Without Kat, would Akali be higher on the Tier list? Most likely, because she would fill the role that Kat does now. Also, if you're going to say that Akali snowballs in pubs, how can you deny that Kat snowballs? Akali's ult hits one person, ONE PERSON. Kat's ult does a ton of damage to 3 people, and if she gets a kill, she can do the whole thing again. I've seen Kats absolutely destroy pubs, and with good reason. She's an overall better hero.
I disagree. If anything, Diana supersedes Akali, and that's because Diana is better designed (and a touch OP right now). Kat achieves her assassiny role through different means and contributes to a fight in different ways.
Then you're still agreeing with me. One similar hero has replaced the other because of a better design. How is that good balance? Also, how do you prevent this from happening when you're constantly adding new champions with overlapping skills and roles to the game?
Look at it from the average player's perspective. If you have a bunch of champions that will wipe the floor with you explicitly and only because you don't know the precise means of countering them, why should you bother learning to play?
Why should you bother to learn anything that's difficult in life?
Because some people are wise enough to see that long-term success is better than instant gratification. Yes, I know we're an instant gratification society, based on getting our pleasure and rewards "now now now", but in the end the things you have to work for are more meaningful than the things you get for free. This can be empirically shown in psychology.
I do agree with you that there needs to be a balance between game difficulty and insanity, but the way to go about doing that is not to keep nerfing a champion until they're useless outside of pub games, instead of letting people just get better at the game. They could redesign Akali if that was truly the issue.
But once again, we get into another conundrum (which I mentioned before). With so many new champions being released, and so many already overlapping roles, eventually the cast will be so big that you can't possibly remake every hero that has become obsolete. And even if you did do that, the remake of an old champion just makes another champion obsolete in the process.
Yes, there's things Dota has that League doesn't. I personally feel like Riot's character design is leaps and bounds above Dota's, and along with the extra modes they have and the overall style, it's a better choice. Others feel a different way though, and they're perfectly entitled to that opinion ^_^
Perhaps you do like League's "slightly different" balancing style over DotA's (I think you called it) "bludgeon me over the head with difference" style, but the advantage to DotA's way of doing things is that, as a result of the very unique skillsets, the roles don't overlap.
Let's take a look at League of Legends junglers. You can't possibly say that all of the junglers are equally useful right now, or that they all offer the same amount to the team. For example, I play Volibear jungle sometimes for fun. But I also play Irelia and Amumu jungle as well. Amumu is a better tank that Volibear, and he's a better initiator. Irelia is a better assassin, and better at chasing and surviving in team fights. Both Amumu and Irelia jungle faster than Volibear, even though Volibear is technically considered a "jungler". In fact, whatever Volibear brings to the team as a jungler, other junglers could offer better.
This doesn't happen in DotA. There are a small amount of junglers, and they all bring something completely different to the team. No jungler is strictly better than any other jungler. Naix brings magic immunity, carry, and anti-tank prowess, Enigma is a great pusher, stunner, and has one of the best aoe ults in the game, Enchantress is a carry who can also dominate creeps, making her great at pushing, but also ganking because her ult, Axe is an initiator and tank, but also great for early sidelane ganks, Lycan is kind of useless for awhile, but he emerges from the jungle as one of the hardest melee carries in the game who runs at max speed and can't be slowed.
You can't pick any one jungler in DotA and say the other junglers are just BETTER than that one: They have everything he offers and more. You can definitely do that with League. And that's just one example.
I'll turn the question on its head: Why should many new player's game experiences suffer because designers can't be bothered to find ways to make characters work without inordinately punishing lack of knowledge? Because that's basically what a pubstomper is.
Well to a certain extent, players have to learn the game right?
I mean Riot is indirectly shooting themselves in the foot by adding so many new champions that yes, it's a bit unreasonable to ask a new player to learn 200+ champions (in the future) as soon as they start playing. I agree, that's asking way too much. But that's Riot's fault. They don't have to keep adding new things at this rate. They could literally balance the cast that they have for another 3 years, and still probably have some room for improvement. Yes, it's overwhelming to ask a player to learn all the heroes abilities and skillsets, so the solution is to obviously stop adding new heroes, instead of making the problem even worse; not to nerf the ones already there so people don't have to learn how to play the game.
That's just me though.
I don't think League's champion design is any better or worse than DotA's. They are both neat in their own way. League is willing to try new things like non-mana mechanics and Nidalee heroes which is really cool. On the other hand, they're afraid to add any "game-breaking" abilities, which really puts a limit on what they can add without being "anti-fun". DotA doesn't seem to care about this. They'll add whatever would make the game better or more interesting, and if you don't like it then go play something else.
For that reason, there are a lot of neat mechanics and abilities in DotA that will never exist in League. I like how DotA's designs are a lot more game-changing. A hero that can steal another's spells, a 4 second aoe stun ultimate, a global silence, a global teleport with an ally, global invisibility, etc.
Sure, mechanics like this which DotA is full of require the player to get better, but in the end you have a better player. I can take my DotA skills to League and automatically be better than the average player. I've seen League players try to take their skills to DotA, and they basically have to start over from scratch. DotA doesn't coddle you.
But at the same time, the simplistic game design of League is also one of its greatest strengths. I just don't agree that in order to keep it, you have to add new heroes every 2 weeks, and nerf ones that are too good in pubs into the ground.
