DOTA2 or LoL?

[The Wykydtron]

I would seriously reccomend you to start with awesomenauts. Less rigid, less demanding, fun and it will leat you learn the ropes.

If you however want to go DotA, gimme a pm, ill hook you up.

You know what we call denying in LoL? Zoning. If you're that far ahead you place yourself in front of your minions so that the other guy can't last hit unless he has something long range like Ezreal's Mystic Shot or very good wave clear. If he comes to last hit you PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE FOR HIS INSOLENCE!

Ahh... just as a sidenote, zoning is also done in DotA, it's basically what any good support will do when the lane has the numeric advantage and has been practiced since WC III Dota. The reason being denying doesn't deny the full XP, while zoning does.

I assumed zoning existed in DOTA 2 anyway, seeing as it exists in pretty much every competitive game in some kind or another. But you can get some last hits if you're getting zoned in LoL, (hell Ezreal gives zero shits and gets ALL of it because Mystic Shot is the best ability in the game) but denying is even more frustrating. I mean their minion wave finally pushes up to your tower so you can safely (albeit it's more difficult) farm then lol jk this pillock on the other team is trolling you. I'm not one to absolutely loathe one gameplay mechanic in particular, but denying is DEFINITELY an exception

Then you get dived because towers are considerably more shite than the LoL ones. Only a select few people in LoL are exceptional 1v1 divers. Garen can fearlessly tower dive because he's a *****, Jax can dive because lol Counterstrike, Akali has too many teleports and too much damage to care and Darius is Downright Dunkmaster Darius. It's much more risky for entire rest of the cast

 

[Aerodyamic]

Oh and Blitzcrank zones by going AFK in a bush. It's retardedly effective. Have I ever told you that Ezreal is the best AD Carry in the game? Because Ezreal is the best AD Carry in the game.

You forgot about "DERP-MACIA!"

[sub]Welcome, to the League of Cleavers[/sub]

Mundo Mundo Mundo Mundo.
[sub]CLEAVER CLEAVER[/sub]

 

[phylline]

Dota2 is more difficult and is regarded as "better" and I'd probably agree.

I still play LoL because I have absolutely no skill. But the community is an absolute cesspit and it's not overly challenging. It's more laid back.

 

[Brainwreck]

I've played LoL for... how long now? 2 years? Something like that.
I've never played DotA, but I've seen plenty of videos about DotA 2.
Basically, from what I can tell, DotA2 is more difficult and complex. It also gives precisely 0 fucks about such petty faffing as 'fair' and 'balanced'. But when everything and everyone is imbalanced, it creates its own balance, I suppose.
Effects also look much, much cooler.

Edit: This is the most in-depth exploration of the concepts and idea present in the lore and character design, and also goes in-depth into many less obvious aspects of the gameplay in LoL.
Heartily recommended to literally everyone.

Spoiler: It's the best.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Well they're both Free to Play, so have a go with both.

Also neither of them are remotely friendly to newbies, they don't so much have a learning curve as a cliff, and you don't have climbing gear

 

[YeOldeMoose]

Both are good games in their own rights, but I always prefer LoL to Dota 2. Dota 2 is a lot more complex, but that does not mean that it is harder, better, or a more mature game. There's a lot of depth and strategy in LoL as well; the people at Riot games (the people that make LoL) just believe in making the game more accessible to players. This, again, does not make LoL easier or less deep; complexity and depth are 2 different things.

The best way I've heard it explained is that in Dota 2, every champion is OP. This balances itself out because your champ is OP too, but you will run into a lot of frustration due to that. Some champs will stun you for 6 seconds and you'll be dead before you can move. Other champs can kill you in 3 spells over the course of 2 seconds. If you want to feel really powerful then Dota 2 is the way to go. As for LoL, you will need to rely a lot more on your team and working together to win a game. There are powerful champs, but you more than likely won't have as many situations like those mentioned above.

 

[Jandau]

DotA2 is a deeper game with more options and flexibility, but is very unforgiving to mistakes and not very welcoming to new players. LoL is more "streamlined" and less demanding, but also feels more constrained. However, it has at the moment far more features that ease you into the game and is easier to pick up and play.

If you're just starting out, go for LoL. Once you get comfortable with the genre, try out Dota2. That's what I did and I prefer DotA2 to LoL. Nothing wrong with LoL, I just like the greater role of risk/reward, a greater ability for one person to influence the course of the match, the wilder and more powerful abilities and overall greater flexibility of the game.

 

[CrazyJew]

I tried LoL long before I tried DotA 2, and I prefer DotA. Valve keeps loading people up with beta invites, so if you are not in yet you probably don't have any friends.

I just got rid of all of my invites, and I got loaded up with more, any takers? Just add me on Steam as Crazy Jew and let me know.

 

[COZero]

LoL Is Babies first MOBA so to speak, if the game type is new to you and you want to gently learn, pick LoL

DoTA 2 looks better, has better dynamics, and is more advanced. Personally i play both, and i find my LoL games alot more relaxing, while DoTA2 gives me that bigger want to win.

So my recommendation? Try LoL first, then move onto DotA2 if you are looking for more challange or deeper depths

 

[OniaPL]

I've played LoL for... how long now? 2 years? Something like that.
I've never played DotA, but I've seen plenty of videos about DotA 2.
Basically, from what I can tell, DotA2 is more difficult and complex. It also gives precisely 0 fucks about such petty faffing as 'fair' and 'balanced'. But when everything and everyone is imbalanced, it creates its own balance, I suppose.
Effects also look much, much cooler.

Why do you say that it gives "0 fucks about such petty faffing as 'fair' and 'balanced'"? Not trying to start a flamewar here, just honestly curious as to what balance issues you find to be in the game.

 

[kouriichi]

Between the two, i find LoL more enjoyable. I played a lot of the first DOTA, and some of DOTA 2, but i find league of legends more enjoy. It feels like two steps forward gameplay wise. Denying is a nice mechanic that can add a higher skill cap to the game, but at the same time it just gets super annoying. This makes LoL more easy to get into.

And while DOTA gives you more freedom on how to build your champs, LoL feels more focused because of it. When you learn the champs, you know (most of the time) how they will build.

In the end, i have to give the edge to LoL for the moment. While i was a huge DOTA fan (Kunkka and Slardar all day yo), League of Legends feels like a step forward. They trimmed some of the fat (such as town portal scrolls. God i hate buying them), decreased the learning curve substantially, and brought forth a product that just feels more... complete.

 

[Tanakh]

I assumed zoning existed in DOTA 2 anyway, seeing as it exists in pretty much every competitive game in some kind or another.

Ahhh... what? Zoning only exsist in ARTS games, was originated on DotA and is present on DotA2, HoN and LoL. There is no zoning in CS, SC, Quake, SF, MvC, there is absolutely no zoning "in pretty much every competitive game", there is positioning in all of them, but that is a completly different concept.

But you can get some last hits if you're getting zoned in LoL, (hell Ezreal gives zero shits and gets ALL of it because Mystic Shot is the best ability in the game) but denying is even more frustrating. I mean their minion wave finally pushes up to your tower so you can safely (albeit it's more difficult) farm then lol jk this pillock on the other team is trolling you. I'm not one to absolutely loathe one gameplay mechanic in particular, but denying is DEFINITELY an exception

Then you get dived because towers are considerably more shite than the LoL ones. Only a select few people in LoL are exceptional 1v1 divers. Garen can fearlessly tower dive because he's a *****, Jax can dive because lol Counterstrike, Akali has too many teleports and too much damage to care and Darius is Downright Dunkmaster Darius. It's much more risky for entire rest of the cast

You can also get decent farm in lanes were you nave numerical disadvantage in dota, you just need to pick one of the 10 or so heroes that can deal with that. It is more tactical i guess in the sense that only a few heroes can manage that and only if you are good with them, DotA is indeed way less balanced on a hero per hero basis than LoL, but a good dark seer for example can decimate 1 vs 2 if you are a better player or at the very least get his job done.

Also, they can only consistently take denies of their creeps under your tower if they are way better than you or for some reason they are winning the lane brutally hard. As for tower diving, its the same, if you got tower dived 1v1 he was just better than you by either picking a hero that owns yours or playing better.

In general from your posts I get constantly the vibe that you are trying to play DotA with LoL knowledge and expecting LoL mechanics, and thus being terrible at it. IMO is like if you knew how to drive a motorbike and failed hard trying to do the same in a car; not that one is harder or better, but you should expect to just fail by doing that.

If you are good at DOTA you can swap to LoL anytime for a laugh and rape people. I started with LoL, but moved on to DOTA and it is much better and not as complex as people make it out to be.

This is a bunch of crap, I normally play dota on the high skill bracket and when i switch to lol on a low level account i can't consistently own. Mainly because I dont know what the fuck with their items and what the other guys can do, at all, nor i care. If switched overnight the best teams of dota2 would lose at LoL against the best teams of LoL (even tough LoL is easier and requieres less coordination and less clicks, and is a bit more forgiving), how do i know that for sure? Because even within dota the best teams of dota2 lose against dota1 teams when playing dota1, and it's almost the same freaking game.

It also gives precisely 0 fucks about such petty faffing as 'fair' and 'balanced'.

Yep, zero fucks are given about blanace on each hero, better yet, in almost all gameplay modes there are "experimental heroes", that is when one hero is redesigned it is put immediatly in all but captain mode (the only torunament mode) meaning that there's a lot of bullshit totally retarded op heroes running from time to time (till they are nerfed). This also allow more diversity, fun and uniqueness btw; and right now there isn't any totally retarded hero, maybe the devs finally learnt something.

 

[Uszi]

LOL has a rigid class based role system with a lot of heroes capable of playing these roles (AP mid, jungler, support, etc.) The focus is more on owning the opposite sides heroes and being awesome.

DOTA is less rigid with the concepts of roles, and has a lot of niche heroes that work differently. Leading to a lot of strange setups such as Trilanes (triple hero lane), double jungler, and many more.

Generally speaking in LOL you don`t have strange mechanics such as Denying (killing your own dudes to prevent the enemy from getting experience and gold), and a lot of heroes have 4 abilities leaving you with a lot of buttons to press in combat. LOL has cut down on the amount of stuff you have to think about and learn, but at the same time it is a veritable clusterfuck when you get into teambattles.

Dota has a lot more emphasis on passives, and generally speaking most heroes have just a few distinct abilities to complement their roles. Gold is more easily rewarded in Dota, as you loose out on some of your earnings should you die. This in turn allows you to do amazing comebacks 20-30 mins into the game rather than what usually happens in LOL whereby you simply surrender.

I think that's most of what I would say. The roles thing is a big difference. You'll always have solo top, solo mid, 1 jungle and two bot in a league of legends game. You'll see all sorts of crap in a Dota game.

I would add in DotA there's more of an emphasis on "big moments," and more of an emphasis on setting up advantageous team fights. Characters like Enigma or Magnataur or Earth Shaker can buy an item to instantly teleport or "Blink" from a screen away and lay down a huge AoE stun that disables the whole enemy team for 4 seconds and cuts all their HP in half. DotA has spells like hex/voodoo that turn you into a useless creep that can't attack or cast spells for 4 seconds. DotA has global silence (can't cast spells) for 6 seconds.

Meanwhile, in League of Legends, the longest stun is 2 seconds. It's not possible to stun lock an entire team into oblivion with League of Legends, even if you tried to pick all the AoE Stuns you could find in the game. There are fewer stuns in general, I would say.

Oh, and spell spam. Lots more spell spam in LoL. Mana is hard to come by in the early levels of a DotA Match, and you generally wait till you have rank 2 of your nuke and you usually don't cast a spell unless its a serious effort to kill someone.

 

[SinisterGehe]

DOTA2 the whole game is more controlled and requires teamwork.
The deny mechanism ass extra depth and choice to the start.
The items have a lot of variety depending on how you play and what you play + how your team mates play.
And every hero is playable to everyone, no paying for heroes.
Also keep in mind that DOTA2 is still in beta.
But DOTA2 is for people who enjoyed the original DOTA, it tries to be faithful representation of the original.

Oh yeah I like the UI of DOTA2 better than Lols

I say DOTA2 - but this biased opinion because I like playing DOTA2

 

[Uszi]

Yesterday, I thought to myself that it would be nice to play one of this games. But which one?
I have no experience with this genre, so I am kind of confused.

Escapist community, please help me out. Which one should I play?

Also, could you please mention your own personal opinions about community, player growth, stuff like that?

Played LoL since the 20 champion beta in April of 2009.

Been playing the various incarnations of DotA since the first ones for Reign of Chaos back in 2002. Never played the AoS maps in Star Craft, so I can't claim to be that old school.

I'd say that they're like different flavors of tea. They're both still tea, but they drink differently. I think you can play both and skills developed in one transfer somewhat to another, but you'll develop game specific habits that can get you killed when you switch games.

Um, I'm going to recommend DotA. Smaller pantheon of heroes in Dota(95) to learn right now, compared to LoL(110). It's easy to spectate matches right now in DotA, and you can even search for matches to see how people are playing a character you want to learn. Dota has 130 total iteams (that I count), league of legends has like 195, so fewer items and combinations to learn as well.

The one advantage LoL has for newer players, I think, is that it is more regimented. There are really clear roles to learn like, "tank," "support," "carry." These boundaries are not distinct in DotA, but that makes DotA more fun in some ways.

Regardless, whichever one you pick, pick one hero or champion that looks cool or seems like fun to you, and just play them non-stop until you learn everything about them. What items to get in what situations, how to use your abilities, etc. And once you feel good, I'd branch out and try someone new. Rinse repeat.

I think the community in both games are both awful. They're about equally abusive. Not sure what you mean by player growth.

 

[ASnogarD]

Well , first up with BOTH games (and nearly all small team competitive online games) the communities are awful... you will be raged at, you will have trolls deliberately screwing up your matches, you will get players with social issues jumping on your case at each and every single PERCEIVED mistake (it doesnt even have to be a mistake, if the ... thing thinks its a mistake you gets the rage).

LoL is easier to master mechanically, and the item system is more simple and you wont be so easily nullified in lane early game so you will at least get some practice even in a losing match.
Dota2 is much more complex mechanically but does offer some unique styles and systems not available in LoL, you also get chances to acquire cosmetics for free via drops and the effects in game have more impact visually and audio wise.

I started with LoL so I cant be arsed to go through the ragey little bastards as I learn so I am sticking with LoL, but that doesnt mean LoL is better... just different.
I would summarized it as follows:

LoL easy access fun to play good game with crappy community, Dota2 harder to learn has more scope for skills and builds but has even more toxic community than LoL (and that is saying a lot).

 

[Uszi]

I don't think it's that DotA is more complex.

It's that DotA is situational/contextual. Like, it's never a good idea to tri-lane in League of Legends. No one does Baron or Dragon at level 1 in League of Legends. Having all 5 members of your team get the same item isn't a good idea in League of Legends.

In DotA, all that crazy stuff happens, and then you're skill build might be totally different depending on who you're facing in lane.

So... more complex in that if you do the exact same item build every game and get the same skill build every game and go to the same lane every game in DotA, you'll probably never be better than sub-par.

 

[thejackyl]

Considering I've played maybe 2 games of DotA 1, and 2 of DotA 2, And I've played about 1000 of LoL...

LoL is definitely easier to get into, and do well in. I played DotA 2 as Drow Ranger and Lich, and I went 2-8-10 (as Lich), and 2-10-3 as Drow. In LoL, even on my bad days I tend to go positive, but that might be that I'm used to the map, and have the awareness that I need to know what to do.

So far DotA is treating me much like LoL did. I think I just need some friends to play with to show me the ropes, an encourage me to play better, by just being fun to play with.

 

[WoW Killer]

If you're a filthy casual like me, you might want to give SMITE a try. I started playing it last week and it's a lot of fun. Much simpler in many ways, only you have to aim everything, like everything. Oh, and you can't see behind you, which is great. It's in open beta now, no key required, so give it a go. It shouldn't be long until release as they said they were going for 30 Gods; they're on 28 right now with a 29th coming next week.