I should start this blog off by saying I really enjoyed my time with Dota 2. I have about 200 hours in that game and for the most part, I love it. However, there's just a handful of things about Dota 2 that kept it far away from being a video game that I would put into the 'elite tier' and instead was settled into the middle of my 2013 game of the year list. In Dota 2, the matches take too long, I was never really sure what I should be doing in the endgame, I had trouble understanding situational items, there were way too many heroes that I didn't enjoy playing, often times I would pick up a new hero and just have zero idea of what I should be doing and it was way too easy for one person to significantly sway the outcome of a match of Dota 2. As I'm starting to get the hang of Heroes of the Storm I'm coming to the realization that this game might (for me personally) fix every single one of the issues that I had with Dota. I'm having an incredible amount of fun with it.

Now I'm not going to go super in depth about what a MOBA is (I'm sure you know someone who has told you all about it) but I probably should explain what makes HOTS different and why it is that I like the changes they've made. First of all, you level as a team and not as individuals. This makes it so that everyone on your team 'potentially' has the same output and puts less pressure on you as an individual to perform your duties and not die. I have way more enthusiasm to play this game with friends since its more of a team focused game and I also there are less times that I feel like I ruined the game because of my poor play (Boy, those feelings in Dota are THE WORST!) Thankfully, less matches of HOTS end up in one hero one side becoming ridiculously overpowered and just steamrolling through the other team. The times when that happened in Dota were always super frustrating because when one guy started to snowball, it was often too hard to stop it and you just had to endure 20 more minutes of dying over and over until eventually they beat you. The team aspect in also present in the way you use your lanes. Often times you will be moving around between lanes depending on what situation your team is in. The maps are a lot smaller and there you can ride mounts, which means that navigating the battlefield is a lot easier.

There are multiple maps in Heroes of the Storm... MULTIPLE MAPS! Each map has its own specific and unique objective, and often times therein lies the key to victory. From collecting doubloons to pay a pirate who bombards the enemy keep with cannons to collecting 'tributes' that curse the enemy team, each map is different in what its objective is. It does a good job of having vastly different goals that require you to think differently about each map. A strategy or build that works well on one map may not be very well suited for another. This was a cool addition to the game that sometimes shifts your priority from killing heroes or pushing lanes to actually focusing your attention on something else, be it capturing an objective or map control of a specific area. Games are often A LOT quicker compared to Dota 2, thankfully. There's way less time spend being on the defensive, waiting for your opponents to attack, which i really hated in dota. Instead of spending time behind your tower chipping away at your enemies, you can often spend your time capturing objectives or roaming to different lanes to kill enemies. Its a lot more active and frankly, its a lot more fun.

There are zero items in the game and you don't level up your skills. In place of those two things they have talents, which you gain every few team levels. Talents let you pick various ways of upgrading your character, be it upgrading skills to have new effects/damage etc, giving you new abilities to use, or just giving you passive buffs that help in various situations. This makes it so that there is still depth to each hero, but its never particularly overwhelming. In addition, I found the heroes to be way easier to use than in Dota 2. Obviously there are still numerous heroes who are quite complicated but you can usually tell what a hero is supposed to do by reading his/her skills, instead of looking up a FAQ or cookie-cutter build.

Overall, Heroes of the storm is a game that has picked up steam over time until as of right now, its basically the only game I want to play. Whereas Dota 2 was a game I could only play one match, maybe two per sitting, I often find myself playing 3-6 matches of HOTS in a row, sometimes even with multiple sittings a day. There's way less things that frustrate me about Heroes of the Storm and while I can't speak to anything having to do with 'high level play', I can say that I feel like there is still a large amount of nuance to the gameplay. All of changes that were made to the MOBA seem like positive things and that's why I feel like for me personally, Heroes of the Storm is better than Dota 2.

I don't usually like MOBA games however I have been really enjoying HOTS. But by god the matchmaking is fucked, I almost have hero league unlocked so maybe that's better.

Yeah. I totally get you when it came to items. It's why I find HOTS so much more enjoyable as a moba. The news maps are great too!

I'm really liking it too, as someone who kinda despises LoL and DotA 2. The big thing for me is actually the game length, an average game of HotS is 18-22 minutes. An average game of LoL or DotA 2 is 40-50 minutes. I simply don't have the luxury of committing to a game that I can't take my eyes off of for a second, for almost an hour.

@mesklinite: At first I was a little worried about the No last hits/No gold/No items. But then I realized there was so much stuff in the game in place of that stuff so it kept the balance in check. Now I dont miss gold or items at all, I was never good at that stuff anyway, now I focus more on helping my team in other ways.

MOBAs just take to much time. My kid has some special needs, so I can't usually get away with saying I'm off limits for 40-50 minutes.

Honestly I enjoy it more too. I appreciate the depth of DotA, but the sheer number of items kept me from getting out of the comfort zone of a handful of characters. HotS I can pick up and enjoy nearly every character and have fun with random builds.

I am way fuckin into this game. Spent damn near all day playing it. It feels more like jumping in to a regular multiplayer game (like a non-simmy shooter or something). You get in and for 20 minutes you fight and complete objectives and then one side wins. Rinse and repeat.

You're not levelling up skills or attributes or crafting your ideal gear, but there's still some notion of hero builds. As you level up you unlock talents (i.e. perks) which can refine your powers in particular ways (2 clones instead of 1, longer skill range, etc.) or just straight-up give you additional skills (teleport, shrink-ray, team shield, etc.).

It's fun!

I keep saying that its simplified nature makes it a perfect match for consoles, leading to potentially a huge new esports audience. That's how they surpass Dota 2 and LoL in viewership.

@joemotycki All of the issues you have with Dota 2 are the reasons why I think it's better than HoTS. A huge number of heroes to learn, a huge number of items that change those heroes & the way they play, the way you have to work together as a team to counter a strong carry or to decide what to do late game, (when to attack/defend).

I really like this game, first time really playing a moba and it sort of fits me great. Matches are short, there are heroes that I care about and it's pretty simple but in a fun way. Only thing I don't get is why people get so angry. Matches are so short but rage all the time. In like Battlefield for example matches could be 40+ minutes and you could be getting your ass kicked throughout but it's like whatever no rage, onto the next map. Here, so much anger. Guess it's kinda nice all these people are confined to one particular genre.

There are some maps I really hate though like the tribute raven one and that desert one. Holy crap I hate them.

I like most of what it's doing, but the one thing I don't like is the shared XP for the whole team, because it means one particularly good player still can't really save a bad team.

Normally, that good player, by playing carefully, might be able to stay on par with the enemy team, even if his teammates are just dying constantly. And maybe that good player can get in some kills and weaken the lead the other team has and save a team that is faltering.

Instead, in Heroes of the Storm, if your 4 teammates are sucking super hard, it means the lot of you will be like 2 levels behind the other team, and unless your team magically becomes not idiots and actually starts working together, you're not going to turn around that 2-level deficit that is now plaguing your entire team. Since even your better player has this deficit, it'll be hard for him to take anybody in a fight.

Also, everyone knows that the one truly bad map is Haunted Mines. Only having two lanes is dumb, and any kind of split push team is impossible to pull off (unless the other team is incredibly stupid) because there is always going to be somebody in lane to foil your plans.

I'm a fan of the casual ARAM part of LOL. I find Heroes of the Storm super frustrating. It is entirely reliant on how good your team is, and how people work together. If your team doesn't want to go for objectives, and the enemy team does, you're going to lose. There is basically no opportunity for individual play, and I find that if you get behind, you lose.

Also, coming from LOL, I think the gameplay isn't that interesting. I enjoy controlling the heroes in LOL much more. HOTS is more about how many characters you can get into an individual fight.

I dunno. At first I was enjoying it a lot, but now I'm just annoyed by it. The "casual fun" isn't fun if you're losing hard, because it feels like there is nothing you can do. In League ARAM, I still have fun playing my character even when I'm getting dumped on.

I thought I did like it more. But then after 100 games or so I started to realize its not really about skill. Its just about which team wins 5 vs 5 fights. Will your team have all 5 show up at the objectives? If the other team doesnt you win. I prefer Dota because even if one of your teammates isnt doing shit for the team you can overcome it. In HOTS you either all 5 be a cohesive group or you lose. Also healing is fucking op in this. To many heroes can out heal the dps of even the strongest guy. I dont know. I like the game but I cant see me playing it often anymore.