12 - LoL vs. DoTA

Who would you kill? The Baron and Dragon or Roshan? We can kill both, for they will give us some benefits we can use to have an edge over our opponents. These games are both MOBA or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena type of game. It usually needs a maximum players of 10 per game on a classic game mode. LoL or League of Legends and DotA or Defense of the Ancients has their own differences like LoL uses keys Q, W, E, R, T, D and F. While DotA uses almost all of the keyboard keys depending on the ability you desire to use for a hero in a specific situation; but they have similarities such as their goals and objectives, maps and roles. LoL was launched on October 27, 2009 by Riot Games owned by Brandon Beck. 

Let me give you some of LoL’s differences to DotA. It has a total of 116 champions and still counting, while DotA have 104 heroes and still counting. LoL has 4 different modes and maps while DotA has only one. These four are classic summoner’s rift 5v5 and 3v3, Dominion’s Crystal Scar 5v5, ARAM’s Howling Abyss 5v5 and a Co-op AI map which is 3v3 and 5v5. LoL also have different modes which can be played at a very limited number of days such as Hexakill, a 6v6 type of mode. URF a no mana and low cooldown type of mode, team builder etc. In terms of Items, LoL has unique items like free trinkets, starting items; the dorans family, and also some items that needs to be use for rebalancing. Also LoL has a very unique farming strategy that when your enemy got fed, they would not be immortals like you cannot kill them because they are strong, LoL has a

system that rebalance this scenario that you would not get behind even if you started late in the game unlike in DotA. So these are some of the things LoL can be proud of in some other MOBA games.DotA in the other hand had existed since 2003 by Icefrog. An unknown still developer of the legendary DotA. As the progress goes by, the Valve Corporation developed this and made a sequel to it and named it DotA 2. It was launched on July 9 2013, which can only be access and play through Valve's content-delivery platform, the Steam. Steam is like the Garena in LoL, they manage servers around the world so a player can play multiplayer and interact with each other. They act as the support and developing team of the game. DotA’s max level of character is 25 while LoL has 18. Making it more complex and more challenging game, because there are so many things can happen within a 25 level character than a game with 18 level character. This game adopted most of the items, heroes, modes and maps in the previous sequel the DotA 1 by Icefrog and Blizzard. 

Now let me give you their similarities. Both of course are MOBAs, they have 3 lanes namely the top, the mid and the bottom. They have neutral monster and at least one super strong monster which when slain will benefit the killer’s team or itself. They have a respawn time but may vary accordingly. They usually have the same objective which is to destroy the main base or the heart of the base which is the nexus or the frozen throne. They have similar items but in different names and have some adjustments. Namely, the guardian angel and the aegis of immortal; health potions and salve; AD or Attack Damage type of items and AP or Ability powered or Int type of items. They have boots that helps heroes to move faster by increasing their movement speed. In terms of heroes they have the same roles but of course have made some adjustments. Tank, which role is to be in front line of the battle which is about to start, take most of the output damages and zone the most damaging type of hero in the clash. The Range, AD Range, AD Carry or the killer, which should has the most number of AD in his stats. The Support, who is the one responsible for assisting the AD Carries or the Killer. The Mid, which is more likely to be AP in LoL and the strongest player in DotA. The top which most of the time the solo also in LoL but not applicable in DotA for it has a 2-1-2 laning. And the Jungle, the one who controls the neutral monster, ganks and assist but not also applicable in DotA because LoL has a 1-1-2 laning. I think they have more similarities than differences for they have one objective and goal.

LoL has a comic like type o graphics while DotA has a fantasy based type of graphics. But they have similar things at all, they just vary in names. The developers may do some adjustments to them that is to rebalance and make the players want to play more and make the game vivid not dull. And it is a job well done to them for all their efforts they put it and invest in, it is all worth it. All in all I can say that LoL is better in terms of graphics, game design, items, heroes and more because it has an approximate 32 million active players around the world than DotA who has approximately 4.8 million active players around the world.