Moba balance comparison, please comment

[Wingflier]

Thanks ;preplying with comments like "that last picture wasn't necessary" and "somebody looks sick".

[size=78%]It didn't even look like she was posing or anything[/size]

Some disagree with you. Anyway, just giving you an idea of how it may come across.

I guess we can only look at things from our perspective. If I were girlfriendless and somebody made a similar gallery I certainly wouldn't be bothered by it. Then again I know what the average DotA player is like so I guess I shouldn't be as surprised as I was.

[Misery]

By the way, since I haven't played Dota 2 enough, and haven't played LoL since FOREVER, how do abilities scale in those games? As I understand it Abilities (spells) are static in LoL and scale only be leveling them up and by buying items with "ability power" on them, am I correct? Are abilities in Dota 2 completely static and level only by leveling them up?
 
In Smite it works by splitting all gods (champs) into two categories: Magical and Physical. They deal and scale off their respective damage types. Magical users are generally Guardians (tanks) and pure casters, while physical users are Assassins, Hunters (ADC) and Warriors (Bruisers). Now the difference from at least LoL is that all your abilities have a base amount of stats that may either be completely static regardless of level (such as a slow, for instance. It's 20% and doesn't scale at all), or scales with level. So an ability might start off at 100 damage and scale up with level up to say 800 at level 5 (max ability level). In addition most abilites have "scaling" that adds a certain percentage from your physical/magical power stat. Abilities can never crit. Only autoattacks.
 
So as an example a physical character generally lives off of their auto attacks for damage and use their abilities for utility, CC, support, mobility etc. Some exceptions exist such as Loki who generally deals insane physical burst damage in a short time span with his abilities and finish off with AA.
 
Magic users tend to be for more bursty and almost all of their damage comes from their abilites, and as such, their abilities generally scale better compared to physical characters.
 
Naturally, there are several exceptions to this rule. Nu Wa, Zeus and Chronos are examples of very AA-centric mages and Thor, Loki and Hercules are very ability-focused physical fighters.
 

Unchained Key Bind: 1
Fenrir leaps forward, dealing damage to all enemies when he lands. At full runes, the leap stuns the enemies hit. If the leap hits a god, the cooldown is halved.

Ability: Line
Affects: Enemy
Damage: Physical
Damage: 95 / 155 / 215 / 275 / 335 (+80% of your physical power)
Stun: 1s Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85
Cooldown: 15s

That's a typical example of a physical ability. 80% scaling is HUGE for a physical ability and most tend to hover around 50-60% if they are good. Magic abilities are often around 70-80% and in addition; magic power tends to scale a lot more into the end game. A fully built physical carry may have 200-240 physical power by the end game, while a nuke-built mage may be around 600-650 magical power.

In DotA, abilities typically don't scale with items, unless you include Aghanim's Scepter.  A physical carry's abilities indirectly levels up with items, but not in a literal sense (in other words, if you have an ability giving you 100% extra attack speed, the more damage you build, the more effective that will be).

However, DotA is balanced in this fashion, and I think it allows for much more diversity and individualism among heroes than at least League of Legends.

Why?

Because by making it so that abilities don't directly scale with items, you can have a huge impact on at what time in the game each hero is the most powerful. The problem with League of Legends, at least in my experience, is that basically any champion can carry. Given enough farm, it doesn't matter if they deal AP or AD, they can do insane amounts of damage. Yet, to counter-balance this design philosophy, all heroes typically have to be nerfed to some extent.

In DotA, it's exactly the opposite. If you're a magic dealer, you WILL fall off after a certain point. It doesn't matter how much farm you have, or how many levels ahead you are, your abilities don't scale that well, and you'll eventually be defeated by heroes who do.

So why is this important? Because you can dictate at which time any given hero peaks within the game. Intelligence heroes are the most powerful early on in DotA. That's because, in spite of the fact that their abilities don't scale with items that well, they scale regularly (through levels) incredibly well.  With often just 1 point in these abilities, you have a massive advantage of your lategame carry counterparts. With 4 points in these abilities, you can often kill them from full health to zero early to mid game. Strength heroes typically peak and are most effective in the mid game. Agility heroes are usually the most powerful in the late game.

So what's so awesome about this particular system is that you can build a team to focus on a particular part of the game. Do you want to win in the lategame? Pick a team of carries with a couple supports. Want to win the midgame? Pick some good strength initiators and some soft carries to demolish the enemy when your team "peaks". Want to be decent all game long? Build a balanced team of INT, STR, and AGI heroes. Having options like this (the ability to dominate a certain point of the game) is something that simply isn't possible in MOBAs like LoL in my experience. When basically every hero can be powerful at any point of the game, it actually takes away from the potential options your team has to succeed.

People who call DotA a "game of carries", calling carries overpowered and impossible to defeat because they always win in the lategame and casters don't scale blah blah blah, simply don't understand DotA. A full team of casters (so no carries whatsoever) is EXTREMELY powerful, and can win you the game within the first 20 minutes. Don't believe me? Look at the statistics. Of all team compositions in DotA, this is the most effective statistically speaking. This is because intelligence heroes are able to use their early game dominance to shut down the other team so hard that they can't recover before the game ends. Unfortunately, team compositions like this simply aren't possible in any of the other MOBA designs I've seen.

Hmmm, I have to say, in other games of this sort, it usually actually doesnt work this way.

The reason:  You can modify stats with items all you want, but the STARTING stats will always be what they are, and the character's skillset will remain what it is no matter what.  If a character is built up for, say, jungling, with starting stats and a skillset to match, then yes, you COULD modify them with specific items to knock them into a different role, but.... chances are, you'll be playing a very mediocre version of that role, since the character is totally geared towards the jungling role.  Wheras if you take that same jungler, and focus on stuff for jungling, you have a powerful jungler.

And Dota's lack of heroes being able to do multiple roles very well can make for some trouble in and of itself as well.   For example, I really dont like playing mid.  Not one bit.  At all.  Wont do it.  What this essentially means, is that there are certain heroes I will *never* use, ever, because they're pretty much JUST for that one role, and tend to blow goat chunks in any other role.   Characters in LoL or other games I'm familiar with generally actually ARENT good in every single role, usually it's more like 2 possible good ones, but what this means is that there really arent many that are good for ONLY one thing.  It also means that if there's a character I really like using, but the usual role I like to use them in is taken by someone else, chances are I've got one other possible role that they could work well in.  I dont have to limit my choices this way.

Same goes with the "characters in other games are powerful all the time, they dont fall off".  This is only true if you're stacking a ton of ability power items.... and if you're absurdly focused on just that stat, you're probably going to be dead really often. 


All of this of course is very dependant on the individual game.   I'm familiar with quite a bunch of these games by now, and all of this varies alot from one to the other. 

In the end though, I personally dont find any specific approach to this to be better/worse than any other.... it ends up just being about personal preference.  Or in my case, what mood I happen to be in.  As always, I still have a bloody hard time deciding which game in this genre I like most.   Which is fine by me, really....

[Mánagarmr]

Smite is extremely flexible that way. Sometimes you have teams where you have no idea at all who is going to end up in which lane. You have mages that play support, you have tanks that jungle, tanks that solo, bruisers who support, assassins that mid...You never ever know.

[Wingflier]

Hey guys, since a lot of us here are MOBA players, I was thinking of a fun activity. I've never played SMITE and I haven't kept up with the latest LoL heroes, so I a fun/interesting activity would be for all of us to list our favorite 3 heroes, explain why they are so fun, what's unique about them, what they add to the team/game, and why you feel that their design is fantastic. I think it will be an entertaining project for each of us, and also hopefully help us learn more about the other games. Adding a link to the hero would be nice too so others can look up more information about it if they desire.

This is difficult for me because my "favorite 3 heroes" is constantly changing based on whatever mood I'm in, but these are my current favorites (at least for this week )

1. Pugna
Role: Anti-caster, pusher, aoe nuker.
Unique attributes: Pugna is a fantastic anti-caster with his unique ability, Nether Ward. In my opinion this is the most interesting and unique thing about him (but by far not the only one). Nether Ward, once placed, deals damage to enemies in a huge radius each time they use mana, based on how much mana they used. As you can probably guess, this means that the more mana your opponent(s) use, the more they damage themselves. This makes Pugna a wonderful counter to caster or mana-based teams. Every time a fight breaks out, the enemy caster must decide whether to cast their spells and badly damage themselves, or wait until the Nether Ward is destroyed and/or they are out of its radius of effect. The reason I like this skill so much is because it's so unique to the genre. The enemy player has to make the precarious decision on whether hurting themselves is worth the cost of destroying the enemy. I've always liked this type of mechanic ever since the Mesmer class of Guild Wars 1. It's a sort of psychological warfare that you rarely see in competitive multiplayer games.

His other super unique ability is his ultimate, the aptly named Life Drain. Life Drain is simple, it continually drains life from an opponent each second until the opponent walks out of range or you become stun/silenced. It is unique however, on Pugna. Pugna is one of the squishiest heroes in the game, with an abysmal strength and armor gain. It is quite common to be killed from full health to nil before a single disable even ends. However, are you to survive long enough to react, and if the correct situation presents itself, you can literally steal health from a single opponent *faster* than the enemy team can even kill you. It's one of the most risky/hilarious abilities I've ever seen in the competitive gaming world.

Strengths:Great pushing power. Has one of the only magical nukes in the game that also deals damage to towers. Lots of AoE damage in team fights between his nuke and his Nether Ward. Can prevent a unit from attacking and being attacked, while also amplifying their magic damage taken for several seconds. This can be used to hinder enemies or save allies (or nuke somebody into freaking oblivion). His ult can make him very "tanky" in the right situation.

Weaknesses:Very situational. Not as great against teams without casters. Extremely squishy. Needs decent farm to succeed. Ultimate easy to interrupt. Nether Ward can be killed. His Banish skill which makes a target unattackable for several seconds can actually hurt your team more than help if used incorrectly.

Phew, that was longer than I expected. I guess I'll start with one and let other people do some of theirs before I continue.

[Mánagarmr]

Right sure, here's mine then. Obviously Smite champions (gods).



1. Kali
Role: Assassin (single target nuker, melee carry)
Unique attributes: Kali is a hypercarry meaning that her early game is absolutely abysmal and needs a lot of farm before she can start getting useful. She's your typical jungler, or ganker/initiator in Arena/Joust. Kali is extremely strong in 1v1 and there are few gods that have the stamina, defense and damage to stand up to her if she catches you.


What is so unique about Kali is her passive: A random opposing god is chosen and "Marked for Death". Kali gets added physical penetration (reduces enemy defenses) against her target, and if she lands the killing blow on the target she heals for 80% of her maximum health and recieves a 25% gold bonus for that kill. This makes her insanely good for tower diving and for taking out enemy carries, nukers and mages (provided they are her target of course). Targets change if Kali is slain (changes to the god that got killing blow on her) or if her target dies for whatever reason.


In addition, Kali's ultimate renders her immortal for 5 seconds. She can be reduced to 1 HP and stunned. She is however completely immune to all other forms of CC and cannot die until her ultimate ends. This in combination with her passive makes her even more excellent at diving towers. She can go in, regardless of HP levels, pop her ultimate and burst her target down, instantly healing for 80% of her HP, and get out ready to gank her next target.


Strengths: A skillset that matches her role extremely well. All abilites are useful in one way or another; A closing/healing jump/escape, a ranged bleed for finishing targets, or giving her lifesteal against a sturdier target, an AoE stun with a physical power buff, and her insane combo of ultimate+passive. She absolutely SHREDS even tanky targets due to her wicked penetration. Her hit progression of 1x, 0.5x, 0.5x leaves her with the ability of really utilizing "on hit" effects since these are not diminished by the half duration/half damage swings. With attack speed, she becomes a literal blender of death. End game there is nothing that stands up to a Kali 1v1 unless they utilize a lot of survivability items or have oodles of CC.


Weakness: One of the worst early games in the entire game. She is weak, slow and has apalling attack speed early game. She's extremely reliant on her team mates and on good farm in the jungle early on. In solo lane (short lane) she holds up better due to having decent clear, but she must absolutely get Hand of the Gods (an aoe damage item that damages only minions) to manage early game. Her poke is also pretty bad as her only ranged ability are her thrown blades that are difficult to aim and don't really do substantial enough damage. She's easily avoided if the team is warding well and have CC prepared for when she ults.  Squishy if focused, since she barely ever builds defense.





2. Anubis
Role: Magical assassin, zoner
Unique attributes: Anubis is the epitome of magical burst damage. Get caught in his stun and you are lucky if you live by the time it's over. Anubis abilities are incredibly powerful and rivals most other mages in raw damage output. Every single one of his abilities are DoTs (damage over time) and every tick of damage steals magical protection from the target and buffs Anubis for a few seconds. This makes items that stack damage or stack penetration very good on Anubis, and he's often seen with a penetration and lifesteal heavy build to utilize his passive to the fullest.


Strengths: Absolutely insane damage output. Even without his ultimate, Anubis can kill most other gods with his abilities alone during a single stun (2 seconds at max rank). His combo usually consists of putting his 3 (Grasping Hands, groundbased AOE) under their feet, instantly stunning them with 2 and use his 1 to finish them while they are stunned in his AoE. If his ultimate is up, he uses that and he's more or less guaranteed a kill unless the target is super fed or super tanky.


Weakness: Anubis' two main damaging abilities root him in place while he channels them. This makes him very poor for mobility and team fights as he is easily focused down and easy to hit when he's rooting himself. He's very reliant on hitting his stun for maximum damage as players usually run away from his ground AoE, and thus also his 1 while he's channeling them, if he misses his stun. He's also hard countered by either Aegis (2 second invulnerability) or Purification Beads (clears all CC and makes you immune to new sources of CC for a few seconds) as both negate him his stun+damage combo. Without his abilities Anubis is pitiful and his basic attacks are very slow and hit for very low numbers even late game. His ultimate is easily dodged unless you are stunned or rooted, as it's a very narrow channeled ability.



3. Chang'e
Role: Magical bruiser, support mage, initiator, healer.
Strengths: Chang'e is almost ungankable. Every single one of her abilities grant her a +25% move speed buff for 1 second when used, and her 2 (Moonlit Waltz) renders her completely invulnerable for 1 second, in addition to restoring mana for each hit taken, and in addition to the move speed buff. She lacks the powerful heals of Aphrodite and Hel, but seeing as she is so mobile, agile and deals so much damage on low cooldowns, she makes for an absolute menace in team fights. Dancing in and out of the battle, applying damage to everyone near her, debuffs their healing and heals her team mates she is an absolute nightmare. Her ultimate is borderline broken as it's a wide forward skillshot that will stun everyone hit by it and do a ton of damage late game. Every god is stunned for 1 second + 1 second for every god stunned prior. If you hit their entire team, the last poor bastard hit will sit there helpless for FIVE seconds. Anyone who plays MOBAs knows that 5 seconds is an eternity. Especially so in such a fast paced game as Smite.


In addition, her Jade Rabbit can go back to the Well and buy items for her, similar to the Courier in games such as DotA. She is unique to have such an ability in Smite. Granted, the Rabbit can only buy one item at a time, and only one level of said item. But this gives her unprecendented lane presense as she, quite literally, never needs to go out of the lane.


Weakness: Chang'e really doesn't have many glaring weaknesses. She is not a pure support mage due to lacking any kind of buffs or pure support abilities. Her heals are more a sustain tool than a really powerful team fightning ability. If used in solo or mid, her clear is absolutely monstrous after a few levels as her 1, a cone shaped sweeping attack, can hit an entire minion wave, including the opposing god, if placed correctly. If ganked, she can simply become invulnerable, drop a stun of doom on the jungler and just dance out of the lane, laughing all the way.


These are my current favourite gods in Smite. Kali because she just destroys people late game and fits comfortably either in solo lane as a bruiser or jungle as pure ganker. Anubis because he's just freaking AMAZINGLY fun to play in addition to having one of the sexiest skins in the game (Stargate Anubis <3). Anubis is also extremely flexible in casual games and can go mid, solo, jungle or even support. He's rarely seen as support due to his lack of support abilities, but the damage he can put out makes him + ADC a really scary proposition to go up against.


Chang'e is a recent love of mine after I've seen her played successfully by streamers and in tournaments. She has a great kit albeit a bit hard to learn how to utilize to max. Her ultimate is an AMAZING initiator. Find a good spot to launch that into the enemy team, pop your active Heavenly Agility (gives everyone 40% speed boost for 5 seconds) and just lead your team mates into a fight where the enemy team is ill equipped to fight. She's just borderline broken, but still not so overpowered that you feel dirty for playing her. She can be shut down, but the team needs to work together and be familiar with her playstyle, or she will absolutely wreck your day.

[Mánagarmr]

Pugna sounds somewhat broken if he's laned up against a caster. Drop that Nether Ward and have free poke forever. I'm guessing it's just my limited understanding of DotA that makes me think that way though. Otherwise the concept of mana burn is a cool one and not something that has made its way into Smite yet. The most we have are reflective spells or reflective armor yet.

[Wingflier]

Sorry for not responding sooner, the last few days have been SUPER FREAKIN BUSY!

Kali sounds really interesting, I like her style. "All or nothing" is often one of my favorite design philosophies. It sounds like the player using Kali has to be really careful early on, only engaging when they know they have an advantage, or when they have a powerful ally helping them. However, if she can make it to the mid-late game, she can wreck people in the right situation. I'm not sure how to feel about the random "Marked for Death" mechanic, but it would probably be too powerful if you could choose your target for it. Actually I think I really like that. She's basically got Tryndamere's ult from LoL, which is fine I guess, it's a pretty common ability in all 3 games appearing in various ways. Very cool.

Anubis is also neat. I was surprised how he could kill someone from full to zero in one combo. I didn't expect that kind of lethality in SMITE. One of the main complaints of LoL players is that DotA is too lethal, in that a single hero can kill you from full to dead even early on, where in LoL this is much more difficult without the help of teammates (especially with mechanics like Flash). It's nice to see that SMITE made it possible to do this. His squishiness and lack of escape mechanism seems to be the balancing mechanism for this guy, pretty awesome. Also the "Aegis" item, wow! Impressive thing to put into the game.

Chang'e sounds cool as well. Jack-of-all trades, master of none? I also like her ult, the wide, positionally-based stun that is more effective the more people you hit. Sounds like a great initiation ability or a way to turn teamfights around dramatically. I also like how you say she "dances" in and out of battle. I guess I'd have to play the game to actually understand that but it sounds cool.

I definitely have a lot more respect for SMITE after I read about some of its heroes and design philosophies.

Concerning Pugna, Nether Ward isn't particularly broken in the lane, in fact it's usually not even used there. Unlike in LoL (or SMITE it sounds like), a player doesn't typically need to use spells in the lane to survive or do well. A person can last hit simply using their autoattack and still rack up a lot of gold and denies. Spells can sometimes be using for clearing or harassing the enemy, but are not generally necessary for killing minions of you are good at last hitting. In addition, Nether Ward has a period of time between when it ends and when the cooldown comes off, that it no longer exists. (Maybe 15 seconds?) So the opponent can simply use their spells during this time. Also, it becomes much more powerful each level, it's not nearly as strong at level 1 as it would be level 4. Typically, you're much better off leveling your nuke early on for pushing or harassing purposes, or to guard against a heavy push lineup. His aoe nuke is simply an amazing ability.

[Misery]

Pugna sounds somewhat broken if he's laned up against a caster. Drop that Nether Ward and have free poke forever. I'm guessing it's just my limited understanding of DotA that makes me think that way though. Otherwise the concept of mana burn is a cool one and not something that has made its way into Smite yet. The most we have are reflective spells or reflective armor yet.

Nah, he's not broken.  He can be pretty effective when you know how to use him, and has one of the very few spells that's capable of damaging enemy towers/structures.... most spells (nearly all of them) that do damage cannot damage structures of any type, which seems to be the case in most Mobas. 

Pugna is tough to use though.  The Nether Ward can simply be smashed if the opponent knows where it is, Pugna himself tends to have little health, and his ultimate is a channeled spell, which obviously comes with plenty of risk like any channeled spell does. Not to mention that the ward is mostly to counter casters.... it'll do little against enemy carries or anyone not using spells very much.  It only takes 3 hits from any type of attack by a hero to destroy it.  One plus though is it also fires when items are activated.  Definitely a strong ability.  But yeah.... he's so squishy.... and that ultimate is very situational.  If an enemy carry gets too close, he can go splat very, very fast.

He's fun though.


Now..... let's see.... if I had to chose my 3 current favorites....


1.  Zeri, from Dawngate

Ok, it didn't take too long for this one to become my current favorite.  She's a support character, but not quite the usual type.  Firstly, she can actually take some hits without immediately melting.  Secondly, her abilities can do some decent damage, particularly if you build her offensively. Thirdly, her special trait is that she has no mana bar.... all of her abilities simply cost nothing. 

Her abilities are good too.  There's a basic ranged AoE that does damage and slows, a very versatile ability that's great for constant poking, which is something she's excellent at, there's also a good basic silence spell, and an ultimate that shields/heals a teammate (or herself) while putting this sorta whirlwind-looking aura around them that causes them to constantly suck mana out of anyone close enough.  But most interesting is her other spell.   She can target an ally and send this butterfly thing to basically just stick to them for a really long period, and what it does is that it gives them a bonus to all of their stats that are based on a percentage of hers.  Which means that YOUR build can affect your teammate that you're targeting, which can be.... interesting.  The butterfly can be retargeted at any time. 

Also, her weapon is paint.  I figure it's probably pretty embarrassing to be defeated by someone who is attacking you by throwing blobs of colorful paint at you, as opposed to swords or lasers or something.   She can be built up rather tanky or offensively, but her best role is still a sort of aggressive, poke-tastic support.


2. Dazzle, from Dota

Ahhh, this one is fun.  What really gets me about this guy is his ultimate.  Love it.   Does something different based on who it hits.... if it hits an ally, it gives them armor.  If it hits an enemy, it takes away armor.  It does this not all at once, but over the course of a few seconds.  Lasts about 20 seconds, which is basically a million years in this game.  Hits a really massive size area in an AoE, and is ranged, it doesnt just fire with him as the center or something.  Fires instantly and is very easy to land properly.

There's also Shallow Grave, which is a very unique ability.  All it does is make it's target utterly unkillable for 5 seconds.  They can still be damaged.... but they cannot die. It's a difficult spell to use properly, as while it's extremely effective and useful, knowing when to use it and who to use it on isnt always so simple.

His other abilities are good too;  a nice simple but useful slow, which is pretty strong, and a funky heal that will chain to targets near whoever you cast it on.  This includes enemies, but when it chains to them it'll deal damage instead.  It's pretty hilarious to get a kill with what is mainly used as a simple healing spell.


3.  Soraka, from LoL.

Yeah, I tried to think of a character that WASNT a support type, and I couldnt think of any.... my favorites are all that role.  I do that role alot, mainly so that someone is doing that role, haha.  I figure, if I want it done right (or at all) I'll bloody well do it myself.  It works out well anyway.... I'm best in a defensive role in these games because of my reaction speed and the speed at which I process everything that's happening all at once.   Typically, I'm not easy to kill and will very often dodge or warp or whatever out of the way of incoming attacks, or hit allies with shields/heals/stuff as a spell comes at them, or do other more complicated things.  So, support is my most common role.


Soraka in particular is.... simple.  She's a healer.  That's what she does.  And she's GOOD at it.

Oh, she can do some damage with her funky starfall skill or whatever it's called, which hits every target nearby instantly, doing damage and lowering their armor/resistance (I forget which), and also has a super-low cooldown, and stacks.... but while that spell is good, it's her others that make her useful. She's got a basic heal, which is a pretty good one, she has another spell that refills the target's mana instead of health, and can be used on enemies to silence them instead, and also a team heal, which has global range and hits the whole team, firing instantly, even hitting teammates that are untargetable for whatever reason.

In other words, she keeps her allies alive (usually sticking near the carry the entire time in my case) while being REALLY IRRITATING.   Taking the Summoner Spells that heal and refill mana to everyone nearby just makes her even more annoying to deal with.

[Wingflier]

1.  Zeri, from Dawngate

How is Dawngate by the way? I haven't heard anything about it.

2. Dazzle, from Dota

Ahhh, this one is fun.  What really gets me about this guy is his ultimate.  Love it.   Does something different based on who it hits.... if it hits an ally, it gives them armor.  If it hits an enemy, it takes away armor.  It does this not all at once, but over the course of a few seconds.  Lasts about 20 seconds, which is basically a million years in this game.  Hits a really massive size area in an AoE, and is ranged, it doesnt just fire with him as the center or something.  Fires instantly and is very easy to land properly.

There's also Shallow Grave, which is a very unique ability.  All it does is make it's target utterly unkillable for 5 seconds.  They can still be damaged.... but they cannot die. It's a difficult spell to use properly, as while it's extremely effective and useful, knowing when to use it and who to use it on isnt always so simple.

His other abilities are good too;  a nice simple but useful slow, which is pretty strong, and a funky heal that will chain to targets near whoever you cast it on.  This includes enemies, but when it chains to them it'll deal damage instead.  It's pretty hilarious to get a kill with what is mainly used as a simple healing spell.

Dazzle is surprisingly underused considering how great of a hero he is. His ultimate can change entire team fights if it lasts long enough. It's situational but still amazing if used right.

Slardar + Dazzle is one of the most amazing lane combos in my opinion. It's pretty strong in the lane but even more powerful as the game goes on. With Slardar's single target armor reduction and Dazzle's massive aoe armor reduction, you can bring even the toughest, hardened enemies to their knees.

Dazzle's shallow grave, which is a REGULAR SKILL that gives the target a 5 second immunity from DEATH is incredible, but sometimes difficult to time. Also, I feel like you're underrating his slow. Not only is it a slow, but at level 4 a double stun. I consider it one of the best single target disables in the game, the projectile is nearly instant and basically impossible to dodge.

[Cyborg]

Dawngate assumes their audience has never held a mouse or played a game in their life.
http://www.waystonegames.com/#/mediaGallery


To attack, right-click your enemy and you will perform a melee or ranged attack depending on... whether you are melee or ranged.
Move your mouse to the edge of the screen and your camera will move.

My mind is blown.

Thank you for treating your customer like we haven't seen a computer since the early 80s. I actually insta-closed that website. Completely turned off. How good can a game be if we are still working on how to move the mouse?

[Wingflier]

Holy cow, its art style looks just like League of Legends.

[Misery]

Dawngate assumes their audience has never held a mouse or played a game in their life.
http://www.waystonegames.com/#/mediaGallery


To attack, right-click your enemy and you will perform a melee or ranged attack depending on... whether you are melee or ranged.
Move your mouse to the edge of the screen and your camera will move.

My mind is blown.

Thank you for treating your customer like we haven't seen a computer since the early 80s. I actually insta-closed that website. Completely turned off. How good can a game be if we are still working on how to move the mouse?

Sadly, at this point, I think it's starting to become the sort of thing that seems a good idea to some developers (or probably to the corporate idiots in charge) that they make their tutorials as absolutely braindead easy to understand as possible.  Such is the gaming landscape currently.  PARTICULARLY if the new player is traditionally a console gamer.  All of the console gamers I personally know can barely find their way into Windows, let alone achieve quick understanding of such concepts as this.  Three guesses as to who gets to fix ALL of the computer problems that ever arise for that group.  Hint, it's me.  Bah.   

And you'd be surprised just how many PC gamers there are that DONT know how this sort of camera movement (or even character movement) works.  I often hear "why cant I move the character/camera with WASD like GOOD games do?" from people.  Even stupider, a few times I've heard that question, but with "WASD" replaced with "arrow keys".   I try not to think about that one too hard, lest IQ points dribble out my ears.  Games like Path of Exile and such get these questions/complaints as well.    Or you get the players that dont know what hotkeys are, and will go into this and try to CLICK on the ability icons every time they want to cast.  I know 2 people who do exactly this.  It's bad enough grouping with them in an MMO (argh).  I dont even bother trying to get them to play one of THESE games.  Or mention that they exist.   So yeah..... there's real reason for the "assume your new player is dumber than a sack of hammers" approach. 

I wouldnt let that tutorial thing turn you off instantly though.   That bloody stupid tutorial is deceptive, and bloody stupid.  I do have to wonder who on the team made that, or if it was a "corporate moron" idea.   The game is just as bloody complicated as any of the other mobas.  So you go from THAT, to the usual moba learning curve from hell. Which if you think about it, makes it a learning right angle, instead of a curve.  Frankly, whoever made that tutorial should probably not be working there any more.  What I said about the gaming landscape is true, but.... some games are an exception.  Like Dwarf Fortress.  That one wouldnt just be a right angle, it'd be a catapult that launches you in the opposite direction directly into a pit of spiders when you try to walk over it.

I of course wouldnt be playing this at all if it actually was truly dumbed down at all, since I tend to hate that very idea.   The complexity is one of the reasons I got into the genre in the first place.  Also wouldnt be playing it if I didn't like the game mechanics.

Holy cow, its art style looks just like League of Legends.

Yeah.  That's something I've noticed about pretty much ALL of the mobas I've seen up to this point.  They all have that sort of art style.  Except that LoL's overall look tends to come out being much "darker", if that makes sense, than any of the others.

The only exception might be Infinite Crisis, which looks a bit different..... but also looks a bit bland.  To me, anyway.



Anyway, as to what I think of it, I've been loving it so far.

The game does away with the usual and overused trilane setup, and goes with a dual-lane map instead. There's the usual "boss" monster right in the very center of the map, with jungle around, and there's jungle off to the sides, with these "spirit wells" near the corners.   And of course jungle mob camps in various locations.

The spirit wells are an interesting concept, and they give another map objective that isnt just the boss or travelling to gank someone.  It's hard for me to explain exactly how they work without either getting the explanation wrong, or just making it sound confusing, easier to just look it up.  I like this mechanic though.  Their existence creates more reason to move around the map.  I find that even as a support I have to travel the map way more often than I do in LoL (a good thing) for a variety of reasons.

There's also the wards.  In this game, EVERYONE is expected to use wards, this being because there are no ward items.  Everyone on the team gets a ward that they drop, and then has a cooldown period before it can be dropped again.  I strongly suspect this is to make the support role less dull to players.... heck, even I think that warding is bloody boring.  It's annoying in LoL, and it's REALLY annoying in Dota (and apparently completely non-existent in Infinite Crisis, at least so far).  It also means that your team isnt map-vision screwed just because the support, who is usually the only one warding in these games, doesnt really know how to do it.

There's also the "roles" that you can choose for your character; frankly, I think they should rename this mechanic.  Basically what it does is that it creates certain effects that occur when you do certain actions.  For example, as a support I go with the "tactician" role, I think it's called.  What it does is that it gives me gold whenever I poke an opponent successfully, and I also get additional gold by being near enemy minions when they pop.  Among other effects that I cant remember.   I still wont have as much gold as the carry that I'm protecting of course, but it means that I can actually build items on a support character for once.   And of course it doesnt have to be just supports that use that role;  there's lots of reasons to choose any of the 4 for each character depending on the situation and the team, among other things.   There's also the..... loadout mechanic, I think it's called?  Like LoL's passive skill tree thing.  It works differently though and will give me a headache if I try to explain it in detail, so I wont.  It's a very recent addition and I definitely havent mastered it's intricacies yet.  Much SCIENCE!!! must yet be done there.

And finally, I like the character roster so far.  It's the usual really screwy sort of cast, with Zeri's paint being one of the less weird things.  There's one character who I'm pretty sure attacks by throwing fish, and can ride on one in a dashing sort of move, and there's another who keeps rolling sheep at me, because sheep.  The roster isnt even close to complete yet.  This game is awhile from open beta, I'm thinking, based on that.

So, all in all, it's been good.

I cant play it or the others as often as I'd like though.  I need to have a day when the modem isnt totally insane to do that.   Heck, I was gonna spend a bunch of time with it today, but the connection has been Comcasting all over the place all night, so no online gaming for me. 

[Wingflier]

Oh God you have Comcast too??

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

By the way, have you ever tried the (relatively) recently added DotA 2 tutorial? I watched a friend play through it and I was pretty impressed. It's very extensive, you can basically go as far as you want with it, but to complete the entire thing I think it would take about 5 hours. It takes about 2 hours to unlock matchmaking for a new account.

[tigersfan]

By the way, have you ever tried the (relatively) recently added DotA 2 tutorial? I watched a friend play through it and I was pretty impressed. It's very extensive, you can basically go as far as you want with it, but to complete the entire thing I think it would take about 5 hours. It takes about 2 hours to unlock matchmaking for a new account.

I have, I thought it was pretty good.

[Misery]

Oh God you have Comcast too??

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

By the way, have you ever tried the (relatively) recently added DotA 2 tutorial? I watched a friend play through it and I was pretty impressed. It's very extensive, you can basically go as far as you want with it, but to complete the entire thing I think it would take about 5 hours. It takes about 2 hours to unlock matchmaking for a new account.

It speaks volumes about how sad and pathetic Comcast is that this is basically the same reaction I get whenever I mention that I'm stuck with them.   Or people will just give me the sort of look that they'd give to someone who just told them that a very close relative had died.

At least today it sorta has a reason almost.  It *always* goes berserk when the temperature outside goes all bad.  And -35 is bad.  Particularly when it happens to be -35 during a blizzard with horizontal snow.


Aint tried the Dota tutorial.  I figure, I've already learned the game, and I"m not really the patient sort.   I might go and give it a whirl anyway though.  A friend of mine also tells me that it's very well done and worth a go-through.  And that developer rarely disappoints.



Also, speaking of mobas.... has anyone here heard much about Blizzard's upcoming game?  I've seen a couple of videos of it, and it looks VERY different from any of the ones I've seen so far.  Particularly after hearing the devs talk about how various things work in it.

And another interesting game to mention is Solstice Arena.  I dont have time to explain it right now, but it's worth a look at least, I think.  An interesting take on the genre that ended up being deeper than I expected.  Mechanics are very, very different.  I like this one, but so far I aint much good at it, haha.  Found on Steam.