Euphorio

I agree with Mario games being difficult to actually beat. They get boring for me real quick.

Also, I cheated my way through the original Doom. Also, note that if you really haven't beaten Ocarina of Time after starting it, then humanity is lost. And Final Fantasy XIII is great!.....after you get through the first 20 hours! it's really not that bad

Finally, I totally troll whenever I am absolutely stomping you in a game. That's right, I'm the guy who tells you how much of a failure you are at regular life when you fail in a video game.....good times

Well put @redcream. I just feel like the laning phase in Dota2 is far shorter, though, in favor of split pushing and major 4-man ganks, so at times Dota2 can feel a lot more hectic. Or, at least I feel more stressed for a longer period of time while playing Dota2.

As for @ajamafalous, yeah, I understand the changing meta, but both games contain this characteristic. In LoL, for instance, there was a time where Rengar was a really common pick, but then he got beaten down by Nerfs and now he is NEVER played in Pro play. Metas shift for multiple reasons, and this will always be a part of the MOBA genre.

My argument still stands that these games will always have tier lists, though, with champions who are clearly better primary choices. Someone has to make the first Champion choice in each game, and the variety of champions for this spot, I would argue, is limited. If there is a tiered champion pool, then the game is fundamentally imbalanced. If it was balanced, then the only tier would be "depends on the match-up."

As for the other points, @hungry what I think he means is that most characters in Dota2 have a relatively powerful burst at one point or another in the game. Warlock comes to mind with this. Though he is almost always a support due to his nice heal and his damage enhancement via Fatal Bonds, there is a point where his burst from his ult tied to his DoT and Bonds makes for a potent killer. In LoL, many champions don't have much killing potential at any point in the game. Leona, for instance, has a fantastic support kit, with 2 stuns, a flash, and one armor and magic buff that has a bit of (negligible) burst. By herself, it would take ages to kill someone, and her passive only procs off of someone else's damage. So, she's reliant on a solid lane partner to get any kind of gold through assists.

The supports in Dota have a time where they can still be murder machines. If a LoL support gets caught out by anyone at any point, they're going to run for their lives.

@fujimitsu: This is, in fact, an ignorant comment that really was entirely unnecessary and generally just condescending. If you don't have actual input and just want to troll, there are tons of other places to go. Try out Reddit, or 4chan, or really anywhere else. I actually have done my research and have played plenty to understand what I'm talking about. Hence I haven't been yelling about how stupid other people are because that's a sheer sign that you DON'T know what you're talking about. I even give clear examples with each of my arguments. If you'd like to add to the conversation at hand, by all means join in. But if you're just going to be a complete tool, go elsewhere.

@sooty: that's what I mean. Those characters are always picked or banned. The same goes for the Dota2 champs I listed. If they don't get banned out, then they'd be in most games because they're just that good.

As for the meta, that's not to say the meta doesn't shift. Of course it does. In both games, different champions fall in and out of favor, and there are many cases where certain team comps work one day and then fall off entirely the next. What I'm pointing out is that most people don't play their favorite champion in ranked and high-level play. Pros tend to pick the champions that are the strongest at the time. There are exceptions, but I can almost guarantee you that once the meta shifts again, you will see every team shifting their choice of champions.

In my case, I love to play champions that have odd mechanics that are fun to master. In LoL, that would be Heimerdinger, Urgot, and Viktor. In Dota2, i drift towards Venomancer, Visage, and Treant Protector. But, as you are all thinking right now, I would be trolled off the planet if I picked Heimerdinger in a ranked match, and people would tell me how worthless I was if I kept choosing Treant Protector. Now, sure, this does have to do with team compositions as well, but my point is that these champions are generally countered and completely underwhelming if you are playing solo. And these champions just don't exist in high level play.

Alright, let's try and keep this a discussion and not a full-out argument.

Now @captaintightpants, if you want to know the differences, I broke down a few of them in the opening blog entry. If you'd like more details, then I'll give a quick rundown.

Dota2 tends to be FAR more complex, and utilizing top-level strategies can be difficult. It's a much more timing-oriented game. For starters, the jungle camps in Dota2 respawn every minute so long as there are no creeps or enemies in the camp. This leads to a tactic known as stacking, where you pull the camp 5 or 10 seconds before the spawn timer hits, so that the camp will spawn another group. This will help your jungler level quicker. Also, the enemy team can slow down your jungler just by placing wards in the spawn point. In LoL, the camps will always spawn 1 minute after you clear the camp for the small neutral monsters. The only way to slow down a jungler here is to go kill their camp, but leave 1 monster there so that the spawn timer doesn't start up.

Another difference: trees are fully destructible in Dota2. This means that there are many plays that involve coming through treelines, hiding in the trees, etc. There's even a couple champions who use trees for different effects. For instance, Nature's Prophet can turn trees into minions that will fight for him. Timbersaw gains true damage on one of his spells if he cuts down a tree with it. For LoL, the trees are clear boundaries. Unless you can flash to the other pathways, you can not cut through the trees.

Major difference: Items. Dota2's items tend to have more powerful effects than LoL's items. An example would be Manta Style, which has the active effect of creating 2 clones of you that do a portion of your damage. LoL items tend to have a minor effect that can enhance or debuff the team. Dota2 has strategies that revolve around a character having a certain item. An example would be Sand King's reliance on having a Blink Dagger to use his ult to any good effect.

I could go on for days, but it generally amounts to Dota2 having a much more complex system that tends to turn away people who started by playing LoL. Dota2 forces the player to be very aware of the clock in high-level play, and you must be able to do plenty of micromanagement. LoL has simplified most of these systems, and it tends to be much easier to just pick up and go. Dota takes some getting used to.

I completely agree with most of this, but I'm referring solely to Major tournament draft choices. I know that there are tons of popular champs in both games that appear all over the place, but it's a rare sight in a LoL tournament to have a sej, corki, or trundle pick. Yes, there are examples of this happening, sure. I'm saying it's wildly uncommon. I could give you an example of a jungle Malzahar chosen in a major tournament, but it doesn't mean that people make these fringe choices often.

Also, yes, League really has demonstrated that it is the top competitive game in the world right now. What I mean is that it's the most universally accepted competitive Game right now. Sure, Starcraft is bigger in Korea, and I hear China really loves Dota1, but in the entire world scene, League has shown its dominance.

Also, with what @greektrojan is saying, Dota2 has a similar character in their Batrider. Batrider is different in that his trail can only last for so long, but it doesn't fade away until the spell is over.

Also, I tend to think that both games have their own balance issues. With the top teams in each game, you can clearly see a much smaller champion pool that is chosen from. For instance, Dota2 matches commonly have Gyrocopter, Lifestealer, Rubic, Magnus, Dark Seer (not so much anymore, but used to), and Bane.

In LoL, you see tons of Ezreal, Jarvan, Elise, Kha'zix, Shen and Thresh. What I'm saying is that each game has a clearly Tiered champion pool, so neither game can be defined as perfectly balanced. Therefore, it's fairly difficult to argue which one is more or less balanced than the other one.

@chibithor: I would agree that Dota 2 definitely has a wider area for expansion, but @canteu makes a good point in that LoL is much more manageable for balance. Now, there are champions with their own unique mechanics that have no similarities, yes. I mean, even in Dota 2, there are many cases where 2 characters have a ridiculously similar move. For example, both Nyx Assassin and Lion have a very similar Earth Spike.

To get to your question, I'd say that there are a few champions that play wildly different from the rest of the LoL champion pool. For example, half of Heimerdinger's damage comes straight from 2 turrets he places on the ground that attack in an aoe around themselves. Therefore, a good Heimer does not run to the nearest safe building like most champions. He kites around his turrets until the other champion murders himself. Another example would be Zed, who works on an energy system. Think Rogues from WoW, and that's his energy rather than mana. He depends on placements of special "shadows" that copy his moves and he can blink between them.

This also leaves out the fact that LoL has 5 wildly different roles that are played on a team. From what I've seen on Dota 2, I believe there's only 3: you have your hard carry, your jungler, and the rest are labelled as supports, but tend to weigh on the bursty mage types. In LoL, there are tons of characters that act like wisp, who are only good when put with other members of the team. Those are the supports, who carry the aura items, ward the field, and generally either have heals or CC.

I'm aware that Dota 2 has certain character who do this same function, but it's rare to see them in a major tournament. For example, you aren't going to see Na'Vi run an Omniknight, or even a Lich very often. Sure, Wisp is a beast of a support, but he's the only one you will see in most games.

In LoL, you can narrow down the supports that the pros play to a group of 10 or 12 champions. And you will see those champions a TON.

@cheappoison: I totally agree that Dota 2 is definitely more catered towards the competitive scene. The spectating and the many tournament passes offered make for easy ways to watch a game. However, LoL has the ranking system that allows you to see your progress as people are trying to make it to the top tier. They have also created their own competitive scene with the LCS. There are just tons more people playing LoL over Dota 2. So, even if the percentage isn't as high, the raw amount of people playing competitively is most likely higher.

I could be totally wrong, of course, and I'm not saying I'm an expert.

@chibithor: I'm not going to say that their ults are as extreme as Dota 2's, but they do have a very broad variation. For instance, Ahri's ult acts as a dash that shoots balls of magic damage when she arrives, and it can be used 3 times before going on cooldown. Urgot's ult is essentially Vengeful Spirit, but with a 1.5 second suppress on both him and the target. Also, he gains armor for a little bit once he arrives. Heimerdinger's ult gives him a temporary boost to his other 3 skills, giving them better effects. And Elise's ult is available at level 1 and allows her to shapeshift from a human to a spider at will. Now, Dota 2 definitely has more powerful ultimates, but I'm not arguing that they are the same caliber. I'm just saying that they have the same amount of variation from one champ to another. No 2 champions feel or play the same in either game, generally. I'm sure there's some exception, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.