I am finally back home in North Carolina but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it online for FG LoL Mondays this evening. Let’s shoot for next week for getting in some games together. Until then, keep on reading. I’m officially back to a regular posting schedule.
Hope to see you next week!
This is the first in what will be a series of posts dedicated to preparing players to make the transition from LoL to DotA. It is a bit strange to be making the transition back to DotA after leaving the game a few years ago for the newer mechanics of League of Legends. I’ve enjoyed both games immensely, spending more time in this genre than I’ve probably spent with any other game, including World of Warcraft. While they are definitely similar, the games are different enough that the transition will be difficult for a lot of players. Hopefully this guide will help anyone trying to make the switch.
The Most Basic of the Basics
DotA is a mechanically complex game in ways that LoL just isn’t. There is no way around that. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing. I tend to prefer the complexity because I feel like it gives me more options for counterplay against my opponents, but that complexity can also be overwhelming and even unnecessary at times. I will cover those things more in depth with later posts. For now, we’re just trying to learn some of the basics.
Expect Longer Games
I am going to stress this first and foremost. I have heard a lot of complaints about game length for both League of Legends and DotA. While I have often been the source of complaints about LoL game length, I really like the longer game length in DotA. My biggest problem with game length in LoL is that the first 20 minutes is just one big farm fest. It’s not particularly interesting and often feels tedious. DotA has a much more active early game in most cases. There are times when it is a tedious farm fest, but the game seems to have a more balanced developmental arc to it.
You should expect an average DotA game to last 50 minutes. I would guess 20 percent of my games run longer than an hour and maybe 15 percent are done by the 45-minute mark.
Attributes versus Roles
In LoL most every champion falls under a small set of archetypes: tanks, ranged AD carries, AP carries, supports, junglers, bruisers and assassins. Some champions fill multiple roles therein, but the character type is basically determined by their skills and in some cases resistance scaling.
In DotA, heroes are divided up by their primary attributes: strength, agility and intelligence. Within each attribute tree you will see a wide variety of subclasses (the equivalent to an asssassin, for instance), but most attribute classes adhere to certain roles in some way based on the bonuses an attribute provides.
Strength: Provides health points and health regen. Strength also provides damage to strength heroes at a 1:1 ratio.
Agility: Provides attack speed and armor. Agility also provides damage to agility heroes at a 1:1 ratio.
Intelligence: Provides mana points and mana regen. Intelligence also provides damage to intelligence heroes at a 1:1 ratio.
As you may have guessed, strength heroes tend to be tanky, agility heroes tend to be carries, intelligence heroes are the casters. As I said, since this is just the basics I’m going to hold further analysis for a later post. For the most part, you’ll want to be seeking stats that augment your character’s primary attribute.
Active Item Use
League of Legends has relatively few active items when compared to DotA. That’s not a bad thing, just a fact. DotA makes use of active items to provide some of the mechanics seen in LoL through Summoner Spells, along with a few unique abilities. I would strongly suggest that any new DotA player spend some time in a custom game just reading through the store. You’ll also want to rebind your item keys away from the keypad and on to something more useful. Personally, I like Z, X and C for my top row of items. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.
A Good Place to Start
As this post is growing ever longer, I think I’m going to give it a rest and let you internalize all of this info until the next LoL to DotA post. If you want a good champion to start with, I would recommend Tidehunter if you’re interested in strength, Dwarven Sniper if you like to carry, and Lich if you want to play an intelligence hero. Those heroes are fairly straightforward but have enough power to make a big difference on the field.
I’ve talked to a few people who have voiced concerns that DotA will be little more than a complexity buff to League of Legends, leaving players fumbling over mechanics and new champions for weeks. That may be true to some extent (although I have faith that players can pick the game up more quickly than that), but now that DotA is in Valve’s hands, there’s a lot more than just complexity on the horizon.
One of the first things I noticed about DotA 2 was the voice acting. Each hero has unique voice acting, complete with context aware clips for buying certain items, killing certain champions, or even missing abilities. Kunkka, a pirate-themed hero in DotA, casts a giant ghost ship that boosts allied move speed and stuns in an AoE on landing. It is notoriously hard to land. When the player misses, Kunkka says “now THAT was a failboat.” It’s little things like this that add a lot to the DotA experience. I know some champions in League have these kind of “hidden passives,” but to hear them for every hero in a game is really cool.
I’m not sure if this falls under the same umbrella, but I’ve also been enjoying the suggested items editor. League of Legends has gone on far too long without adding the feature. It’s so nice to not have to browse an ever-growing shop for the items I need. I find them once, add them to my build for that character and they’re available the next time I play. It’s even possible to save generic item builds that can be loaded for any character. I’m sure this is somewhere on Riot’s radar, but I would love to see it implemented sooner than later.
As 2011 drew to an end, Riot completed the dodge rune refund that began earlier this December. In case you aren’t aware, dodge runes are still available from the store. Riot is planning to remake the champions that rely on dodge (honestly, only Jax comes to mind for me), but until that’s done you will still be able to use dodge runes in game.
I’m definitely curious to see what the Jax remake will look like. Jax has been a hot topic of discussion since his initial remake back in the Twisted Treeline era of League’s development. At the time he was as hyper a carry as a hyper-carry could be. He’s since been toned down, but he will always be one of the champions that has had his day in the sun, while characters like Katarina and Twitch haven’t seen serious play in more than a year.
Personally, I’m not sad to see dodge go. It just doesn’t seem to have a place in League of Legends. My obvious point of comparison is DotA, where evasion can’t be had early in the game. In that game, evasion works well as a late-game mechanic for carries, who can still be shut down by teams with hard CC. In LoL, dodge is only acquired early, and tends to unreliably augment a character’s survivability.
How do you feel about the removal of dodge? Are you looking forward to a Jax remake? What will you be doing with your IP?
I was really happy to receive this video from a friend today, particularly because it fits so well with the slight content shift you’re going to see at the site. Both DotA 2 and League of Legends have their roots in a game that was originally developed as a map mod for Blizzard’s Starcraft. While this video from Machinima doesn’t cover the history in full detail, it does give a nice overview of one of the fastest growing segments of the video game industry.
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