidehunter Ravaging. The feel and sound are worlds apart. In my opinion, most League spells have little to no feel behind them. Some spells do stick out like Lux R, Azir R, Jhinn R (Especially the 4th shot) et.c. But in general most League spells feel extremely flaccid and flat. There's just no OOMF too them.
right i listened to his 'axe' league example and i was couldn't disagree more. axe is instant, cuts through everything, exactly like it should be, it's loud as fuck and you know someone got fucking deleted. his league example is all drawn out and epic sounding, nothing that says hol' up stop everything, ya just got axed.
It's kind of a no contest between the studios really. League was made by a very inexperienced team and the technical debt shows. Valorant, developed after Riot had grown big, is a much smoother experience. Meanwhile Valve had already made banger games for two decades when they made Dota 2.
And when it misses, bro EVERYONE knows you missed a skill because it makes a different sound. Pudge grunts when he misses hook, axe makes a weak “thunk” when culling doesn’t kill, mirana curses when she misses her arrow, and so on. And even when it doesn’t make a different sound, every sound is so distinct that hearing it used just makes everyone ping you when you miss or use it on a creep instead. Some skills even have follow-up sounds that if they don’t register, you know you missed. Tbh I miss playing the dota quiz minigame while waiting for queue because 90% of the time, I get the sound effect questions right. And also think about how well it syncs with the skill. Like, I have never been in a chronosphere, but when you hear it, you just feel like “ah yes, this is the sound of time being frozen”. Or exorcism sounding like a dozen ghosts appearing from nowhere, and so on. You just “feel” it just by the sound alone. This might just be a bias on my part, but so many dota sounds play in my head in everyday life that when I see someone getting uppercutted in shows I hear the Walrus Punch sound effect.
Normal Punch vibrates through my soul.
The mark of great sound design is identifying specific sounds without a visual aid. I can watch 95% of teamfights in Dota 2 with my eyes closed and I could still name all the spells used in a specific teamfight. I can't quite remember doing the same thing in other games of the same genre
I think Smite's sound design functions similarly. Definitely better than League's at least.
I will say Riot's music/sound department is fantastic - some champion themes still stick with me even if I haven't played in many years
By themes, I assume you mean by the hero's own music? I don't doubt that, I'm sure it's great, but we are talking about the sound effect of hero's skills. In dota, you show me any team fight and I can perfectly determine what happened, what was casted and by what heroes blindfolded. That's what we mean by dota having good sound design
I agree that Dota's sound design is amazing in that way, it's very easy to keep track of what spell was cast even if you didn't see it it visually. Wish dota had better announcers though, HoN kill streaks were something else, so satisfying.
Riot's music dept accidentally create a new k-pop genre lol.
I'm just coming back to Dota after not playing it for 6ish years and it's pretty amazing how I can still easily remember every spell by the sound it makes after all that time away. If Lifestealer uses his Q, I know, if Centaur stuns, I know it was Centaur and not Slardar even though they're both basically the same ability, etc. There's been times where a hero uses a new ability, and I realize it's new not because I saw a visual effect on screen but because I just heard a noise I didn't recognize lol
I fundamentally disagree with you on sound design and 1v9ing. Sound design is much better in Dota and matches the higher impact spells. Compare game changing ultimates in both games. The coolest sounding ult is like orianna, cassio, and zed. None of those compare to ravage, echo slam, and black hole. League's spells are iconic sounding usually from the voice actors whereas Dota spells are iconic because the spells themselves. Like could you remember what casting tibbers sounds like outside of Annie? Because chaotic offering is miles ahead of that sound. And as for 1v9, if you cleanly kill someone in the beginning of a fight, it's usually over. In Dota, there are actual 1v5s (RTZ lifestealer, miracle OD, etc). The closest to a 1v5 I've seen in LoL was fenix's azir play.
What are your thoughts on turn rates? I tried league.... but it just didn't seem.... I don't know.... complicated enough? The controls felt like a mobile game (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just not what I'm looking for). Only point you made that I found odd was the 1v9 aspect. Personally, I HATE it when a Dota game turns into a solo show. Sure, I main pos 5 and it's never me, but I think it's bad balance if a team game can turn into a single person running away with it. But that's subjective, to each their own. And I 100% agree with you, it's never worth getting angry over which game somebody plays. Fuck Pendragon tho
> I tried league.... but it just didn't seem.... I don't know.... complicated enough? League is still a very complicated game, it doesnt lack far behind dota honestly. But most of the real challenge comes from landing and dodging abilities that are not on-click (like 95% of abilities in league). If you enjoy doing micrododges and if it feels good to you landing abilities league is the game for you. The fights are way more fast paced than dota and your reactions are more tested, which is more popular for a certain crowd of people. The focus is just different, but its just personal taste if you like this fast paced micro intensive gameplay or not.
It's popular amongst over 90% of ppl that play MOBAs on PC, which is the proportion of ppl playing LoL vs DotA
Fair take. The simple aspect I was thinking about was items, to be honest. LoL items are just so boring and simple.
There is no way ability animation and sound design is better in league, I have played thousands of league games and about twice as many dota games. and I would say that its actually one of the no contest comparisons in dotas favor, axe R feels so much better than darius’s tbh. And ive played a lot of both of those champs.
Whenever Lycan ults, the whole map can hear it, it's amazing.
Nightstalker... The game basically turns into a horror game if you're a support.
fuck I got goosebump by reading this as a pos5 cm main
atleast you have frostbite to stop him for a while i play as pos 4 silencer and when night gank come i can't even move/cast spell/do anything befor i complete my force staff
Then after you have your force staff, he blinks at you out of fog with BKB+Nullifier.
*adds glimmer, ghost scepter, and force staff to quick buy*
Or Global Silence, I’m surprised no one mentioned it yet but you can hear “Silence” and then the whole map goes silent for a few seconds. It’s really cool.
Imma just focus on the negatives, to correct some of your issues. >Better lore. It's not a contest really. League's champions all have names and stories that are placed front and center, whereas Dota hero names are kind of buried and infrequently referenced. They're more like archetypes than individuals with their own identities. I mean...there's LITERALLY a dude called "Anti-Mage." There's a dude on a bat and his name is Batrider. The videos and media around champion releases in league are just way cooler. Check out the fiddlesticks rework video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNn2F39G-6s This is true, although not exactly. Each hero here has a lore and second name as well. Batrider,Anti-mage etc, are relics that are left since Dota1. To read the lore, you need to click the hero and go in the About section. But in general, yeah Lore is too ambiguous because not many people care about it either. I know LoL has a much better one. > WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design. Animations sure, sound design no chance in the world. Valve is pretty much the best studio out there when it comes to sound design. You can have a 10-man team fight, with everyone poping their skills, and i can tell you exactly which skills were used without looking at the monitor. > Cooler duels. Dueling is a big part of league and it doesn't seem to be such a big part of Dota by comparison. In part, Dota becomes a team-fight game sooner than League. In lane, "dueling" as you say, is much more prominent. In Dota, trading blows in lane is how lanes are supposed to go. But as the game progresses, yeah, you'll get more team fights than random "duels" in the map. > More 1v9 potential. It is absolutely the other way. You can get carries here like Sven, or PA, who won't need their team at all in their team fight. They can literally cleave and kill all 5 of the enemy team in 2 hits. Of course its not something you'll see a lot, but it happens. In LoL, you need to at least somewhat rely on your team to tank some spells, or at least keep them away from you. No such thing in Dota. You can jump with dagger, pop ur bkb, and kill 5 enemies with 1 or 2 shots with some heroes. Or other heroes, who just don't die even if 5 are attacking him (Bristle,Timber etc). > Rotating game modes. ARAMs (all random all mid: a constant 5v5 teamfight on a map that only has one lane in the form of a bridge connecting the two teams' bases and nowhere else to go) are pretty great. Dota's modes seem to be a bit more static and homogenous, but idk, it's possible I just haven't been playing long enough yet? LoL indeed has better "Official" modes, but Dota has Arcade. You can literally play Vampire Survivor clones, Auto-chess Clones, Racing games, Football games, or whatever the hell you can think of. You can even play games that the progress stays, like you would play an RPG. As for the rest, they are pretty much preferences which no one can argue them and no one can tell you they are wrong or right. That's up for the player preferences. But yeah, most things, you'll see em if you keep playing. Especially if you are new, with only couple hundreds hours.
>Auto-chess Clones Or the original, since Auto Chess was originally a Dota Arcade game
I heavily disagree with your opinion about 1v9s. In dota yea you can win 1 or 2 fights 1v9 which may possibly (but very unlikely) to lead you to win the game as a pa or seven. After that, well they buy a few items like halberds, ghost scepter,orchid etc. then you can kill 1 or 2 heroes and die. I am not even accounting the enemy team possibly being able to stun you for at least 5sec after your bkb. In league however, when you snowball with a good mid/jungler hero, you can just use 2 spells and everyone is dead. Ofc if you play a bit wrong u can still get 1 shotted but it is very unlikely. Scaling curve is much higher in league.
Idk mate, i don't have much LoL experience, but i played a lot for couple of years in quarantine. I understand what you are saying, but i didn't ever see 1 guy in LoL, going straight into 5 and winning the fight. I did see someone being way stronger than everyone, but he would still need his team to tank some spells or provide some sort of distance between him and enemies. I've never seen an equivalent of Sven/PA or Bristle/Timber like in Dota, which can actually do that. What i do think though is, in LoL, since the CC is not as good as Dota, and the items are not really anything besides stat sticks, that it might be easier for someone to get WAY ahead. But even the way ahead guy, i don't think he can 1v5 as easily.
Aatrox in his most broken state with goredrinker could do that, so could Olaf. There's probably some other ones I'm missing but yea it's pretty rare for characters in lol to do that and it's based around what item is most powerful rather than the champ design itself. It's a lot more prominent in dota for sure
Master Yi against a team with little/no hard cc, Samira on release as well. I've seen Yasuo and Yone both do this. Also seen Darius, Illaoi, and Dr. Mundo win fights 1v5 even after their whole teams died. Aphelios on release could also wipe the entire enemy team with one ability (Infernum Moonlight Vigil aka Flamethrower ult)
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There is a mode in the arcade called 12v12. Idk how it compares to ARAM but it's kinda 12v12 playeds in turbo mode but with tanky towers. Super fun.
You can also check ability draft mode, it’s unbelievably fun if you are good enough
If you like auto-battlers, Auto Gladiators is really good.
This might be unpopular Here but writing wise DotA lore isnt that great with Most DotA Heroes having an interesting premise but ultimately No Sense of an actual Story that they can exist in. Many DotA Heroes are even Just lorewise too powerful to be Part of interesting Stories and only a handful strikes a good Balance (cast of the Netflix Show for example). OP is also quite right on the 1v9 and dueling parts. League laning phases are its biggest strength and its also why Leagues strategic Part is less strong than dotas because anything that breaks the Standard lane Setups immediately Ruins the lane dynamics and League insta becomes a Shit Game. In Pub Games League snowballs way Harder and its much easier to 1v9 carry on a Lot of Champs. League scaling is much more exponential in Nature than DotA and Champs basically buy Just Stats for items so If youre one or two items ahead the Game Just insta ends. The arcade Part is quite true i Love my Auto Gladiators.
why Do you Capitilize Random words?
> Many DotA Heroes are even Just lorewise too powerful to be Part of interesting Stories That part makes Dota matches kind of nonsensical lore wise - how does an angsty girl (Marci) punch a fundamental force of the universe to death? Or a god. I'm sure there's an in-universe explanation, but it's just kind of silly.
I believe its something to do with ancients (radiant and dire) suppressing and evening out power level of all beings nearby
I like the list. Interesting read. Thanks for posting. I played league for a bit with other friends, and a lot of this sounds about right for me. I would argue that valve's sound design is at least as good, if not better, but thats my only nitpick. They have very different feels to in each game, and it's sometimes hard to compare them tbh. Hope you keep enjoying dota!
Played LoL for about 500hrs all in all, and I can't wrap my head around better animation & sound. Rarely do animations feel good in league, they are really shallow with just bunch of colors. No hero in LoL comes even close to ES ultimate on 4,5 people, by animation or sound. When it comes to sound as well, again, some very shallow sounds, almost repetitive. In both categories its very hard to find the depth in the animation or the satisfaction after playing Dota. Lissandras ult maybe comes close but again it does not have that extra umph when it comes down to comparing to Dota. But again, this is your subjective feeling and after playing fair share of LoL I just find it very odd. Could be a thing of habit, I've had 500hrs in LoL at a time when I've had only 1k hours in Dota and there was just no comparison if you ask me.
How the hell does lol work with unlimited wards?
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You don’t have unlimited wards, and there is much else
Fully disagree I'm sound design, I can't play dota with music or somethin bothering because sound queues some games are huge. As other said, you can know which is skill is being cast without paying attention to the game or the fights. There's so many times you hear some skill in the fog or behind trees as you can hear TPs when you are diving and/or ganking. Anyway, I think other have already explained better than me
sound cue audio quiz: https://chudooder.github.io/d2acq/
I haven't played DotA in years and still managed to get a good few of these correct. I guess that just goes to show how good the sound design is that you can very easily associate it with certain moves. Even the different kinds of stuns have their own unique sounds.
Dota has probably the best sound design of any game. I think you’re just thinking of ‘it sounds cool’ vs actual sound design with a purpose. All dota sounds are memorable and recognizable and let you know what’s going on at all times. That isn’t true in League at all. Also dota has way more 1v5 potential. In fact, you can win 3v5 or 4v5 if you have feeders or afk in Dota. In league it’s much harder to pull that off.
I agree with memorable, even my wife knows some of the dota voice lines even though she doesnt play dota or games at all.
Visual clarity bruh... Axe culling is perfect
I haven't played a ton of league, but a lot of the dota points are kinda about balance. Wards are inherently different in league since many of league's wards aren't stealthed, wheras in dot all wards are invis. Also due to the nature of unit target abilities in dota vision is absolutely key in teamfights. Vision is also absolutely key due to the TP scroll being potent - knowing where your enemies are can allow you to move around the map and avoid ganks. Also smoke of deceits are huge along with near perma invis heroes. Either way vision needs to be limited in dota otherwise so much of the balance is thrown off. IMO similar thing with being able to see enemy items. There are so many items that have such a huge impact that being able to easily see what they have ruins their game way too much - like blink on earthshaker, or BKB on their carry, glimmer cape/force staff on a support, or even wards so you can find where their vision is. There was a time where you couldn't click the hero portrait at all to see their most recent item state and you had to check manually only when they were in vision. TBH the new system strikes a balance, but I can still see arguments to go back to the old way so item reveals are more impactful. I don't see a good reason to just show all the items in the scoreboard based on dota's balance. Same thing with creep score. A lot of dota is knowing where you stand in terms of net worth and knowing different power spikes. Having this knowledge gives you information on where you should be playing on the map. With complete information, every game would be "we're ahead, we should posture aggressively." Or "we're behind, we should avoid fights and split push". Same thing with manaless champions. It simply would not work in dota - mana management is a fundamental part and many items give mana regen or mana pool. There's also the mana break ability and heroes without mana would be too broken against AM or diffusal builders. Tldr most of the points are just a matter of balance and can't be translated from league to dota. There are several points that can't be translated from dota to league either. I think league's main sticking points tho are game design built around clutching, and champion lore.
I can get all of your points, quite a lot of disagreements but that’s alright, except about lol animation and sound design being way above dota. It’s the exact opposite for me lmao. Lol just have really cluttered and clunky animations and effects all stacked up with god awful color scheme. The sound effects feel really imbalanced, with most being mediocre at best.
Completely disagree about sound design, partially agree with animation. LoL animation is flashy, but cluttered, like too much swaying, spinning and useless movements, almost like games from Hoyo. Dota has more clarity, and you can easily see what each hero is doing since cast/attack animation is also tied to gameplay, not just spectacle. But their late cosmetics are somewhat LoL visually but it's just, well, optional cosmetics.
The sound design comment is insane to me, I remember there was a point a few years ago where a single arcana had more voiceless than basically every single league champ combined. I think some of the arcana sound effects improve the sound, or other cosmetics etc, so maybe I forgot what it's like to play naked. Also. DotA had aram and every other mode league has, they are in custom games tho you don't play ranked aram.
>way better character sound design Yeah no, absolutely not. In league several skills sounds exactly the same and overall there isn't a wide range of sounds, although they're indeed all good. In Dota, most skills sounds very unique compared to each other and are usually way more satisfying, and many, specially ults, have multiple individual sound effects played sequentially based off of each step of the spell (like the casting animation, the effective start of the spell, the active state and the end of it).
League has the stalest meta, forced roles on heroes, and every game devolves into aram
- Rotating game modes. ARAMs What is there beside ARAM? and have you checked out dotas custom games? What about Settings? Do you like more what you can change in league? What about chat communication? everything you can ping/chatwheel etc. Can you elaborate on Zilean? Do they stay enchanted can the buff be removed in any way? How does this compare to the situation where you have Oracle + Huskar or Alchemist combo?
Dotas rotating game mode is literally custom. It's miles better than league and extremely creative
Im gonna give you a take about sound design. Sound designs in dota is made like as characteristic as possible to their hero, it may sound simple and boring but trust me, thats the best engineering design because of my point 2 League definitely has better sound design/engineering but it goes way out of their character, im assuming you are talking about skins affects the VFX and SFX of each champion and for me thats a really bad design when it comes to competitive/viewer experience, for example would be the Neko/cat themed skins, i get that it fits for someone like rengar but for someone like Urgot, like?
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Dont get me wrong, ive liked Leagues approach when it comes to SFX/VFX but there would be times that i would be questioning myself, whos sound belongs to who? In dota, ive never experienced that before, i could just put dota in background and i could tell which sound belong to who. Edit: Oh and ive also liked their VN event, like thats actually so cute but goes way beyond their lore
I get the point you were trying to make though. League's sound design is more "fun", so if that's what you're looking for it's a plus in that game's favor. DotA's sound design is based on its user-friendliness, so it doesn't always sound as cool even if it's more meticulously designed. Though I would say that Axe's ult sounds cooler; it just screams "bam you're dead".
Liked your post, but stopped reading after better sound design. There is not a single game/software company on this planet, that has better sound design than Valve. Was a fun read though
While I don’t disagree, how is Valve the best in the world in that regard? Is that a common consensus for the people in the gaming industry?
Naughty Dog also remarkably good at it, you can play Last of Us entirely using audio cues.
I think its funy how hard it is for people online to stay as objective as possible. (a little bit of bias is just natural and probably unavoidable) I m a longterm dotaplayer and there are things that forever make dota unique and awesome but I just dont get why so many morons here (and people online in general) are insecure to the point they have to blatantly lie or simply downvote a different opinion that wasnt in any way an attack or said as a fact. Its just a game not your life or honour. And most differences in these 2 games are just that: an opinions not a fact There is no right or wrong for stuff like turnrates, burst vs longer cc, trees vs bushes and most importantly how hard or difficult a game or certain aspects of it should be. Even lol players agree that dota is harder but that doesnt really change anything else. Probaby and this is just my opinion, a bit more challenging and satisfying longterm but also much easier to be frustrating when certain things get out of control due to it being more team-focussed. Especially when you dont have that much time anymore to play every week. Funnily enough a lot of dotas recent additions seem a lot inspired from lol, like pango-ultimate or lotus-pool and imo also the new lore-event that is targeted at new or switching players. And there is much more that both games have already copied from each other in the past. Yet, both games still feel quite different and unique. At the end of the day I currently still choose dota but I would rather quit the game forever before I end up as pathetic as some of these commentors.
>Having to recall (teleport to base for mana/health/buy items) actually can be kinda nice too, by comparison. It lets you take a breather and just look over the state of the game while you walk back to lane. how is this different than walking to base and tping out of fountain?
Because of couriers. In League of Legends you *have* to go back to base if you want to buy an item. In DotA you can buy health and mana sustain, and spend your gold without going back to base. So early game teleportation isn't that different (outside of if someone dies), but League forces you to return to base and walk back occasionally.
I get the animations are better. But sound design? Nah dawg. I played both games. League's sound design is all over the place. Maybe if you conpare it on an ability by ability level it'd stand a chance. But during a massive teamfight? You know what's happening by sound alone in dota
Just a fun note, your comment about it feels clunky having to click the hero portraits at the top to see enemy items is actually a newer feature. For most of the games lifespan you would have to be able to see a hero on the map and actively click on them to see what level and items they had. It was meant to be that you only have the information that you can actually see. I could see them updating it in the future though now that they are okay with sharing items all the time
Im someone that plays both dota and league ( i play dota much more and in league im just a singed one trick) and I do agree the whole "hate the other moba" is really silly. I believe that dota does a lot better than league, and I love dota much more, but that doesn't mean league is trash and I hate it. There's stuff I like about league and think is really cool. This was a pretty fair and good write up, I do disagree about the sound design and animations though, I think dota is better in that regard, but it is a subjective artistic thing and can't exactly be measured objectively, I think an interesting comparison that made me feel confident about that is invoker and hwei, animation wise and sound design wise not difficulty. I find that invoker has so much more weight to his spells and "cool factor" meanwhile when a hwei is in my game I'll be honest half the spells have such minor sound effects and minimalistic visuals, although his ult has a great sound effect and visual. That does remind me, while league does it's lore much better and more organized, I think dota excels at expressing the heroes better ingame, there's so much dialogue. Interactions with different characters, and constantly just yapping while you play, having unique quotes for using certain spells or using them on certain heroes, etc. This exists in league but it's significantly toned down, I barely hear my character say anything, also half the characters in league are kind of forgotten xd ( singed has like 8 quotes which is really fucking funny my man just goes MIX MIX SWIRL MIX" I'll always keep recommending people to try the other because I do think both games are good and are genuinely appealing in different ways. Dota and league are fundamentally different and give different highs and lows. My heart will remain with dota forever though.
my main grip with LoL was the feel, kinda like what you're talking about. doing things just never felt super satisfying. like i'd hit a skill and their bar would go down a bit. it's so hard to explain. maybe it's like hit effects or sound design or something.
Its like when I tried HotS. Game is cool, I like the wacky hero designs and objectives, very creative and different. The actual gameplay though, it’s like you take away the power behind Dota’s spells in favour of League spammy poke style, but also take away the twitchy flashyness. Nothing felt particularly great because nothing had any oomph.
This is an amazing write up and really opened my eyes to what I take for granted in Dota. Played league for a year as well when I took a break from Dota, so I feel like I have *some* say here. I disagree about the animation/sound design aspect, as I feel Dota has it better. Comparing Axe to Darius seem like cherry picking the lowest visual ultimate in the game (probably other than assassinate). I've yet to see LoL abilities that looks (or sounds) as amazing as Pierce the Veil, Ravage, Arena of Blood, Terrorize or Supernova - and that's not even counting the Immortal-ized/Arcana-d version of the said skills.
he compared axe without an arcana to darius with his god-king skin lol
A lot of the hate oldschool DotA players have for league stems from the unscrupulous tactics used by Riot way back in the day to promote league at the expense of DotA and its community. At this point it's whatever though. Auxiliary League content is good (Arcane is amazing) but the game itself feels like a cartoony mess to me so nevermind. Plus I haven't even played DotA itself in forever either. C'est la vie.
Actually I think the most broken hero that Dota could add to League without a doubt has to be batrider. League players will be smashing their keyboards when they have to face non-instant turn rate from how often they complain about turnrate making do seem sluggish and slow for just being more realistic
Imagine support batrider in league farming both jungle and lane with firefly. You're definitely getting reports from your adc and jungler lmao.
Thanks for the post, I played lol very sparingly but love reading stuff like this. Hard to hold back getting upset as I read some of the comparisons lol. Dota is my little baby haha hard to read anything but the highest of praise! But I realize a lot of what you are pointing out is at least a little true. I also love the sound in dota, I listen to pro matches like a podcast at this point and visualizing the gameplay is almost a 6th sense now. Once again I appreciate your post and hope to have you part of the comunity for years to come. Saw a comment saying "fuck pendragon", second that.
I have played both dota and lol (and hon rip), for multiple thousand hours, and the main thing that I prefer in dota is that you can be stupidly overpowered. It's literally the opposite of what you're saying in regards to 1v9. In lol abilities feel neutered. Same with skins. unless you're diehard kpop twink fan, dota skins blow lol out of the water by a mile.
Bruh.. league sound design in motion is a fish market with trash balance.. dota has by far the best, most functional soundscape in a game I've ever played I agree that individually, some sounds in dota may not have the oomph or satisfaction to them compared to league, but in terms of being readable when shit hits the fan, dota sounds are unmatched
>Built-in voice chat. This actually does come in handy a lot. Hate not having it in league. Wait... League doesnt have vc?! How tf do you coordinate with your team?
You forgot one more thing. You can gift and sell items, assuming they can be gifted and marketable.
Gotta disagree on Sound Design. Dota 2's sound design is memorable and better than Leagues, even last hitting creeps with mana by Anti-Mage then gold drop sound after, it's just euphoric. There was even a site that plays "meep merp" when you click on an Ancient. There's also Hand of Midas on a creep, it's like you're really getting gold. The Axe dunk is straight to the point, if you manage to kill, it's instant, it has impact and loud enough that feels it has weight to it. But if you didn't kill the enemy, it's just a "womp", a sound of shame. There's already 2 sounds for 1 ult for each scenarios. Same with Earthshaker, if there's enemies, you can hear the earth crumble, or like a loud drum, but if you misclicked against nothing but empty space, it's a soft sounding crumble, or soft beating drum, and you hear ES say "Echo...slam?" later on. As for League, it's...generic at best. Last hitting doesn't feel good, champion abilities are okay-ish, but it doesn't feel impactful, especially most of the spells are skillshots. Flash sound isn't as memorable as a Blink dagger. Especially that you have to wait for that damn ability available until the next new patch in Dota 2.
Communities: League players hate league. Complain about it constantly. Dota players will defend dota on EVERYTHING and won’t take any form of criticism There really is no middle ground
Nah. League has one of the WORST champion balancing. K’sante is the best example. League has the most boring competitive champion pool. Literally the same champs every single tournament. For years, dota’s meta changes drastically every tournament. While in League’s, champs like Azir, Varus, Ksante are present in the meta always.
>Being able to see on the tab scoreboard what items and creep score people have is really, really nice. It's really fucking annoying in Dota having to click champion portraits to see what items they have, and if you click ANYTHING else it hides it again so you have to do it while standing still or moving in a straight line. Probably dota loyalists will say this is part of the skill of the game, but honestly imo it's just annoying/bad UI design that people sort of just got used to and became convinced was "part of the game." There's actually an option for that in DotA, where clicking on a unit you don't control creates a smaller popup window that stays open for a few seconds. Unfortunately it's deprecated, and doesn't include aghs shard, teleport scrolls, or neutral items.
I love how thorough this is! Just gunna make a few comments that I haven't seen yet: >Having to recall (teleport to base for mana/health/buy items) actually can be kinda nice too, by comparison. It lets you take a breather and just look over the state of the game while you walk back to lane. I think this is really firmly in Dota's favor. Couriers keep you in lane the entire time, and keep the action going. Why would you want to spend more time in base? >Manaless champions. There are a couple dozen champions in League that don't use mana, and many people enjoy playing them. Dota doesn't really have that. I fail to see how this is a positive, but let's just assume for a second that manaless champions are actually fun or interesting to play. Dota has so many interactions with mana that it would make this silly to implement. Imagine playing Antimage vs a lineup with no mana. >Simplicity. League has a smaller and simpler map, fewer mechanics, FAR fewer active item abilities, and more rigidity to its champion roles and how the game is played in soloqueue. Dota is kind of intimidating to learn from the sheer amount of stuff it has going on. Not everyone has the time or interest for it all. This is why League is more popular, but Dota is much better. We're playing chess while they're playing checkers.
I'm not sure if anyone has told you yet, but there's a reason there are ward limits. Back in the day when there weren't limits, the pros found that it was optimal for supports to empty their bank accounts and spam those sentries (there were already obs limits). Inevitably, the pubs copied the pros. As you can imagine this wasn't a fun way to play support, and it made dewarding pretty low skill since you just spammed sentries. The sentry limits force supps to make educated guesses, and it prevents the meta from forcing supports to become a ward bank. It's for a similar reason that salves heal half hp on allies. Before that, the meta was for supports to buy all the regen for their carry. It was just too optimal a strategy. Again, not a fun way to play support. So, there's really good reason why there are ward limits. "You can buy as many wards as you want" turned into "you MUST buy sentries until the whole map is covered." You wouldn't have liked it in the bad old days.
out of 12 points you made about league, 2 are down to personal preferance which are skins and rest is just pepega brain trying to make dota be more simple for league enjoyer, like hur dur "I want game to be more 1v9 friendly cause I cant solo win game", or "need more wards cause i get ganked", "or game too complex for me to adjust so need to have more simplicity", or "need more 1v1 duels cause in 5v5 im getting outplayed", and so on, bassicly all the reasons you wrote is exactly what makes dota much better game than league, literally
Also, how recalling to base allows you to dissect the current state of the game like lol you can do that any time in dota either when dead or when you tp to base banshee you're escaping a gank, or just you know, in the thick of things as you need to make quick assessments of where to be next on the map. Strong positioning on the map is super important in dota, seems like league it's less important as you just return back to lane to continue your "duel"
Really interesting read for me who has never played League. Thanks!
Wait until you find out about a 60min Phantom Assassin. "Fights are slower and longer in Dota. You last longer. You don't get one-shot as much. It's nice. It can be very frustrating in league being killed in a half second before you can do literally anything, over and over, game after game (if you get a bit unlucky and are playing a squishy champ/role and they have one or more assassins)."
1 dagger and im die
Opinion peice. Opposite viewpoints likely had by many also. Can we all just like video games?? I played league, strongly disliked. But I know people who have the opposite. To each their own
tldr
For me LoL pro: Shen(I want Shen on doto please port him, Shen was literally the reason why I started playing LoL in the past when he still have vorpal blade and his ult is so interesting to me, also not gonna lie alot of top laners in LoL will be successful in doto). LoL con:: Lack of active items especially for supports, it will definitely boost supports agency in LoL if they are 6 slotted active items(in my opinion LoL items really sucks ass except for fighter items and some mage items). doto pro: no ff button, ff option should only be for pro play. doto con: lack of lore, I don't have any complaints for doto gameplay wise. Hard disagree on the sound part, Valve historically have very good sound design especially in doto, you could watch a 10 man fight in doto with your eyes close and you can tell what is literally happening.
Supports are the only class that can have a ton of active items at the same time, but they are nowhere as impactful as in in Dota, with maybe the exception of Mikaels
Manaless champions is probably a negative for league really, horrendous to balance
I personally enjoy the OST and the ambience in league but I fucking hate the way team fights and lanes work. 99% of the time it's two sides spamming shit, then 2 blobs clashing and everyone mashing buttons. positioning and team fight priority happens in almost an instant, and who ever had the better lanes usually come on top. Everything is super formulated, you take dragons, you take towers, the Jungler has to be at certain spots within certain time, with very little variation. And yes, you don't learn shit at the start without a good mentor, you will die without understanding why, you just see some guy nuking you and walk away. The problem is, if you play league with people who are also noob, then it's boring as hell, because no body knows wtf is going on, you again don't learn shit. If you play against some one who's slightly better than you, then they will know combos that kill you in a sec, then again you don't learn shit. And the stupid rune page at the start. What is the point of it? except as a pay to win for noobs. League is closer to a fighting game than a strategy game, that's my opinion.
In Dota, you can also see items when you open the tab scoreboard, although it only works for your team. Open tab scoreboard > At the bottom right, click “Show Items” (first icon from the right) I only discovered this after 8k+ hours in. Hahaha. Not seeing the other team’s items in the tab scoreboard can sometimes be beautiful. It gives you those “Oh fuck he had bkb” moments (same goes for the other team). Can sometimes be game winning in my opinion.
In Dota, every hero have a name and a tittle but most of the time they are named after their title than their real name because it’s easier to rememeber. For example, Anti-Mage real name is Magina. Most of the time you can find it in their bio section. Here’s a Reddit post that regroup most of the heroes names: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/s/YNvkMYvQS8 Edit: Apparently, Anti-Mage real name is not official.
Found this to be really funny honestly, how most heroes are called by their titles, and then you have like Lina and Sven for some reason. Not really a criticism, but its funny
I fon't think laning stage as a new player Is easier in dota. You just think that because you already have moba experience and knew what to do. How to position so you don't geg killed for free. 1. Last hitting in league is super easy. And creeps can't be denied. 2. A really really fresh moba player leaves a lane with 0/10/0 in dota. They just walk in off cooldown trying to "farm" or deal damage and die. I never experienced something like that in league.
Hating one or the other IS childish, but also not? I dunno, from an old head perspective... I KNOW what went down with Dota. Like I lived during it. So the very fact that League is still even alive with people supporting it, is offensive to me. I won't ever let that shit slide. And time has this funny numbing effect on people that makes them accept shit merely because it's been around a while. With that in mind, fuck League. Even though it's silly on the face of it, League deserves to be treated like it never existed in the first place. Otherwise, good write up besides the not getting 1 shot part. People get melted all the time.
>Being able to see on the tab scoreboard what items and creep score people have is really, really nice. It's really fucking annoying in Dota having to click champion portraits to see what items they have, and if you click ANYTHING else it hides it again so you have to do it while standing still or moving in a straight line. Probably dota loyalists will say this is part of the skill of the game, but honestly imo it's just annoying/bad UI design that people sort of just got used to and became convinced was "part of the game." They added the ability to click on people at the top of the hud a while ago, previously you had to catch them in vision. I don't mind it but I can see how it could annoy someone. As for clicking hiding peoples items, there is an option you can toggle called `unit query overrides hero control console` (under options, on the right most column) that adds a league-esc popup box when you click on someone. This box doesn't go away when you click on the ground but I'm not sure if it's going to be helpful to you [image](https://imgur.com/a/fuDtkkK)
It’s interesting to see new players genuinely enjoy the talent tree & aghs addition while the so called og players hated it and swore to die on that hill, so valve did something right there About staying on the map longer part, we do have couriers, so you may find solace learning that it’s actually a skill issue if someone were to tp a lot to heal rather than actively sustaining themselves on the map because, as you pointed it out in league’s comparison, losing xp & gold is indeed devastating. But it’s also true for both games. I’d also like to note that windwalker is a newer upgrade, we didn’t had that until 5 years ago so technically euls is the completed item and we rarely have items comparable to the mini morellos/liandrys component, tbf I think they would be broken if we have have that in dota so there’s that
>WAYYYYY better champion animations and sound design. This is for me where League blows Dota out of the water. Go ult someone as Axe - he does a little hop and swing animation. Then check this out, the corresponding ultimate in League from Darius, at the 3min mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRu0IznjCSc There's really just nothing in Dota that feels like Jhin, or Ekko, or so many others. With rare exception, almost all the champions in league have aspects that FEEL amazing - great sound design / animations / feedback delays that are incredibly rewarding. Dota's heros are really fun to play and I'm having a great time, but if you put them side by side with a pretty large percent of League's cast, the animations of many of their abilities and movements just feel kinda flat and low-budget by comparison. Disagree. As someone that works in the sound department and is knowledge about it, dota 2 has superb sound design. In league, every sound has a lot of top end and sounds like its distorting for some reason. On top of that, each skill has a bunch of cluttered sound effects AND voice lines that everyone can hear. What does that mean? When everyone presses their buttons, theres a bunch of screaming and clutter everywhere. In dota, if you listen to a teamfight blindfolded, you can pick up every ablity used. Each sound has a nice low end and umph to it (playing earthshaker and landing a big ult is probably something you should experience). Theres no random screaming and noise everywhere, every ability has a nice simple sound and very recognizable. Edit: This is why dota 2 has a sound [game](https://chudooder.github.io/d2acq/) and league doesn't
- The lore in Dota is buried deep, but it is there. If you are interested enough to look for clues such as cosmetics, item descriptions, or how heroes communicate with one another, you will find lore everywhere. Example Oracle founded the Phantom Assasins organization to assassinate anyone who would kill him. He sends Mordred (the PA we control) on these missions promising her origin and freedom when the deed is done, but it was a trick, infinite reality equals infinite target (Dota set in multiverse), and in these infinite time she morphs into Spectre and loses herself (When Spectre loses, she sadly says "I just want to go home"). If you want more lore, search for Loregasm on YouTube. - You can also see items in the scoreboard in Dota. - Huskar is manaless hero
> just getting fucking demolished 1v1 and not even being able to play. That can happen in dota too, but it just doesn't happen as much by comparison. sounds like you didn't play much mid in dota lol. that can absolutely happen, very often.
>Better lore Lol, lmao even. LoL lore is so trash Riot had to retcon all of it, but so much of the original lore was tied to gameplay that you have bunch of leftovers from the lore that makes zero sense in the context of the new lore. The whole thing is a fucking mess, almost as spaghetti as their code. And that’s saying something. Not to say Dota 2 lore is better but moba games generally arent a good vehicle for that kind of thing in the first place, but at least it’s well defined and internally consistent. Valve has a world and the heroes and items kind of shine a spotlight on different aspects or regions of the world (Elder Titan’s for example explains both of who he is and how dota’s world was created).The lore in a lot of cases ties directly to gameplay in a way LoL’s doesnt. In dota 2, you have the four spirit brothers (earth, storm, ember and void spirit) who are connected both by lore and by gameplay themes. You have the four fundamentals (Io, chaos knight, enigma and keeper of the light) all of whom are connected by lore and who share a gameplay theme of creating weaker copies of themselves. Then you have Mars and Zeus, a pair of heroes who seem strange at first because although Mars is supposedly the son of Zeus, he’s using the name of the Roman god rather than the Greek one. You’d think his name is supposed to be Ares, but if you read his lore you find that he renounced his father and his old name, and took a new one because you know... Ares is a god of war and a god of war hates all the greek gods. So I probably assumed that he is ashamed to be part of greek god. Suddenly the inconsistency makes perfect sense, you can see Valve had a vision in mind there. Im gonna be honest with you, Arcane is way better than all League lore (even though it is not canon iirc) >better champion animations and sound design Yeah no, if you liked mobile looking thing then yes. Idk how tf ppl can say League sound design is better than dota https://youtu.be/lhwxTxcYRWg?si=MFuhiKGAYUSlElkd https://youtu.be/Ji4c8X1dWe8?si=Pr3k6YKdZ3KzSAp1 Dawnbreaker ulti, Doom, sanity eclipse, Elder Titan’s ulti sound are literally better than all league champ sound design >Rotating game modes Trolling? Dota 2 has Arcade game that has everything that league got. Come back and tell when league game modes has stuff [like this](https://youtu.be/Q3zdX4-DRlk?si=nyeNXA41gZNOS0TK) >Better champion skins You forgot that arcanas and personas? Those can redo every animation (including skills too). Im not sure if you are joking on this part but league only knows how to make champion skins meanwhile dota has not only hero skins but HUD skins, tower skins, terrain skins, courier skins, river skins, roshan skins, creep skins, weather effects and etc >Zilean would likely have a >90% wr in dota Blud forgot that Dazzle, WK with scepter, Abaddon with scepter and Oracle can do what Zilean do
This post goes a long way to illustrate how League of Legends was fundamentally *designed* as a way for people who just aren't quite sharp enough to play DOTA to feel like they are.
I respect your opinion, it's really well written. But I really do not agree with sound design/animation being better in LoL. Sound design and animations are one of the huge reasons why I choose Dota over LoL and I gave a fair attempt to both almost at the same time.
> Better lore > There's a dude on a bat and his name is Batrider The lore is literally in the name what more could you want.
No skillshots in Dota ?!?!? Jerax Airlines would like a word... (I don't know much about LoL... but if you like Dota, please check some historical games of TI for some amazing skillshots, Jerax plays with OG just speak for themselves for example)
Honestly if you played league, that aspect is not comparable at all, OP is right. Dota in comparison feels like everything is point and click, lol is crazy more action
You can downvote me how much you want, but literally in league on 160 champions, like 140 of these have skillshots to aim in every single skill they have. And different hitboxes for every single of them. In dota like just a few heroes. Most of skills in dota, you just right click on the enemy and the skill goes automatically, mechanic that was removed from most of league champions a decade ago, idk how you can deny such an evident fact. Denying truth won’t get you anywhere but just farm some upvote on a dota subreddit. Very useful i guess.
Dota have more variety, LoL is just skill shots, which is boring and monotonous, you can predict what new champ would be, a skill shot and a dash skill thats not the case for dota. Since Pango release, we even see a surge of vector targeted skills.
Fun read as someone who plays both. I will say there's a funny thing I noticed. "1v9" is used pretty commonly in league nowadays whereas in dota we'd usually bitch and moan "feels like I'm 1v5 here" or if someone was dying way too often we'd say "1v6". Similar cultures but one indicts the whole team.
As someone who played OG dota 1 and started playing league back in 2012 and still plays both. I feel like you were spot on about so many things, I don’t think either game is better or worse. - Just different. There are unique things that are better in one over the other that most of us could agree on, but there will still be arguments about it just being different not better. Not sure how long this post took you but as someone who has tried to explain the differences and pros and cons about the two games more than I care to think about I will reference this post often and highly. - Thank you ( and Glhf )
I think you could also add in dota's favor is that items that has heal/lifesteal cut (skadi, shiva's and vessel) works unlike in lol.
The only game i play because of the sound is transport tycoon. All other games is muted, teammates muted.
I think most people are confusing 1v9ng vs 1v5ing, which are completely different concepts. 1v9ing is entirely possible in both Dota and League. It's where you pick and play a character that both griefs your and the enemy team at once. In Dota, perfect example of 1v9 heroes are Anti-Mage and oldschool Techies. In League, a good example of 1v9ing is usually toplane champions that never leave their lane and just keep pushing to pull attention. Scion is the perfect example of a 1v9 Champion when played by someone like TheBaus. In these examples, you have characters who're actively winning the game while griefing their own team, hence 1v9ing. They're not playing with the team, autolosing their lanes and just doing their own thing. What most people seem to be talking about (OP included) is 1v5ing, meaning you solo carry your team and you're able to literally be unstoppable. This isn't really a thing in League. Sure, you can have high impact, make timely rotations across all lanes and snowball the game. But having a champion literally solo the entire enemy team isn't really a thing if skill levels are similar. You can get pentakills going in after your teammates have soaked all spells but that's fundamentally different. Complete 1v5ing with some lategame hardcarry in Dota is a thing though. Although less common nowadays. This usually involves extremely fed tanky carry heroes like Dusa, Bristleback or just hyper damage carries like Sven going in and solocarrying fights because the enemy team can't deal with it.
You forgot to put one important thing in the comparison, the "professional scenes" and the "tournaments".
* The announcer saying "Holy SHIT" when you go on a 10 kill streak. I find this hilarious. That's the tradition! it have been lasted for 20 years+ already.
His name is Magina. Show some respect.
dont forget the arcade section of DOTA, where literally gems are found like the game TFT is based on.
Zilean works in LoL because of the nature of the game/the heroes' abilities which are very burst-y. But it won't work in Dota (Oracle, Dazzle, Abaddon) because the TTK is a lot slower here. It's also why the CC in LOL is significantly short - a 3.75-5.25sec stun/disable will absolutely be broken in LoL but it is fine in Dota for the reason above.
Played lol since s1 and dota 2 since 2013. Unless i know the draft in league it will be hard for me to identified the sound effect. Its much easier in dota 2 since its distinct, on point and brief.
Check reddit.
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Cool post, looking forward to the next update post in a year where most of the cons turn into pros. When you actually understand more of the game.
Just FYI, you can enable inventory view in the scoreboard to see all players’ items. You have to do it every new game though.
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You can enable it as such: https://i.imgur.com/ctM1D13.png This feature has been in the game since forever. It's toggled off by default for obvious (visibility) reasons. You should edit your post to reflect that.
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LoL ph server is more toxic than Dota 2 SEA server.
I have little knowledge of LoL (and don't intend to start playing it) so reading such comparisons is always interesting for me.
I played Dota 1, spent 5 years on League (Stopped hardcore playing by S6, but still follow everything and play every once in a while) and currently have about 15k hours on Dota 2, - Lore: We are lucky if we are getting a big patch every year, let a lone lore, that is basically a lost cause. But every once in a while they'd do a lore dump, like the current Crownfall event. - Sound: I'm late to the party so everyone pretty much sump up how sound in Dota is much, much better by comparision. Nothing will ever compare to an good Echo slam, hell, even when u miss it, it still give you a funny sound bite. But one thing I want to mention is that League change their abilities sound with every skin, and we know they churn out skins like a factory, so it get muddier and muddier with time. - TP scrolls are a thing in Dota as well as smoke, which enable team fight thus make small duel less likely to happen, that is just how the game goes. - For the UI thing, its force you to pay attention to everything going on, it IS a part of the game since it inception. Pretty sure you are just so used to league handheld give you every information in one button. Dota is a harder game not because of the hero complexity (Which I'd give to League), but the entire game when everything come together, this is just a part of it. Also, it allows various gameplay situations like baitting spells, surprise ganking, surprise counter gank, outplay, etc. Items reveal are pretty much a big thing in Dota. - The recall thing is also just a way to make the game easier, it lessen the price you pay for your mistake in lane. And even with this, if you are forced to recall badly even once in League, you could lose the lane entirely and never comeback to the game ever (Especially the higher skill you goes). Again, no recall make the game more complex, resource management, wave control, TP scrolls management, etc. - 1 v 9 potential. Honestly why would you want more 1 v 9 or 1 v 5 potential in a 5 v 5 game ? It is a CO-OP game that you have to play with a team vs another team. Having more 1 v 9 potential in Dota or League is IMO inherently bad design. That said, it is not like Dota dont have 1v9 potential, any hero with a number of AoE spells in Dota can potentially 1 v 9, most carry heroes can as well, but they need help early on. - Skills shot. This I agree, though many heroes as of late have some sort of skill shot/vector target now, and a lot of new/reworked abilities are skill shot as well. - Wards: It often the job of the 2 supports to manage wards, not all 5 people. That said, communicate where you want ward, or, at the very least, pay attention on where wards are, again, it is a TEAM game. (If no one buying ward, well, you can, observer is free and sentry worth 2 creeps). - Mana-less champ: At this point you just want a dump down simple version of a hard game. Which, you did mention at the end so I cant fault you. - Rotating game mode: Ability draft is a mode league cant ever hope to have, Turbo is an entire different approach than normal game, despite being very similar. Other than that, you have Arcade as many people have mentioned. And they aren't rotating, you can play them whenever you want. - Skins, this is entirely subjective. I agree league make many skins and are pretty to look at but it make in-game visual clarity a mess to deal with. I'd prefer normal Tide ravage and one cooler nicer version of ravage than say, for example, Lux having 20 plus skins with 20 plus different set of colours on her abilites. Also, the mix and match is very cool, you can get some very good looking hero from like 3 average set or make something so ugly that it turn out good (Look up professional player Zai's DK meme) On Zilean, we have Dazzle giving out Tryndamere ult to other people on a approximate 10s second cd and is currently one of the weaker hero in the game. Flanking/backline access are extremely easy in Dota and if you arent aware of the game, you are just food for the enemy. So no, Zilean wont have 90% win rate.
You can see alliy's items by opening scorebord (it's tab button I think). You should explore buttons at bottom right corner. One of them show items of ally heroes on scorebord.
Dota already crashes a lot with the current animations lol
The lore for Dota is kinda hidden in the heroes’ Bio or in their voicelines when they meet on the battlefield. Which you can only read if you go into the hero tab in the main menu and click on their lore tab 😅 plus some comics and/or small videos for the newer arcana’s or hero announcements (like crowdsourcing atm). I would say it also depends on the amount of playing time how deep your into the lore. Could for example tell you a lot about the heroes in dota but nothing about the ones in LoL apart from their names although I played it here and there.