6 Levels of Separation

Taking a break from League of Legends, DOTA 2 has been a learning experience. While the idea of the MOBA is pretty much the same – fight in lanes taking down turrets until you reach the enemy base and destroy their nexus/ancient, the meta of the game is something different.

I guess I've spent the past year learning how things work in LoL so I shouldn't be surprised that I know what I am doing there but not in a new game. Hell, I never even figured out Heroes of the Storm and that game is simple in comparison to DOTA. In any case, you have 3 lanes and a jungle just like LoL, but you can actually shoot your own minions. Why? To deny the enemy from getting experience. And it seems like experience and leveling is the main difference between LoL, DOTA, and HotS.

In HotS, everyone on the team shares in the experience gained by anyone on the team. So there is no individual levels, but a team level. This makes for a fairly even fight. In LoL, for the most part, leveling is pretty even though I've seen some differences of 2 levels maybe 3 between champions in mid lane and those sharing experience in the bot lane. In that game, each lane generates experience, but pretty much, if you are in lane, you get it.

In DOTA, it seems there are dramatic differences in leveling because of a number of factors that I am not sure I fully understand. First off, you have to be near the creep when it dies to gain the experience. Secondly, if the enemy kills their own creep, they deny you the experience. Third, and this doesn't seem to happen much in my noob games – you can “drag” your creeps into to the jungle to attack mobs there and if they die, once again, the opponent is denied experience. Tie this all together with what seems like a very large map in comparison to the other two games, and I've seen many level differences between players of up to 4 and 5 levels. In my last game, there were two guys on my team at level 22, I was at 17, and two of our opponents were at level 16. That's 6 levels! Wow!

6 levels in any game is pretty dramatic – many times meaning the difference between an ult at 2/3 power verses a full powered ult and full supporting skills. And this makes a huge difference. In HotS, when one team gets their ult, the game takes a major turn in their favor particularly if the other team takes a while to catch up. Many times, by the time they catch up, it's too late.

In DOTA it makes a big difference too, but on a more personal level. This game seems to be full of snowballing champs that can really start to pull away from everyone else. They don't always carry the team to victory with them, but they just seem to dominate and get way too many kills for my taste – I never seem to pick these champs for some reason.

In any case, it is real interesting, the differences amoung the games. They all have their pluses and minuses, but I am enjoying learning them all.