Heroes of the Storm

[Tavrobel]

So you're saying that because Sven's stun is poorly scaled we have to gate it with mana costs?

... uhh, no, it's too good. That's why he's mana gated. Admittedly, it's annoying, but there's a reason for it.

There are a lot of lane scenarios where your job is largely "don't get blown out" and if you do that, you can win. And there's nothing wrong with that, but that basically never happens in LoL.

Never happens in League, huh? Kassadin is the most obvious example in mid. Nasus in top is a survive-type lane. Cassiopeia is an AP Nasus. Karthus vs. almost every wave clear matchup, except Leblanc. Most Irelia and Vladimir matchups. Every lane switch where the ADC/Support goes against the solo top are survive lanes (but not the case if the support leaves). There's more if you really want to get down to it.

Matchups between certain farm-heavy/non-gank junglers are almost as bad (but these aren't lanes). However, gank-heavy junglers can turn lanes into these at will: Shaco, Lee Sin, Vi, several others (conditionally).

Says the guy who thinks having fewer spells available makes for a better laning phase...?

Losing a spell or two compared to no denies, no rune control, no courier use, and no creep pulls. If there's a game where I do nothing in lane, it's League. Please, tell me more about how I can "freeze" my lane in front of my tower and not have the enemy laner be able to do anything about it.

I mean I feel great when I can win a lane for my top lane because I gank once, and he freezes his lane in front of his tower as a result, but that doesn't make it good game design.

In LoL, the team with the best player typically wins. In Dota, the team with the worst player typically loses.

That's just not the case for either game, and your attempt to boil down either game into such statements is selling them both short. It's not true in DotA, it's not true in League. The team that wins is the one that doesn't get offered a contract to become the starting pitcher for the New York Yankees. You can be the best player in the game, but if your team is playing the Game of Throwns, you'll lose.

You seem really intent on defending League as though it's superior to DotA in every way. Both games have a different underlying philosophy that makes them different from each other enough to be considered competitors in the genre. League has evolved enough so that people can't just call it a DotA clone.

Truth be told, I haven't played DotA in a long time. I only play League because I have a group of friends who would play with me. There's a ton of improvements that League has made over DotA, but laning is not one of them. But it seems like you're deliberately ignoring a lot of the reality in League and you're rushing to its defense without really understanding what I'm saying.

The talents fall into the same trouble that items and talent trees have in the past. Currently, most heroes do have a set build of "best talents". Which, especially since there is a balance problem with the heroes encouraging particular heroes over others, means that builds are very stagnant right now.

I'd say that this is largely the result of there not being enough champions in the game. There's a ton of overlap, and none of the non-Specialist characters have ways to differentiate themselves from their peers.

It's a problem that's related to having to create skill mods for four or five skills, without having a real direction to distinguish each character from another. If you don't have characters who can theoretically do everything, then you can't pin down what's really the best identity for the character, because people will intentionally stay away from that character knowing that they can't do everything. And with not enough players to test anything, the problem exacerbates itself.

Also, some abilities really are just overtuned. Screw you Abathur.

[Bolivar]

There's nothing intrinsically bad about denying. It adds abort dimension of skill and makes the mid lane in particular that much more intense.

Don't see what's wrong with creep pulling either. It's a tactic that adds a new dynamic to a lane and opens up the potential for dynamic responses. It's also been nerfed for about a year, since Valve put easy creeps in the pull camp.

As far as casting spells in the laning phase, there's many heroes who can. Shadow Fiend and Bat rider both can stack small spells for potentially debatable effects of left unattended. Lion and Kotl both have mechanisms to spam powerful nukes. Every hero is radically different, which is something I love about Dota. And likewise, every stage of the game is different. It's also why most starting builds have a Clarity or two in them, so you can nearly regularly cast spells but when the opportunity arises.

As far as your Bounty Hunter example, that's just one strategic option, he can (and often should) duo lane fine and even mid to an extent. A lot of heroes take solo offlane for leveling purposes but good players will take opportunities to CS and even harass when they can. Likewise, any good support is going to plant sentries and zone him out. The permutations of and responses to Dota strategies is what makes the game.

Second, while the competitive players aren't sure how the game is going to turn out long-run, they have agreed that this game has the greatest come-from-behind potential of any other major MOBA.

That would be awesome. It's something Dota needs more of and Valve has continuously tried to patch for.

[Freya]

I played the alpha a bit but haven't been on it recently. It was fun! I'm not a MOBA type of person but the pure nostalgia of all the characters was great.

[Spuuky]

... uhh, no, it's too good. That's why he's mana gated. Admittedly, it's annoying, but there's a reason for it.

There's no reason for mana-gating this ability. Just make it scale reasonably (such as reduced stun duration at low levels) instead of being flat out overpowered on-cast at levels 1-6. Just like many other stuns in the game.

Please, tell me more about how I can "freeze" my lane in front of my tower and not have the enemy laner be able to do anything about it.

Please, tell me more about how you can do something that the enemy laner can't interact with, and how that makes laning more interactive.

That's just not the case for either game, and your attempt to boil down either game into such statements is selling them both short.

Obviously, it's an oversimplification. But it's generally true. A serious feeder in LoL? Sucks that he won't be contributing, that makes it a lot harder to win. A serious feeder in Dota? The game is almost certainly over.

You seem really intent on defending League as though it's superior to DotA in every way. Both games have a different underlying philosophy that makes them different from each other enough to be considered competitors in the genre. League has evolved enough so that people can't just call it a DotA clone.

Dota has things going for it that are far superior to LoL. I like both games. Some examples: Dota has much less rigid role assignments for heroes and more flexible lane arrangements in general. This is a MASSIVE point in favor of the game, a far bigger difference than the marginal laning phase differences. Dota, obviously, lets you play as any hero at any time and doesn't lock strategies behind the wall of having to rune for it, and Dota lets you meaningfully play All Random (and rewards Randoming). There are others. The advantages LoL has is that many of the completely asinine mechanics that are fundamental limitations of the WC3 engine have been removed; and while many Dota heroes have fine/good designs, there are still some dumb heroes and individual skills - not in terms of power, but of design. Slark's ultimate, for instance, is a poorly-designed skill. Slark isn't overpowered for other reasons, but the skill itself is inherently bad design; completely non-interactive, there is nothing you can do except wait.

HotS undoubtedly has singular aspects that are superior to both games; having "easier comebacks" is something that I'm not sure is one of them, but that's always been a tough line. If you outplay your opponent in the early game of a game with no comeback potential (ie a true Snowball Game), there is no need to outplay them for the rest of the game, and you can win despite being outplayed for 66% of the game. On the other hand, if it's too easy to come back, and rubber-banding is too strong, then what you do in the early game doesn't really matter, and you can even end up "punished" for doing well in some sense. The natural state of games with progression is to reward getting ahead so you want something to tone it - like increased gold for kill streaks in Dota as an example. I'm sure HotS has something in place, and given that their audience is likely to tend more casual/WoW-y, it's likely heavily rubber-banded.

[Christmas]

I was so 1337 on this back in those days!!