• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 08:19
CEST 14:19
KST 21:19
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2914Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly4Clem: "I don't have that much hope in Blizzard"2ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live!26Weekly Cups (July 13-19): Terran & Protoss rise; Zerg falters2Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16)90
StarCraft 2
General
Reynor: GSL Loss Wasn't About Preparation Format What's the best tug of war? Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Clem: "I don't have that much hope in Blizzard"
Tourneys
PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly INu's Battles#18 - Cure, herO, Rogue & ByuN RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2)
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Industrial Park New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate
External Content
Mutation # 535 Assembly of Vengeance The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 534 Burning Evacuation Mutation # 533 Die Together
Brood War
General
ASL22 General Discussion Making an Online Broodwar Manager Game BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion How Famous was FlaSh before his Debut?
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament - Season 3 Small VOD Thread 2.0 [IPSL] Spring 2026 Grand Finals - This Weekend!
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers PvT advise for noobs Fighting Spirit mining rates Creating a full chart of Zerg builds
Other Games
General Games
Path of Exile ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live! General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Diablo IV
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread TL Mafia Power Rank NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
Artificial Intelligence Thread US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread How to buy a book - shipping from Korea to Europe The Games Industry And ATVI
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Series you have seen recently... Movie Discussion! [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
2026-27 Football Thread placeholder 2024 - 2026 Football Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
Northern Ireland Global Starcraft The Automated Ban List
Blogs
How Games can Help with Majo…
TrAiDoS
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 3914 users

Tell me about dota/hon/lol

Blogs > Dante08
Post a Reply
Dante08
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
Singapore4179 Posts
August 18 2011 15:57 GMT
#1
Hey guys, so I've played dota for about 2 years back when I was still in secondary school, and have quit since. Shortly after I quit Hon and LoL were released and I didnt follow them at all. And with dota 2 releasing soon, I've suddenly regained my interest in the games. So what are the main differences between the games and which game is the most popular now? And also which game is more mechanically challenging? I know LoL works a little diferently from the other 2 thats all. Thanks!


FreshNoThyme
Profile Joined March 2008
United States356 Posts
August 18 2011 16:03 GMT
#2
This information could be found by spending 5 minutes searching in Google (or even on this site). I am not the type of person to post just to say that, but this information is so basic that a quick search would answer all of your questions.

Popularity-
DotA has the most players (primarily due to the Chinese population of players)
LoL is second
HoN is last

Differences-
Very few. Mechanics are the same for each. LoL has the Summoner system which gives you default skills to choose from (crippling an opposing player, self heal, etc.). It also has Runes and Masteries. The two don't affect the core gameplay, but rather, how your character fairs (and allows for customization). The maps are a bit different in each, with HoN and LoL (only those two, AFAIK) having unique map layouts that don't match DotA's (but the standard for each looks like DotA's).

Challenge-
Mechanic challenge... I don't know. I've never played at the very top level, and below that, none of the games are too mechanically challenging (besides a few heroes per game). As for actual challenge (not mechanical-based), that is considered subjective by many but the speed of each game definitely lends an objective hand in determining this. LoL is slower than the other two.
Dante08
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
Singapore4179 Posts
August 18 2011 16:05 GMT
#3
I see, interesting thanks. I did a search but most of it were too detailed, I just want a brief summary thats all. That's why I posted in blogs :p
JBright
Profile Joined September 2010
Vancouver14381 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-18 16:07:45
August 18 2011 16:05 GMT
#4
This thread will give you some idea on the differences between LoL and DotA. HoN is supposed to be DotA 1.5 but they have started to branch out a bit recently. HoN and DotA(2) can be more mechanically challenging than LoL because you can select and control characters other than your hero. You can control specific pets in LoL, but you cannot select them for easy maneuvering.

As for the most popular? I think LoL has the biggest Western casual fanbase of the three, but DotA(2) is larger in Asia.
ModeratorThe good and the wise lead quiet lives. Neo's #1 Frenemy and nightmare.
Dice17
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States520 Posts
August 18 2011 16:15 GMT
#5
I think LoL might of passed up dota in the amount of players and fans. I know that in the season one finals of LoL they broke the viewership record and while I cannot find their link I know its on the main LoL site
GamaBear #1 Fan! Sen fighting~
itachisan
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
Canada109 Posts
August 18 2011 16:45 GMT
#6
why do people ask questions that can obviously be answered by Google searching
FoeHamr
Profile Joined December 2010
United States489 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-18 16:50:25
August 18 2011 16:49 GMT
#7
LoL is a really casual experience while hon/dota are aimed at a more "hardcore" fanbase. League of Legends is played more defensively, while HoN is a lot more aggressive. You can try them both now as HoN recently went F2P.



While this is kinda outdated, this can also explain some of the major differences.
Conversion
Profile Joined April 2010
United States3308 Posts
August 18 2011 16:59 GMT
#8
On August 19 2011 01:15 Dice17 wrote:
I think LoL might of passed up dota in the amount of players and fans. I know that in the season one finals of LoL they broke the viewership record and while I cannot find their link I know its on the main LoL site


Your thought is wrong. DotA's gaming population can't really be measured because of the so many different platforms it is played on.

I played at lower (maybe middle, who knows) ends of DotA and League competitively and I'd say DotA is slightly harder mechanically.

Both play generally the same in core aspects (warding, counter warding, laning, control over certain areas, positioning)
Enderbantoo
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States465 Posts
August 20 2011 08:15 GMT
#9
DotA is a lot more "hardcore" because of a few reasons:

Denying- last hitting means that much more (also means you dont get free creeps under tower like below)
Creep Pulling- You dont necessarily get free creeps under tower when getting outlaned
you lose money when you die- this means it is much harder to come back, getting killed is so much worse
Towers are weaker- less safety when you are behind
No flash- overextension can not be rectified as easily, and is punished much harder

That being said, lol is still a fun casual game, but because of the reasons above, it is hard to take it as seriously as a game (difficulty wise)
At the biggest upset of all of bw, Shanghai SPL finals 2011
Southlight
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States11768 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-20 09:13:49
August 20 2011 08:52 GMT
#10
Since the thread got swarmed by the dota/hon fanboys real quick. The LoL subforum has an introductory post explaining the difference, but one immediate thing is that the speed of heroes is much faster - the map is smaller, the heroes move faster, relatively spammable movement skills are standard, etc. This results in walls not being very wall-like and subsequently leads to some much more... semi-open combat (whereas dota's more famous for the wild goosehunts through trees and such). No denying means it's harder to crush lane phases if both players understand their heroes and pick properly, although it does NOT prevent a superior player and lane from roflstomping an inferior player/hero. The lack of deny is often brought up as a "LoL takes less skill" argument but to me they're both still the act of last hitting so that's a paper-thin argument. As for less punishability, I'll get into that later.

The main "play" difference is that dota/hon revolve around a hard carry - heroes that farm up and are expected to be able to 1v5. This is because most heroes don't scale well into the late game (due to lack of spell damage improvement), and so you end up with 2-3 heroes that "support" by the end of the game and are worth primarily based on their disables (and how well they knock out other supports), at least one initiator that forces a fight, and then one guy that does basically 99% of the damage. On the flip side in LoL due to spelldamage increasing via a stat, most damage-dealing heroes (spell or physical) are capable of "carrying," and the flip side is that it makes it harder for any one person to win a game by themself. Not surprisingly, the end result is a game that's far more based on "one big teamfight" and revolves around multiple teamfights throughout the game. This may or may not be boring to you, although realistically most players are not good enough to really feel the "boring" playstyle at the top-most level of play. A popular strategy for instance is to take two spell-damage carries, to top and to mid, and a physical-damage carry bottom, get some sort of tank in the jungle, and support the physical at bot so they can farm unimpeded. This results in a hefty three-mega-damage compo.

Current running problems that stagnate play are known balance issues that're slowly being touched/reworked. Defensive play is prevalent primarily because wards are too strong, and so it's far too easy to shut down gank paths, relegating junglers to more of a support role than an offensive one. They've been attempting to find a way to prevent wards from being so dominating and preventing the boring oracle sweep style of play (Gem of Truesight -> go clear wards, for dota players). Also due to a misunderstand of what made junglers jungle, in an effort to reduce jungling SPEED they buffed jungle creep, which simply resulted in jungle heroes requiring tremendous innate sustainability to be able to do it. Months later people discovered that this sustainability is even more effective in solo lanes... and so currently there's a bit of an awkward balance issue of hyper sustain heroes sitting in lanes forever and being unable to be pushed off. This along with the inordinate strength of wards leads to the "less punishable lane." Sadly the final issue for sustain is that the LoL equivalent of branches give way too much HP. Not sure they'll change that though. Also currently support heroes are way the fuck too strong and keep bottom lane really stagnant; they're patching that either in the upcoming patch or very soon after, as nerfs to support heroes have been publicly discussed by the dev staff.

Hope that gives you a slightly less biased view ;p

But yeah if you want mechanically demanding, HoN/DotA2 is probably better for you. LoL is much more a positioning/mind-games sort of game IMO. I like them both, I just prefer LoL because I dislike hard carries.
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
Enderbantoo
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States465 Posts
August 20 2011 09:01 GMT
#11
On August 20 2011 17:52 Southlight wrote:
The lack of deny is often brought up as a "LoL takes less skill" argument but to me they're both still the act of last hitting so that's a paper-thin argument. As for less punishability, I'll get into that later..



the reason i feel denying makes such a big difference, is you are no longer competing for last hits, or rather the only way to compete for last hits is to deny. In dota, you and your enemy are trying to kill every creep, so more than just the creeps are hititng what you are. thats why i feel it makes such a big difference (although lol spammability early game harass kind of makes up for it)
At the biggest upset of all of bw, Shanghai SPL finals 2011
Zurles
Profile Joined February 2009
United Kingdom1659 Posts
August 20 2011 12:59 GMT
#12
lol - everyone gets decently farmed whatever happens, you can play defensively and never be very far behind. you can't deny creeps and you can easily flash away from danger.

dota and hon are more similar, if u a noob play hon/dota, if ur actually skilled it will annoy you how easy and pathetic it is in comparison to dota.
firehand101
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Australia3152 Posts
September 15 2011 08:10 GMT
#13
I found that video really helpful, thank you.
I think lol is a bit easier than hon, and there is no deny's in lol.
The opinions expressed by our users do not reflect the official position of TeamLiquid.net or its staff.
Kipsate
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Netherlands45349 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-09-15 08:26:37
September 15 2011 08:20 GMT
#14
LoL still requires alot of skill, however from what I have seen at high level, the bottom lane is AD+Support vs AD support, which is boring, and wards are so cheap and powerfull, combined with Clairvoyance(a ''wherever the hell you want'' I can give you vision skill) makes the early game and sometimes even midgame very passive, whereas in dota there are teams who play a defensive style of play(e.g the chinese) and those who like to play a gank style of play, however even the turtle's in dota gank alot.

Wards are expensive in Dota, you have runes to support ganking(Although their random factor is a little stupid sometimes) and you have smoke of deceit to bypass wards even if they do, increases ms for quicker team-based ganks. Not to mention that it is indeed unforgiving to die in Dota, meaning ganking is encouraged

Also the towers in Dota hit like trucks.

The towers in LoL hit like freight trains.(Therefore discouraging diving and gank based play, also LoL towers AI is more refined at autotargetting heroes whenever an allied hero near it gets attacked)
Also, if you die and then the ganking hero dies, you gain experience from that hero in LoL, you don't in Dota.

I still like to play both alot though, its alot less frustrating to play LoL :>.

I skip the first 10-15min of LoL usually in terms of spectacting, after that it usually gets good.
WriterXiao8~~
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 20h 41m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
IndyStarCraft 207
Rex 105
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 8221
Rain 2433
Shuttle 2058
Zeus 590
BeSt 532
Mini 498
firebathero 394
Soulkey 314
Rush 230
Stork 192
[ Show more ]
Larva 178
Last 168
Soma 165
910 163
Hyun 105
ToSsGirL 65
hero 58
[sc1f]eonzerg 50
soO 45
sorry 32
Sexy 30
Hm[arnc] 28
NaDa 23
yabsab 20
Sacsri 19
Shine 17
ajuk12(nOOB) 15
Noble 11
Barracks 10
scan(afreeca) 10
Terrorterran 3
Dota 2
Dendi853
syndereN280
XcaliburYe177
Counter-Strike
fl0m2768
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor132
Other Games
gofns9434
FrodaN2132
singsing1708
B2W.Neo797
Lowko471
QueenE73
CosmosSc2 49
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
CasterMuse 26
lovetv 21
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH373
• Response 90
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos1144
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
20h 41m
Clem vs ByuN
Rogue vs Lambo
OSC
23h 41m
Online Event
1d 2h
WardiTV Weekly
1d 22h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
INu's Battles
2 days
Cure vs herO
ByuN vs Rogue
PiGosaur Cup
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
Kung Fu Cup
3 days
Patches Events
4 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
4 days
CrankTV Team League
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
CrankTV Team League
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Afreeca Starleague
6 days
RSL Revival
6 days
WardiTV Summer Champion…
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Escore Tournament S3: W4
HSC XXIX
Eternal Conflict S2 E3

Ongoing

CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 2
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
SCTL 2026 Spring
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W5
ASL Season 22: Qualifier #1
ASL Season 22: Qualifier #2
CSLAN 4
ASL Season 22
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.