League vs Dota Megabrawl: Arcen Games Edition

[Wingflier]

These all look subtle but they add up to the two champions playing differently, being built differently, and just all around being incomparable. Dota bludgeons you over the head with differences. "SEE HOW DIFFERENT I AM? LOOK AT ME!!!!!" League uses a softer hand and smaller differences in kit design and scalings to nudge one champion into a certain role; this is IMO a more refined design technique. Oh, and this all ignores the fact that Kat is still played in high-level games (Scarra, Dignitas' mid laner being the most notable example)

Umm, no.  Riot makes bad designs that replace bad designs in usefulness, then has to remake the original bad designs because they are now inferior to the new bad designs.

The players perceive subtle differences where there is none.  There's crappy designs and money being made hand over foot.  If Kat's design was actually good, it wouldn't have to be remade now would it?

What's amusing is you imply that League never does that Nothing so huge and gamebreaking as Lifestealer (hi, never try and engage anything that looks like a fair fight if I'm missing), but they do ask you to adopt a variety of different playstyles.

Lifestealer is far from gamebreaking.  He's rarely picked up in competitive play.

I'm just saying that purposely putting/leaving obstacles for new players to learn the game is bad design...

Well none of the obstacles to learning the game are there on purpose just to make it harder.  I mean were mountains created just so they would be hard for men to climb?  The design mechanics are there because they are good for the game and make sense, not to make it harder on the player.  The player must conquer the mountain (or the design) before they experience the satisfaction of learning it and why it's important.

[RCIX]

These all look subtle but they add up to the two champions playing differently, being built differently, and just all around being incomparable. Dota bludgeons you over the head with differences. "SEE HOW DIFFERENT I AM? LOOK AT ME!!!!!" League uses a softer hand and smaller differences in kit design and scalings to nudge one champion into a certain role; this is IMO a more refined design technique. Oh, and this all ignores the fact that Kat is still played in high-level games (Scarra, Dignitas' mid laner being the most notable example)

Umm, no.  Riot makes bad designs that replace bad designs in usefulness, then has to remake the original bad designs because they are now inferior to the new bad designs.

The players perceive subtle differences where there is none.  There's crappy designs and money being made hand over foot.  If Kat's design was actually good, it wouldn't have to be remade now would it?

So yeeahhhh... I'm not gonna get anywhere if you're this entrenched. =/

[Wingflier]

Can you respond to the Kat vs. MF comparison on the previous page?

[Lancefighter]

I can.

Kat and MF do completely radically different things, and by trying to compare them, particularly on a per-skill basis, you are merely hurting your argument.

And finally, kat is being remade because she is one of the really early champions. She was released when the game was in beta - I mean no offense when i say that riot simply didn't know what was ideal yet. They were simply playing around with stuff and seeing what worked.

Turns out, in high level play, kat doesnt work. Too good of a best case with too poor of a worst case.

[Wingflier]

I'm honestly not trying to be obtuse here, I literally just don't understand what you're saying.

"Kat and MF do radically different things".  How do they do radically different things?  They are both good in the lane with a spammable harass, and a become powerful quickly with levels, making them ideal solo heroes.

They both have a spammable harass.  They both can put the anti-healing effect on the enemy.  They both have a passive that increases their auto-attack damage.  They both have a "nuke", Kat's teleports herself to the target, MF's slows her target, they do similar amounts of damage.  Their ultimates are almost exactly the same, MF's is just better because it has nearly 3 times the range, making it harder to interrupt, and leaving her much less vulnerable while using it.  Their AP and AD ratios are almost exactly the same on all of their skills.

Please explain to me what is so different about these heroes?  They have relatively simple skillsets, they do relatively simple things.  Most LoL designs are relatively simple, so unless you can give me some extenuating reason that these two heroes are "radically different", I'm not going to accept what you're saying.

Do you want to know what's radically different?  An Intelligence and an Agility hero.  An Agility hero and a Strength hero.  THAT's radically different.  Even if two heroes had the same skills, same stats, same growth etc., but had a different base attribute, they would be significantly different in DotA, because of the way you would have to build them.  Mechanics like primary attribute in DotA make for radically different heroes.  Whatever slight differences there are between Kat and MF, and whatever slight difference in item build, I don't see what makes them so unbelievably different.

Let's compare two great DotA heroes:  Priestess of the Moon and Windrunner.

They have very similar skillsets, and very similar roles, but are radically different heroes.

Mirana (PotM):
1. 900 AoE nuke around herself for 300 damage
2. Skillshot arrow that deals 360 damage and stuns for up to 5 seconds (stun based on distance), but is easily missed and can be blocked by creeps/pets.
3. Short ranged blink/escape mechanism, only leaps the way you're facing, also increases your movespeed and attackspeed by a small amount.
4. Ultimate -  Makes the entire team invisible for a short time.

Windrunner:
1. 360 damage long-range nuke that shoots in a line (is reduced in damage the more units it hits)
2. Skillshot stun that can shackle a unit to a tree or another hero for 3.5 seconds.  If the shackle doesn't land it does a small ministun.
3. Heavy movespeed increase/immunity to physical damage for several seconds.
4. Ultimate - Increases attack speed to maximum against a given target (including towers) but lowers damage.

So you've got 2 heroes with very similar skillsets.  1 aoe nuke, 1 skillshot stun, 1 powerful escape mechanism, and utility-based ultimate.  Windrunner's stun is a bit more reliable than PotM's, but PotM does more burst damage total.  The main difference between the two characters are their ultimates.  Windrunner's ultimate isn't very good until level 2 or 3, but can be great for pushing down towers into the mid and late game.  PotM's ultimate is great for ganking and team fights because it makes your entire team invisible.  Both heroes have a similar role (Ganker/Semi-Carry), but accomplish this role in vastly different ways.  In addition, their primary attributes are different.  Windrunner is Intelligence while PotM is Agility, which makes their item builds completely different.

To me, this is "radically different" hero design, even if they have almost the exact same role.  MF and Kat may have a different "role", but their design seems almost the same to me.  I personally think that if MF (and other subsequent heroes) didn't overshadow Kat, she wouldn't be getting a remake, she would just be getting tweaks or damage buffs.

[Hearteater]

It isn't even possible to compare Kat and MF in any sane fashion Wingflier.  Every single one of your points  are wrong.  Some reach the level of WTF-wrong.  The only similarities MF and Kat they have are: 1) both Champions in LoL, 2) both are female.

[Wingflier]

Well I realize that's your perception, I just wish you could explain to me why.  Neither of them are very complicated heroes.  They have a similar skillset and do similar things, and a very similar ult.  Everyone keeps telling me how wrong I am but I still don't understand why.

[keith.lamothe]

Well I realize that's your perception, I just wish you could explain to me why.  Neither of them are very complicated heroes.  They have a similar skillset and do similar things, and a very similar ult.  Everyone keeps telling me how wrong I am but I still don't understand why.

I forget if it was mentioned, but have you played MF and Kat?

[Wingflier]

Sure, I've played over 1000 hours of LoL (estimated).  I realize their skills and models look at lot different, but the champions themselves seem very similar in role.

The new Kat remake may change all of that, but in terms of the old Kat, it seemed like MF was just a better version of her.  Probably the biggest difference between them was that MF had mana, which is important, but easy to solve with runes, masteries, and items - not a huge factor.

[Lancefighter]

See, I dont really see the same differences that you seem to claim between potm and windrunner. Both fill a semi-carry/ganker/nuke role, but with windrunner leaning more towards support, and mirana more towards carry.
If windrunner was an agi hero, I've no doubt she would be played more as a carry; her relative low base attack time (1.5, one of the lowest in the game) and decent auto anim give her a really good early game, combined with her skills.

But I would not call them radically different, not the way kat and mf are.


Kat's skillset is all about burst. Her bouncing blades is a spammable nuke because its her only nuke. Shumpo is decent at nuking, but its also somewhat your escape/positioning tool. Kat's killer instincts is basically useless all game, with the exception of the active when combined with her bouncing blade, and situational use on shumpo to decrease damage taken. Kat's ult is designed to deal massive damage to heros near her. This is basically the only similarity I can see with her and MF - Both have an aoe ultimate.

MF is designed to be a carry. Her spells honestly dont scale amazingly with level. She doesnt have burst damage, and she wants items before becoming useful. The key bits here is that she has an attackspeed steroid more than her per-hit steroid - later in the game, the attackspeed becomes far more useful than the minor magic damage per hit. MF is no longer a solo lane hero; She has transitioned to bot lane, babysat by a support. MF usually prefers an aggressive support because of her comparably good early game damage.

It would probably not be too far off to say both of them can carry, but in incredibly different ways. A modern Kat will never stand around and autoattack you to death. A modern MF will almost always stand around and autoattack you to death.

I could say that almost every hero in dota is designed to kill people, take towers, and eventually destroy the throne. Therefore, they are all 100% the same, which is kinda what your argument feels like.

[Hearteater]

But have you PLAYED both Kat and MF?  Because they play completely differently.

If Kat gets fed early, that's game (pre-remake).  She got +25 gold per kill from her passive.  So each kill just put her that much further ahead.  And with her passive reducing cooldowns on kills, she naturally turns into an insane team-killing shredder.  Watching some of the Best Plays videos on YouTube and you'll see Kat turn up fairly often (unlike MF) because her kit is so mobile and deadly.  She can take a lot of risk for a kill and escape if successfully because her Shunpo gets refreshed.  And her early-game harass becomes insanely ridiculous once she gets a Hextech Revolver (spell vamp) because she has no mana, and spamming Bouncing Blades not only automatically hits the enemy (unless he's staying out of xp range) but also heals Kat up for free.

MF is a really straight-forward right-click champion.  She does nothing super well, or special.  Her best feature is a strong early game lane phase.  But her ult is really poor and primarily used to clear minions, not hurt champions, because her auto-attacks actually do more damage starting mid-game.  Also, unlike Kat, MF has mana to worry about, so her harass in lane is strong, but limited.  Really, unless the enemy team has a lot of healing or you need a lot of mobility for some special strat, MF is not generally a strong pick.

Example of Kat in action.  She uses her ult twice during this (thanks to her passive refreshing it) and her QWE get used repeatedly since they are all refreshed after just one champion kill (and she gets 5 champion kills her, so she uses QWE 4 times each over the course of the 18 seconds it takes her to wipe the enemy team (plus her ult twice).  So roughly 16 ability activations in 18 seconds.  And Kat isn't even fed in this video.  She's 4/3/3 and her team is down 6 kills.

For an MF penta-kill, she either gets lucky with 5 enemies low on life under her ult, or she just right click on one after another and kills them with auto-attack damage.

[RCIX]

Well I realize that's your perception, I just wish you could explain to me why.  Neither of them are very complicated heroes.  They have a similar skillset and do similar things, and a very similar ult.  Everyone keeps telling me how wrong I am but I still don't understand why.

* Only one of Miss Fortune's skills is instant damage, 2 of Kat's are (pre-remake, it's 3 post-remake)
 * Katarina has the aforementioned passive skill refresh (which is ironically as much or far more snowbally and pubstompy than ~75% of the mechanics you see in dota), MF doesn't
 * Miss fortune has one of the worst movespeed steroids in the game (a single minion attack breaks it), Kat has a reasonable cooldown blink that will jump to wards and allies as well as enemies
 * Miss fortune has an AS steroid, Kat does not (this is big in determining whether you want to spec AD vs AP)

This is what i'm saying, these ARE more subtle design changes and they DO push Kat into hybrid-but-mostly-AP assassin and MF into the AD carry role.

To me, this is "radically different" hero design, even if they have almost the exact same role.  MF and Kat may have a different "role", but their design seems almost the same to me.  I personally think that if MF (and other subsequent heroes) didn't overshadow Kat, she wouldn't be getting a remake, she would just be getting tweaks or damage buffs.

Which misses the entire point of the remake They want kat to be an actual useful champion that's not super snowbally and has counterplay. Not "roflfreeharass and skill refresh but if i dont snowball i suck". No one but an idiot would pick Kat of now in a tournament, because it's too dangerous and if she's shut down then she's useless (and guess what the enemy team will be camping). I don't know if

Which reminds me: If Icefrog is so interested in competitive viability and diversity, why doesn't he look at making a more interesting long-term stealth mechanic that's less flat and "buy x to counter or get stomped"? That's not interesting, and as I understand it the super stealth champs kinda suck in competitive play.

[Lancefighter]

You see broodmother and bounty hunter a lot in competitive play, but not so much clinkz/riki. Brood more for her safeish laning and pushing power in the midgame, and bounty more (i think) for his track/burst. You occasionally see a sand king, but his sandstorm isnt really amazing at perma-stealth, because he stationary in the middle of it.

I really do like how dota has dust of appearance, where in league youre just screwed without an oracles. Additionally, necro 3 is a really strong item, and allows a lot of truesight safely, so theres that too.

And the dota bots, last I played with them, didn't really berate people.. They do talk a lot though. Now and again theyll spam DOING ROSHAN while standing around the rosh pit stupidly.

[Wingflier]

Which reminds me: If Icefrog is so interested in competitive viability and diversity, why doesn't he look at making a more interesting long-term stealth mechanic that's less flat and "buy x to counter or get stomped"? That's not interesting, and as I understand it the super stealth champs kinda suck in competitive play.

Like RCIX said, invis heroes are used commonly in DotA 2 games.

Broodmother, Bounty Hunter, and yes, even Clinkz appear commonly.  I saw Clinkz just the other day in a big finals game, I don't remember the tournament but his team stomped them.  Clinkz is an amazing hero because he's one of the few carries that can push towers like a rockstar, giving him a whole new role that's extremely hard to counter with his invis and speed.  I expect Nyx Assassin to be used a lot in the upcoming "The International 2" Tournament hosted by Valve.

On the contrary to what you're saying, countering invis heroes in DotA is much harder than in League.  In League you have your tankiest hero buy an oracle and you're done with it.  You can even destroy wards, and therefore enemy map vision and control with this item.  EVEN if it only saw wards, it would still probably be worth the 400 gold investment, because wards are such a huge part of both games.  So in League, here you have this cheap item that detects invis so easy.

I haven't been keeping up with the competitive scene, but tell me, how often are Evelyn, Twitch, Shaco, and other invis heroes used?  You complain about DotA's anti-invis mechanics, but invisible heroes are used all the time in competitive DotA.  How often are they used in LoL?

Every anti-invis mechanic in DotA has some huge drawback (unlike Oracles).  For one thing, they ALL take up an inventory slot.  This isn't that big of a deal in LoL because of the way the items work.  In LoL, the items scale up, meaning the more you pay, the better the item.  With this mechanic, the best items are the most expensive.

In DotA, the items scale down, which means that cheaper items are more cost efficient.  This means that the more full your inventory is, in general, the more effective you are.  It also keeps games much more balanced and makes comebacks more likely because that carry may have items, that while much better than yours, aren't nearly as cost effective as yours.

So anyway, every anti-invis item all take up an important inventory slot that you could have been using for something else more important.

Dust, the cheapest anti-invis alternative, costs 180 gold, and comes with 2 charges.  It reveals invis when used in a wide area around you, however the effect wears off quickly.  If the invis hero can evade you until it wears off, he can escape.  It also has a huge cooldown (60 seconds), so you can only use it once in a battle.  This means multiple people on your team might need to carry dust in order to counter the invis hero, wasting multiple item spots.

Sentry Wards are expensive, and also take up an item spot.  They are stationary meaning the enemy can walk out of range and be gone.  They are my personal favorite counter because unlike dust, you have the opportunity to catch the invis hero by surprise if he walks in range (proactively), instead of using it after he attacks like dust (reactively).  These are my anti-invis item of choice.

Gems cost 750 gold, and they basically work like Oracles.  However, there's a huge drawback:  If the hero holding the Gem dies, it drops on the ground.  The enemy team can kill your gem, or even pick it up and use it against you!  Also takes up an inventory spot unlike oracles.

Necronomican level 3 is another counter, but it costs quit a bit of gold, and has a cooldown twice the length of its duration.  The minions can be killed and to use it correctly requires quite a bit of micro.

So you see, every anti-invis item in DotA has some major drawback.  Aside from the small gold cost, what is the drawback to Oracles?  I don't know how invis heroes are now in LoL, but when I played they were useless.  If you want to talk to 1 company about improving the quality of game for invis characters, it's most likely Riot

I'll discuss MF and Kat vs. Potm and WR in my next post.  Thanks for the discussion btw, I hope I haven't upset anyone.

[keith.lamothe]

the upcoming "The International 2" Tournament hosted by Valve.

Ooh, looking forward to that (checks, marks mental calendar for August 31st through Sept. 2nd).  The live feeds of the first Dota2 International was my first exposure to MOBA gameplay, and it made me pretty enthusiastic about the genre and I played League for a while.  Don't play it anymore (combination of lack of time and other factors), but I'll certainly watch the Dota2 tournament with interest.