1. Warding -
It's true that supports in DotA spend quite a bit of time warding. Once every six minutes (assuming you're perfect, which most of the time isn't possible). However, I certainly wouldn't call it
boring. My girlfriend (who plays primarily support) has died so many times warding that she gets frustrated when she has to do it. Warding in DotA is often very dangerous as the ward hotspots are also typically near the runes, which are extremely active areas of the map, especially during the mid-game. Warding can lead to a sudden and unexpected death. Good players can even lie in waiting just for a support to come.
You're right though, when a support goes alone, it's typically a death sentence if they get caught out. That's why you take an escort. It's something my girlfriend has learned to do. She asks someone to go with her. She can even turn a potential gank attempt into a kill. This is where the strategies and mindgames come in. The enemy knows you need to ward. They know having vision of the wards/forest entrances are important. Do they wait in ambush? You expect that they will, so you send an escort for your support warder. Do you use your support as bait to draw out the predator and kill them? What if the enemy expects a trap and sends multiple heroes to do the job. What if you expect this and your whole team is waiting just behind the fog?
These are the kinds of mind games that warding often plays in DotA. Then you also get into counter-warding, counter-counter-warding, smoke ganking (which avoids wards altogether), and everything in-between. In mid to high level play, it can get complicated; but the team which controls the ward vision has a massive advantage that can't be understated.
I agree that it is a big responsibility on the supports, but that doesn't mean that other people can't help them. I try to buy wards whenever I can, regardless of what role I play. I've been on a jungle kick lately, and I usually buy a least a couple set of wards throughout the game. Especially early on, when I'm still weak, I'd rather have control of where they are placed so that when they attempt to gank me I know well in advance. Sometimes you can ask for help if you're way behind on items. Believe it or not, going Hand of Midas on supports has become a popular strategy in professional play lately, and it helps them out tremendously in the long run to buy the things they need, plus also get some luxury items as well.
2. Items -
In general DotA does items much better than does League of Legends. Perhaps it's the fact that most heroes have multiple build paths, or that a large percentage of the items are activatable, or that there's simply a bigger variety of things to build. Mostly however, I think it's the way both DotA and LoL handle items. In LoL, items scale up, while in DotA, items scale down. This means that in LoL, the farther ahead you get (in farm), the more exponential an advantage you'll have over your opponent. In DotA it's just the opposite. The cheaper the item, the more cost effective. This means that even if an opponent has significantly more farm than you do, your items stand a much better chance of competing with his. The more he has spent on any particular item, the less it was worth, cost-effectiveness wise. This allows even supports to buy cheaper items (Urn of Shadows, Medallion of Courage, Magic Wand) that can still make a BIG difference in battle while still being able to afford the mainstream support stuff.
3. Denying -
I'm really pretty neutral on denying. I could take it or leave it. I've seen good arguments on both sides. I highly recommend reading this
article about it by [S2]Nome. Against it is certainly the fact that it's a non-intuitive mechanic. I hate it when games add non-intuitive mechanics for no reason. Sometimes it's necessary but in this case I feel like it just adds unneeded complexity. However, there are some positives to it as well. It raises the skill gap in the laning phase. In LoL you can harass or last hit. In DotA, you can harass, last hit, or deny. You've increased the potential options/skill ceiling by 33% for each player. It also gives supports something to do, as they are typically expected to deny instead of taking last hits.
In DotA, some heroes are better at harassing, and some heroes are better at last hitting/denying. Often, the winner of a lane (say mid lane) comes from a player's ability to deny vs an enemy's ability to kill them. If a person can deny the "lethal" champion enough, it will cause him to be underleveled/underfarmed to such an extent that he loses quite a bit of his killing power. Conversely, if the aggressive champion can get ahead on kills, the last-hitter can be put in a very difficult position.
Like I said, it's a frustrating mechanic, but it certainly adds depth to the game, at a cost. I simply attempt to avoid it by playing lanes/roles that don't require it much to succeed, and there are plenty of those.
4. Stacking/pulling -
It's not difficult to do, but the strategy appears when the enemy comes to stop you. People don't like their creep waves being pulled, it robs them of a substantial amount of farm and exp. They will stop you if they can, which often causes dangerous fights to break out. Typically though you have the advantage since these fights are close to your tower, and in your jungle.
5. Ganking -
I didn't say that it doesn't work in other games. I said it doesn't work in LoL. As a support, leaving your lane to go gank mid during the laning phase seems extremely unlikely to work. If the enemy calls their lane it should be extremely obvious what's happening. Not to mention that every second you leave your carry is
guaranteed to hurt you in the long run. Even if you secure the mid kill, for example, you may have lost even more by the time you get back to the lane.
In DotA it's so much more viable to gank. You've got teleports to be at mid or top lane almost instantly. Can you imagine a support leaving bot lane to help top in LoL? It's just too insane to consider. You've also got smoke at your disposal, which literally cloaks you to all enemy vision now, even see-invis wards. It also gives you a boost of 15% movespeed, and it lasts for 60 seconds. It only ends once you are very close to an enemy hero or tower. With a tool like this, you have ganking opportunities that a LoL player couldn't even DREAM of, and it only costs 100 gold. Not only that, but even if you just walk mid from bottom lane, there's a much higher chance of a successful gank. Supports are often missing from the lane anyway because they may be pulling, warding, or doing any number of things. Ability ranges are also much longer in DotA, stuns are more common, and there is no flash. It's not hard to coordinate a successful gank on mid if you work together, even without paying for a consumable to make it work.
I've had two games recently with two different friends who were playing mid. My friends are good players so they were successfully dominating the mid lane. In both games, the enemy team saw that they were a problem, and through a series of coordinated ganks with supports, killed my friends at mid over, and over, and over again until they had lost most their farm and were neutered as hell. They were effectively camping mid with their supports, waiting for the right opportunity to strike, then taking them down before they got out of hand. It goes without saying that a mid that gets super ahead in DotA is extremely potent.
I'm not saying this isn't possible in LoL. It's just with over a thousand games of experience, I've never seen anything like it. Sure, you have the teleport summoner spell, it's just not that viable on supports and has a considerably longer cooldown than in DotA. DotA ganking in general is just more effective. You have more approach paths (including ones you can
make yourself by cutting down trees), more mobility, and more accessibility to every lane. There is no flash to ruin ganks regularly, and more stuns to set them up correctly if the opponent is out of position. Tower diving is much, much more viable, which allows for some crazy gank attempts that can sometimes break out into entire teamfights because of scroll of teleport.
6. Laning -
As I said before, if traditional DotA laning bores you, don't do it. After playing the game for over 10 years, it bores me a bit too as well. My friends and I rarely do traditional laning anymore. Most often we create some kind of obnoxious lane combination that "breaks" the game. (We like to call these "gay lanes", however immature that may be.) Find a friend that you synergize well with and pick a powerful kill lane. You say fighting and killing is rare in DotA lanes, but I assure you, with Lina + Sand King, killing is not rare at all. With CM + Juggernaught you will be killing your opponent(s) over and over again. Sure, they may leave the lane (or leave the game) because they're tired of dying, but you can't possibly complain about that. As I said last time, Leshrac + Keeper of the Light is a
blast. We often get complained at because "you're taking two supports bottom lane waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". Then when we start melting towers like faces, people change their tune. In DotA is a game for innovators. If you try to play traditionally, people who have played more are going to beat you by experience. Don't play their game, force them to play yours. Find your group's favorite heroes and make them work together.
I knew that my cousin likes Skywrath Mage, Dazzle, and Bristleback. Those are 3 of his favorites. I like Leshrac, Slardar, and Pugna.
So? We put them together and were amazed with the results.
Dazzle and
Slardar wasn't difficult to figure out. It's a combination sometimes even used in competitive play. Powerful in the lane but even more powerful late game. Both heroes have anti-armor ultimates. Combined, they can bring an enemy to -60 armor or more. This means that, in essence, a carry could feasibly kill an enemy player from full health in one hit. Both of their ultimates go through magic immunity...
Bristleback +
Leshrac has turned out to be the nastiest, most disgusting, most overpowered lane we've ever devised in 10 years. Early on in the laning phase, Bristlebacks stacking slow makes landing my "skillshot stun" easy, and we can often secure a within the first minute of the game. The laning phase often snowballs and we can take a tower fairly quickly if necessary. However, where the combination really shines is during the teamfight phase. Bristleback is well known as one of the most powerful tanks in the game. Hit from behind (his bristleback), he takes 40% reduced damage and retaliates with a free spray of quills in a large area. This in addition to the skill that does the same allows him to spread physical damage in a large area over a large period of time. Each time an enemy is hit by these quills, they become even more vulnerable to the next, til they get to the point that each new quill is taking an 1/8th of their health or more. Enter Leshrac, whose Pulse Nova deals hundreds of magical damage in a large area every second as long as he has mana (think Karthus Defile, except much stronger). Normally Leshrac is vulnerable when using this ability because he's a squishy intelligence hero, but with Bristleback to tank and draw the fire, it becomes much easier. With the massive amount of magic and physical aoe damage that we're both throwing out, we can kill entire teams in seconds. 2v5, we've done it many times. We have never lost with this combination. Our team can be sleeping and we still win. Nobody ever expects and it never lets up.
Pugna +
Skywrath Mage is one of the most hilarious troll lanes EVER. Both Pugna and Skywrath have an ability which reduces an enemy's magic resistance quite considerably. They both also have slows. They both also do a buttload of magic damage. Basically, you hit 3, pick a target, and watch them die. Everything melts. It's the most unorthodox, most unexpected, most hilarious face melting lane we've ever devised. NOBODY expects it. It goes against every unwritten rule that DotA players adhere to. Taking 2 solo mid laners and putting them bot together should end in disaster; and it does - just not for the right team
You just have to experiment a bit and practice until you find unorthodox lanes that destroy everything and which nobody expects. That's when laning in DotA becomes a lot of fun.
7. Last hitting -
Like I said, I agree with this. It's a boring mechanic and has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of grand strategy or critical thinking the rest of the game requires. I almost look at it as a kind of 'mini-game within the game', because somebody can be completely horrible at it, yet still be good at the rest of the game. Conversely, someone can be extremely good at last hitting, and horrible at everything else. It's a skill that doesn't really translate to the rest of the game, but as far as I know, all the popular MOBAs use it. Having said that, removing or reinventing it is not as easy as one would think. Nome started an interesting discussion about this a few years ago. At some point, he and his team of designers went about trying dozens of different alternatives to last hitting inside of their own 3rd party MOBA game. They tried everything. They tried gold simply dropping on the ground, spreading gold and exp equally among everyone in the lane, creating different resources for different creep, even removing the mechanic entirely. In the end, no matter what they tried, all the mechanics ended up as inferior to the simple last-hitting mechanic the game was built around.
I believe the next generation of ARTS games are planning to change this formula however. Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard DotA) and S2's new game Strife are removing or revamping this mechanic completely, from what I've read. I'll be greatly anticipating both.
