Author Topic: Moba balance comparison, please comment  (Read 182177 times)

Offline Wingflier

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Moba balance comparison, please comment
« on: November 29, 2012, 03:48:18 am »
Yeah, I know, it's this thread again.  Honestly though, I'm trying to be civil this time and give League of Legends a fair chance.  In fact, I've been doing that for a lot of things in my life, for example reading a really interesting book called "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, even though I'm very firmly atheist.

In other words, I'm trying to turn a new leaf here.  I don't want to be the angry, judgmental person that I was before, I would really like to delve into an open-minded investigation of this matter and get the community's opinion on this topic.

The reason I'm doing this is because I'd like to make a DotA 2 vs. LoL youtube video that gives both games a fair review and treatment, with as little bias as possible, for people interested in the genre.  For example, I've already thought of many of the categories.  League of Legends wins in learning curve.  Ease of use.  And it's community is 1 million times better than DotA 2's.  It's so surprising not to get raged at when I make a small mistake in League, which is really refreshing and also something that is rare to find in a DotA 2 game.  I really respect LoL's community for that reason, and I'm impressed with Riot for having such great results.

The category I'm interested in now though is balance.  I want to believe that League of Legends has good balance, or that there's something I just don't understand, but when I see heroes like Rengar and Vayne, among many others, who are just miles ahead of all the rest, I get extremely frustrated at the game.

For example, I like to play Ashe.  I like playing Ashe because she's a simple, positionally-based carry.  In DotA, some of my favorite heroes to play are positionally-based heroes.  In other words, powerful heroes who can make a huge impact on the game, but whom don't have any strong escape mechanisms, meaning that your positioning skill makes all the difference.

However, the more I play Ashe, the more I get the impression that positionally-based carries suck.  For one thing, I'm forced to take Ghost and Flash; if I don't get those escape moves, I'm in serious trouble and I'll probably die constantly.  So already, the idea of playing the game with superior positioning has kind of been thrown out the window.  In addition, even with Ghost and Flash, I feel so useless compared to other ranged carries such as Vayne and Graves.  They do so much more damage than I do, with similar farm, and at least with Vayne, have powerful escape mechanisms to boot.  Vayne does massive amounts of true damage, she can knock her targets back, she can dash every few seconds, and even go invisible in a pinch.

To confirm my suspicions I go online to Elementz tier list, and see that Ashe is in Tier 3 for both solo queue and competitive play.  Much to my surprise, there are ranged carries that are in even WORSE positions than Ashe (it's hard for me to believe after playing several games with her, compared to other, much more superior carries).

My complaint is not that Ashe is slightly underpowered.  Like okay, I get that, perfect balance is impossible.  My complaint is that Ashe is so godly underpowered compared to these other carries that she is a joke.  I often play with a full team of 5 friends all on Skype, and they won't even let me pick Ashe.  Is it because I'm a bad player?  No.  They just realize that there are so many better carries out there.  I can't blame them, we usually lose when I do.  So when my friend picks Vayne instead we roflstomp the game.

How can the balance be that bad?

When I play DotA 2, there is a hero that is functionally very similar to Ashe named Drow Ranger.  She is a ranged female hard carry with no escape mechanisms and frost arrows (it seems like Ashe was based off of Drow in many ways).  But the difference between Drow and Ashe is that Drow is actually really good.  Drow scales extremely well into lategame, she gives all the ranged heroes on her entire team a powerful +dmg aura, and she can even give allied ranged creeps her aura too, for mega full-map pushing power!

Yes, she's similar to Ashe in that if she gets caught out, she's dead; but her strengths make up for this glaring weakness, where Ashe's strengths do not.

So fellow League players, please offer your input on this situation.  Is LoL's balance really just that bad, or is there something I don't quite understand?
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2012, 10:27:18 am »
Thats odd. Just last night my people on mumble were commenting that they wanted to fp me ashe.

Of course, that goes back to a different thing - WHen I just dont care anymore, I tend to pick ashe. And I tend to stomp people INCREDIBLY hard, despite teams of irelia/darius/leona/graves/etc. (not actually a team, just heros that suck to play against)

See, the thing about ashe is that she has incredible early game strength. She does not *need* ghost and flash all of the time, and can be incredibly aggressive by virtue of abusing her range and slow, incredibly safely.
Its not really about ashe having steroids like trist or nukes like graves - its entirely about her strength in mechanics. As you said, a positional carry must have good positioning.. But must also have amazing mechanics. You must be able to orbwalk incredibly well, you must be able to know your limits very precisely, and just as importantly, know your enemies. Know what leonas zenith blade looks like, and avoid it. Know darius's pull, and know if you are in range to need to flash it. And I think I mentioned that you must orbwalk like man - Be INCREDIBLY aggressive when you have a small advantage. That is ashe's strength.

Id love to write a longer response, but I'm about to be late for class.

Oh, yeah, and i find balance in league to generally be pretty bad, but i could rant for quite a long time on how i believe riot went wrong . and now I'm late. thanks.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2012, 10:54:42 am »
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Thats odd. Just last night my people on mumble were commenting that they wanted to fp me ashe.

Of course, that goes back to a different thing - WHen I just dont care anymore, I tend to pick ashe. And I tend to stomp people INCREDIBLY hard, despite teams of irelia/darius/leona/graves/etc. (not actually a team, just heros that suck to play against)

See, the thing about ashe is that she has incredible early game strength. She does not *need* ghost and flash all of the time, and can be incredibly aggressive by virtue of abusing her range and slow, incredibly safely.
Its not really about ashe having steroids like trist or nukes like graves - its entirely about her strength in mechanics. As you said, a positional carry must have good positioning.. But must also have amazing mechanics.
Ah okay, thanks!  I knew it might just be me then :P

Does League have replays now?  I'd love to see a replay of you using Ashe. 

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Oh, yeah, and i find balance in league to generally be pretty bad, but i could rant for quite a long time on how i believe riot went wrong . and now I'm late. thanks.
Could you elaborate more on this when you get the time?

Sorry for making you late for class (if it makes you feel any better, typing this is going to cause me to be late too!).
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2012, 11:09:39 am »


Does League have replays now?   


With the game, no?

[Stream of ranting of how riots are idiots for not supporting replays]

There is a program called Lol replay that is very lightweight that records the game. It is a small download, is very efficient while recording both for the file size and the performance hit (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, it requires the game itself to view the replays, since that is what allows the program to be so light.
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Offline madcow

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2012, 11:36:10 am »
As a non-moba player (the only one I've played is awesomenauts which has less than a dozen heroes), I honestly can't see how there can be as many hero choices in the games as there are and still have balance while keeping them from being clones of each other.

Seems to me that the more choices you throw in, the harder it is to keep them balanced. Which isn't necessarily so bad so long as there isn't one overly strong (as opposed to being overly weak which is excusable).

Again this is the perspective of somebody that hasn't played LoL, HoN, DoTA, or any of those.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #5 on: November 29, 2012, 11:39:00 am »
The issue here on your evaluation of LoL is just lack of experience with the game.  On Ashe, and ranged carries in general:

1) Auto-Attack champions, especially ranged, are much less likely to be as dominate in LoL as DOTA because while they scale really well into late game, they don't scale as strongly as in DOTA.  So even if Ashe had identical abilities to Drow Ranger, she wouldn't be as strong relative to her team.  Auto-Attack champions are important end-game in LoL, but you absolutely need the rest of your team to protect and support you.  You never get to the point of two-shotting everyone on the enemy team back-to-back in a competitive game.

2) Ashe is all about her ult.  You either win or lose by it.  It is one of the absolutely strongest initiates in the game.  But you really need your team ready to go in the instant you use it or you lose most of its power.  This makes her a fairly poor choice in solo queue unless you are really highly ranked and people know what having Ashe with her ult up means end-game.  This also means you can't miss your ult.  When you miss your ult, your team is vulnerable until it comes back up.  You need to be insanely good hitting with it, at all ranges, angles and even blindly.  A blind Ashe ult into brush with your team following up can turn the game around.

3) Speed is incredibly important for Ashe players.  You need to know not really the exact number, but the feel of each opponents speed.  You need this so you know if you can push out safely (because you can kite everyone on the enemy team who is MIA) or not.  You also need to have a good enough feel for speeds that you can land blind ults on moving targets.

4) You absolutely must be able to kite.  This is sometimes called orb-walking in DOTA, but it isn't really as much animation-canceling in LoL as in DOTA.  But with Q on, alternating Move and Attack-Move to fire arrows behind you on someone chasing is a critical skill, and one you need to be able to do without thinking about it.

5) Ashe has amazing range.  While her auto-attack is great, her Volley is brutally long.  Early game you can cause a ton of pain with this.  If you have a good support, it is very easy to get into a good zoning situation.

6) Interestingly, Ashe is actually decent even when she gets shut down.  This is pretty unusual for ranged carries.  I've actually had someone play support Ashe before (I don't recommend this).  But because she has a massive AOE snare in Volley, and her ult is always excellent, you can switch to a support role if you personally got shut down but the rest of your team is doing ok.  I believe she is the only ranged carry that can do this effectively.

7) ElementZ tier list is pretty accurate, and Tier 3 sounds about right for Ashe.  Right now the in-carries are Ezreal, Corki and Graves.  Ez and Corki both have excellent escapes and great poke.  Graves is very bursty, has a bit of escape, and is a bit tougher than most other ranged carries.  But the big difference between all three and Ashe is Ashe can win a game with just her ult.  None of the others can.  They are just about killing stuff.  Which is good and all.  But when you want some CC on your ranged carry, Ashe is the best place to go.  Also, as low at Tier 3 sounds, I can regularly win games with quite a few champs in Tier 3.

On Vanye:
1) She's really weak early game; one of the worst ranged carries.  You need to shut her down then.  If you let her get to late game, she's particularly rough.  You want to crush her farm and ideally deny her some xp through zoning before she hits 4-5.  If you can get a one level lead on her, and keep her CS down she's in a lot of trouble.  Unlike Ashe, she doesn't bring anything if she doesn't have a ton of gold.

2) However, she is best against bruisers.  If your team isn't all that beefy, a lot of Vanye's potential is wasted and your team can just burst her down.

3) Vanye needs 3 hits on the same target to trigger her silver bolts (or 2 + her E).  She can get one super-tight combo with auto-attack+Q (rolling and attacking before the first auto-attack lands)+E.  But then Q and E are on cooldown.  After that, her attack speed is what matters.  Frozen Heart and Warden's Mail->Omen on your team really hurt her more than almost any other ranged carry.

On balance:
LoL actually has really good balance.  It isn't perfect, but there are a huge number of competitively viable champions (can't find the numbers, but S2 champions had like 70% picked or something insane).  I just picked up Awesomenauts, and even though I made it to League 2 (League 1 is the top), I just don't have enough games to have any idea how good their balance is.  Balance evaluation requires a lot of experience and a lot of effort avoid emotional bias.  It is not easy to do at all.  The weakest aspect of LoL is currently being addressed in S3 (hopefully): A) Jungle has too much control over game flow, B) Itemization has holes and lacks important decisions.

A) Jungle ganks are were all the flow is right now.  Lanes can't be aggressive because jungle ganks are so strong and fast.  As a result, all the action is controlled by and centered around the jungle.  Anyone who doesn't have a super-strong gank can't jungle because then his team puts no pressure on the enemy.

B) You can basically list out the majority of every champions item build at the start of the game.  There is a little variety in most games.  Nearly every ranged AD is IE+LW+PD+Boots+Angel+Other (often Bloodthirster).  Beyond that, you don't really have the ability to buy items situationally.  There are a few, like Quicksilver Sash, but even that is nearly on the BKB-level with some players always buying it.

So even though LoL and DOTA2 are similar, they aren't the same game.  There is a ton of difference between the two.  Even really small things have a huge impact.  Making balance judgements on a game you don't have a ton of experience with is really tough.  Just comparing the scope of abilities (range and AOE) between the two games shows an entirely difference philosophy on team fight balance.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2012, 11:42:22 am »
As a non-moba player (the only one I've played is awesomenauts which has less than a dozen heroes), I honestly can't see how there can be as many hero choices in the games as there are and still have balance while keeping them from being clones of each other.

Seems to me that the more choices you throw in, the harder it is to keep them balanced. Which isn't necessarily so bad so long as there isn't one overly strong (as opposed to being overly weak which is excusable).

Again this is the perspective of somebody that hasn't played LoL, HoN, DoTA, or any of those.
This is my general view as well. Even the MOBA I used to play back then (Demigod) had issues with just 8 heroes. Though those were eventually balanced out by patches, and even later, by fanmade mods, there were still issues with as little as 8 heroes.

Thankfully, the heroes (or Demigods) in DG were vastly different, so you never really felt you had any kind of repetition going to another god.
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Offline zespri

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2012, 12:56:58 pm »
Sorry if not relevant, but I can draw parallels, so here it is. Yomi is a fighting game, not a computer one though, but a card game. It does have a browser version though.

The game itself has a reputation of meticulously balanced among its fans, however, if you look at the match up list you will see this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjbvzAdKM6GOdEZfdE9QOUZPWUE1YlAwYkh2LUFBd2c&pli=1&hl=en#gid=0

(Only) 10 Heroes, and still some have clearly better match up's overall and some have clearly worse. (The numbers in the table means that this is how many games you are expected to win out of ten given roughly the same skills against a given hero).

It's interesting how they compile this table. First of all I think they have bulk statistics from the game server that they pulled out. Given that this statistic does not always show players of similar level of skills, "professional" players chimed in correcting figures, until some sort of consensus was not reached as to what feels right.

The bottom line is: even with only 10 Hero, there is no perfect balance, and still some people will tell you that the game is balanced exceptionally well.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #8 on: November 29, 2012, 01:14:48 pm »
Before I start I want to thank everybody for responding in a timely, lengthy, and respectful fashion!

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The issue here on your evaluation of LoL is just lack of experience with the game.  On Ashe, and ranged carries in general:
Definitely could be, it's been a long time since I've last played.  Seems to have changed a lot.

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Auto-Attack champions are important end-game in LoL, but you absolutely need the rest of your team to protect and support you.  You never get to the point of two-shotting everyone on the enemy team back-to-back in a competitive game.
It's interesting that you should say that, because I commonly see Vayne, Graves, and Kogmaw basically killing people in a few shots, or at least within a couple seconds late game.  In other words, I see carries becoming just as powerful in LoL as I do in DotA.

They may not kill TANKS in two shots, but you can't kill a tank in two shots in DotA either, unless your farm is exponentially better than his.

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2) Ashe is all about her ult.  You either win or lose by it.  It is one of the absolutely strongest initiates in the game.  But you really need your team ready to go in the instant you use it or you lose most of its power.
Maybe I need to go cooldown reduction then?  It seems like it has such a long cooldown.  I use magic resist per level blues, and my Masteries are 21/0/9, and don't include any extra cooldown stuff.  My item build doesn't really include cooldown reduction either.  Is that part of my problem?

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4) You absolutely must be able to kite.  This is sometimes called orb-walking in DOTA, but it isn't really as much animation-canceling in LoL as in DOTA.  But with Q on, alternating Move and Attack-Move to fire arrows behind you on someone chasing is a critical skill, and one you need to be able to do without thinking about it.
Well yeah, you couldn't play Drow if you didn't know how to orb walk and kite.

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1) She's really weak early game; one of the worst ranged carries.  You need to shut her down then.  If you let her get to late game, she's particularly rough.  You want to crush her farm and ideally deny her some xp through zoning before she hits 4-5.  If you can get a one level lead on her, and keep her CS down she's in a lot of trouble.  Unlike Ashe, she doesn't bring anything if she doesn't have a ton of gold.
I see how you shut a carry down in DotA (there is denying, creep pulling, and everytime you kill them they lose a lot of gold), but how do you do it in League?  It seems like no matter how hard you try, eventually carries are going to get farmed.  I guess you can try to push and end the game quickly, but that doesn't seem like what teams do in League.  Vayne is not that bad in a lane.  She's got a good built-in escape mechanism, and if she hits you three times she does a shitload of true damage.  Paired with a good support, in my experience it's just as easy for her to get first blood as it is for Ashe, and much safer in the process.  I could be wrong though.

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2) However, she is best against bruisers.  If your team isn't all that beefy, a lot of Vanye's potential is wasted and your team can just burst her down.
Haven't really played against a team in League...since well...ever that wasn't full of tanky DPS.  Even the mages often build tanky, and still dish out quite a bit of damage.  This just seems like a moot point.  Show me a team of Veigar, Ashe, Shaco, Soraka, etc. and I'll grant you that sometimes you aren't facing tanky DPS.  Tanky DPS just seems like a staple of League balance, for better or for worse.  Heroes like Vayne and Kogmaw will always have their place.

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A) Jungle ganks are were all the flow is right now.  Lanes can't be aggressive because jungle ganks are so strong and fast.  As a result, all the action is controlled by and centered around the jungle.  Anyone who doesn't have a super-strong gank can't jungle because then his team puts no pressure on the enemy.
This is one thing that has really bothered me, and one of the things that makes me uneasy about League's balance.

In DotA, there IS no correct lane composition.  It doesn't go:  1 bruiser top, 1 AP carry mid, 1 jungle, 2 bot (carry+support).  It goes:  Whatever the hell your team decides to do.  Literally, think of a lane composition, and it's probably been done successfully. 

However, I can see the opposing argument which is:  That's what makes League so balanced, because there's only 1 lane composition, and everything can be balanced around that. 

I suppose that would be a good argument, and then it would just be two different types of balance:  Dynamic balance vs. Predictable balance (or something along those lines).  DotA balances its game to be emergent, where League balances the game to be stable.

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B) You can basically list out the majority of every champions item build at the start of the game.  There is a little variety in most games.  Nearly every ranged AD is IE+LW+PD+Boots+Angel+Other (often Bloodthirster).  Beyond that, you don't really have the ability to buy items situationally.  There are a few, like Quicksilver Sash, but even that is nearly on the BKB-level with some players always buying it.
That's another thing that makes me a bit wary too.

In DotA, there is no right item build for heroes.  Depending on the hero, your lineup, their lineup, and how the game is going, the item builds can change dramatically from hero to hero.  In addition, your friends don't expect you to go a certain build, then get mad at you when you don't.  Last night when I was playing League, I picked Amumu for the first time in ages.  Back when I used to play him Philosopher Stone was considered one of the worst items in the game, and even Shurelia's Reverie was still just okay compared to some other tank items.

So instead of going for Philo Stone, I went for Heart of Gold->Randuin's Omen instead.  When my "friend" in Skype realized I wasn't building Shurelia's, he raged at me for the rest of the game.  He couldn't understand WHY you wouldn't go Shurelia's on Amumu, and kept emphasizing the importance of that 3 second burst of speed or whatever.  I kept saying we would be fine without it, but he made it quite clear that we, in fact, would not be fine without it, and that I needed to get it even though I was currently working on other things.  It just seemed like there was this massive implication that you BUILD Amumu a certain way, or you're failing your team, and that really bothered me.  In DotA, there is no ONE way to build a support/tank.  You can go Vanguard, Blink Dagger, Blademail, Mekansm, Pipe of Insight, BKB, or whatever, and as long as you're contributing to the team, they usually won't give you a ton of slack.  Granted, people LIKE the more team-oriented items such as Pipe of Insight, but still, if you're doing your job well, you probably won't get raged at by your friends.

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So even though LoL and DOTA2 are similar, they aren't the same game.  There is a ton of difference between the two.  Even really small things have a huge impact.  Making balance judgements on a game you don't have a ton of experience with is really tough.  Just comparing the scope of abilities (range and AOE) between the two games shows an entirely difference philosophy on team fight balance.
This is definitely true, and it's what I suspected it boiled down to.  I've played dota since I was 16 years old (9 years ago).  I'm so used to the DotA balance that it I'm coming to realize that LoL balance probably isn't that bad, I just don't understand it.  That's why I'm having you guys explain it to me a little more so I can understand the game better.

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The bottom line is: even with only 10 Hero, there is no perfect balance, and still some people will tell you that the game is balanced exceptionally well.
So are you implying that League's balance is good amongst a small pool of overpowered champions?  I really don't see what the connection is here.

For example, Super Smash Brothers Melee is considered to be an extremely well-balanced game, even though less than half the cast are even useful, and even though Sakurai, the designer, literally came out and said, many times, that he purposely tried to make the game casual, and skew the balance away from a competitive aspect.  In fact, many of the "skills" that later defined the competitive aspect of Melee, were bugs in the game that players have refined into difficult "techniques".  In other words, the balance of the game was a mere accident.  It was never meant to be balanced.  The techniques that people use were never meant to be in the game.  Is that good balance?

Well, I don't personally think so.

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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #9 on: November 29, 2012, 01:22:01 pm »
As far as lane composition goes:

In regional tournaments in different areas (for teams who ultimately don't come to NA so called "world" tournaments), I've heard that there is some success with varying lane compositions, such as a 1 top, 2 mid, 1 bot, and one early jungle who mostly pushes the tower on mid.

Again, that's only what I've heard of.
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #10 on: November 29, 2012, 01:41:04 pm »
Auto-Attacks 2-shoting in LoL:
This only happens when you get a big farm difference.  Basically, when the game is won.  When both teams are at even gold levels, carries just aren't dominating people that fast.  Yes it is faster than any other champion in LoL, but not as fast as DOTA from what I've read in discussion on the matter.  Basically, LoL has tried very hard to avoid hyper-carries.  They want every champion to be able to have a big impact in end-game if played well with good farm (and some, mainly support, to have big impacts even without farm).

CDR on Ashe:
This is really more of a support-Ashe thing.  Normally you are the ranged carry so you can't afford to waste any gold on CDR as a ranged carry.  However, Ghost Blade might be workable on her, and that has CDR in addition to damgae and armor penetration.

Denying in LoL:
This is intentionally tougher, and basically impossible to do completely.  But to deny in LoL, you need to get yourself (or your support) in between the creeps that are fighting and the enemy.  This pushes them out of XP range and last hitting range.  You really need to control creep position, which is very tricky since you can't deny.  This is called zoning (I'd guess DOTA has the same term).  It is nearly impossible to do for more than a wave or two.  So eventually the wave will pushes toward the enemy and they'll get some farm.  Ideally your side has some way to still make them miss last hits...you won't be able to stop them from getting xp.  Also, once you can't zone anymore, you generally push hard to get your creep under the tower were they are harder to last hit.  Vayne in particular has trouble last hitting under tower as none of her abilities really help her.

The result of successful denying is the enemy will be 1-2 levels lower than you, and much lower in CS and hence gold.  You can get a 50 CS lead.  Your jungler can make zoning even worse by ganking from behind when your minions are under the tower.  Often the enemy that has been zoned has been sitting around at low health from your pokes waiting for the few last hits or bits of xp they might be able to sneak.  Once the creeps get under their tower they are frantically trying to get any last hits.  A 3v2 is can easily get one or two kills.  If you get kills at this point, you'll be able to dominate the lane because your auto-attack damage will chunk them so hard they can't even stay in lane after 2-3 hits.

Sometimes people will actually leave the bottom tower alive when they've beaten the enemy just so the enemy ranged carry can't farm creeps more safely from his side of the map when your creeps push past the dead tower.

The support on your side will heavily affect whether you can zone well.  A good poke support helps a ton.

Bruisers:
God, I hate them.  For at least 6 months, bruisers were everywhere!  They still are pretty strong, but its been toned down a lot.  So you may have been playing during the height of that.  They are a lot less common now.  Most teams end up with one real bruiser (top) at this point.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2012, 01:50:12 pm »
Thanks for your replies, this is all helping me to understand.
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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #12 on: November 29, 2012, 02:09:05 pm »
snipe

Pretty much nails those issues on the head.

Toward late game the two dedicated carries may be able to nuke each other to mostly low health, that's them unloading everything they got for that damage "cycle" against each other. Not that surprising when you have two glass cannons nuking each other. Against other members who have spent at least some gold for defense, they will need 3 or more salvos if they attack alone, all the while being the glass cannon them self.  Any team sweeping is a result of level difference or exceptionally risky strategies paying dividends in very late game.

Most ranged carries don't get CDR since it does mix well with auto attack and/or it kills their already limited mana pool.

Denying is more of a manner of for whatever reason not enabling the enemy to get those last hits. It could be you are distract them with skill shots, your pokes pushes them away, the threat of a gank keeping them distracted, etc. It's not as hard a counter as in DotA, but it is still possible, and very much a responsibility of the support to distract the enemy carry however possible early game.
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #13 on: November 29, 2012, 03:00:36 pm »
I can do something like pack all the replays I have of me playing ashe and send them, but I dont really have the time to remember exactly where I could highlight each of them. I tend to prefer trist anyway >_>
http://www.leaguereplays.com/summoners/NA/Lancefighter/
that link should have each replay i decide to upload, and some that other players have uploaded. Honestly, anything that happens over 10 minutes seems fairly outside of your scope though - you seem to be most worried about playing like a kitten all laning long... (one or two of those I probably get ganked and lose really hard early game though. Its bound to happen.)

Pretty much everyone here has brought up good points, and I really am probably not going to be able to acknowledge them all..
But you go philo on amumu. He needs the mana regen, and later the cdr of shurelias. He doesnt need the 3s burst of speed though.. because you max your stun as soon as possible. He has a really good stun/gapcloser on a REALLY short cd. Build around that. Randiuns is an ok item, but really its inferior to frozen heart on amumu. (my typical build is philo-hog-boots1-kindle-glacial, upgrading whenever. Typically merc treads, but you dont really need tons of mr on amumu, except in certain cases, which I could outline but effort)

Like people have said though - ashe's ult is THE BEST initiation in the game. 100% safe, fairly reliable at medium ranges, and allows permastun to death. Her strength in lane(and teamfights) is particularly that she can control enemy movements more than deal tons of damage - An arrow into any sort of followup by a jungler is an instant kill and dragon.

I think weve moved however to more general discussion on balance, which I believe can actually be summed up in a very simple way - Spells.

In league, a level 1 spell has VERY little impact. Dont get me wrong, there are some spells (taric's dazzle, janna nado, etc) that have impact.. but these are very rare comparatively. This is intentionally so - youre going to be buying 'ap', and your spell later in the game will deal tons of damage. This means a few things, in my opinion.

1: CASTERS become CARRIES. This is not a good thing. When vlad becomes a carry, he suddenly deals tons of aoe damage, gets tons of healing, and overall is difficult to kill. This extends to a lot of casters - Morgana, Ahri, Swain, Xerath. All of them deal massive amounts of aoe damage that scales. And they all have hard cc. For a ranged dps.. this isnt *as* big of a deal, with the exception of mobilty/range, which most of them often have. (ahri/xerath is a HUGE example of this. Really annoying to play against as a real carry )
The problem is when you move to melee heros..

2: MELEE HEROS MUST BUILD DEFENSE. This is.. well.. ok? The problem is that despite requiring a melee hero to also build defensively, riot throws tons of free stats on them. Base hp, armor, mr, and even ad are all inflated.  They must be able to tank all of a casters damage before they kill the caster.. Why? I dont really know. This is further extended by 3.

2a. MAGIC IMMUNITY/DAMAGEBLOCK. Damage block is a areally good way for melee heros to lane against ranged heros. A poor mans shield provides 1 armor(6 league armor), and blocks 20 damage from each autoattack. (also incredibly cheap). Magic immunity is a very, very important thing. For 10 seconds, I can be immune to all magic damage, and be free to attack stuff. This means that my job, as a ganker, I CAN ACTUALLY KILL PEOPLE IN TEAMFIGHTS, without dieing to your ap carry's aoe damage. I hate ap carries. So much.

3: Resistance is cheap. Health is cheap. I can buy about 200 hp for like 500 gold. I can buy 18% more hp as ehp for 300g.. or 45% for 700g. I can easily walk into top lane with over 50% resistance to physical damage. What the hell? This devalues physical damage early game.. encouraging magic damage, But wait - Magic damage scales? Should it be both powerful early and later? No. it really shouldnt. Also! Just today, you can buy items like HEXDRINKER! Because who doesnt love free shields and stats. But..

4: Physical damage spells (THAT SCALE. WHY). Does graves need a 100 physical damage nuke at level 1? Not really. How about a 340(+1.36 bonus ad) nuke? NEVER. NEVER does graves need this. Carries arent supposed to have nukes like this. Theyre supposed to be CARRIES. they autoattack. Like.. Seriously.

I could probably rant more about stupid stuff, but I've gone off topic so far right now. I think overall what I am saying is that I really dont like that spells scale. Casters should have their place in the early game, and Laguna blade should rightfully instantly kill people if used at the right time. On the other hand, I really dont feel that Requiem should ever deal as much damage as it does in the lategame. Sure, karthus can pretend he is necrolyte with his lots of aoe damage.. but the amount he scales comparatively is simply uncalled for.

And as a final note, remember that ashe is a carry you really need to be forcing opportunities with. She isnt going to win in the lategame without a proper initiation.
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #14 on: November 29, 2012, 04:58:15 pm »
Heh, interesting, caster scaling is my favorite thing about LoL.  I'm nearly positive I wouldn't have player it for over 2 years if that wasn't in the game.  It is one of the reasons I dislike DOTA.  Without abilities scaling, you can even out a champs power level across the early/mid/late game.

On defenses, Season 3 is reducing defensive items, specifically early game.  In addition, penetration is going to stack %-reduction before subtractive reduction, which will make it much easier to pierce insanely high end-game defenses.

 

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