Hots Vs LoL? your thoughts?

[theWocky]

Hi, everyone -

so I am a pretty nubcake player when it comes to spell rotations, etc. I have great situational awareness (before 10pm at night), but I generally prefer easier classes to play in games. I enjoy the look of this MOBA.

What is the learning curve for this game?
also, how popular is it compared to something like LoL and DOTA2?
Is it an ESPORT thing? and is it fun to watch?

Sincere apologies for all the questions, but since this is the best Blizz community site, I really had no other place to turn with players who usually know what they're doing.

I only have time to really get into one MOBA and I'd like to play something easy to get into, not get slammed/trolled with negativity if I stream it.

Yes, I want to stream it. Yes, I have a nostalgic bias towards Blizzard games - can't help it.

now... to find a FPS as well for casual play.

[ttak82]

It's like comparing Street Fighter to Super Smash Bros. Street Fighter is more complex on the surface, but Smash is deceivingly difficult to master. Smash also features your favorite characters from beloved franchises whereas Street Fighter has original characters.

Both games have a few characters from other franchises though. Ryu makes an appearance in Smash, while Streetfghter has quite a few characters from Final Fight.

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Now comes to my mind, what win ratio got Gul'Dan when he was released, since i forgot.

Well under 40% for the first couple of days and early 40s a week or two later.

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I do think HotS did some things right, like removing last hitting and gold.

I don't like HotS' aesthetic. It is cartoony, but not in a good way like WoW. It looks ugly imo, the entire art direction for the game is in poor taste imo. Impossible to take seriously. Meanwhile LoL has stepped up their game hugely in the art department. I'm very picky when it comes to art, but much of what Riot has been doing for the past couple of years has genuinely impressed me.

HotS has not really removed last hitting. Last hitting has a different value and is actually impactful for some heroes and maps. Examples are: Kerrigan and Tychus on Infernal Shrines. Theres Nazeebo and Azmodan who actually need to last hit if you take certain build paths.

And I don't understand your objection on the cartoony aspect of HOTS artwork, while prefering LOL artwork. I think Yordles and champions like Amumu and Lu Lu are very cartoony.

HOTS artwork resembles artwork from Marvel comic books. I prefer HOTS artwork to LOL, but once again choice is subjective.

[Poppincaps]

Both games have a few characters from other franchises though. Ryu makes an appearance in Smash, while Streetfghter has quite a few characters from Final Fight.

The difference is that Smash has no original characters. Most of Street Fighter's roster is original.

[Lillyth]

Saying LoL is like Leonardo da Vinci is an insult to one of the greatest artists of all time. LoL is not even remotely in the same ball park. The aesthetics in that game are some of the most standard I have seen in a video game.

Not to mention that it also still uses flash player.

[Raugnaut]

Just out of curiosity, what was your peak rank in both games? If in LoL it was anything below D3 pre mid 2014 or D1 after, you can't really compare the games. Same goes for HotS, if your rank is below Master you can't really compare the two.

I was almost Challenger in LoL in S4 as exclusively support so I had no idea how to properly attack move or stutter step. I took a break from playing MOBA games till winter 2015 and focused on being a remote analyst for LCS/CS LoL teams. I started playing HotS that winter on my alpha account that was level 27, got to 30 and jumped into ranked where I played Raynor/Jaina and I was shit at the start so I got placed @Rank 34. After I got used to the game a bit I got to rank 1 in under 40 games (50 total with placements) and won 13/15 games I played at rank 1.

Team fighting in HotS simply feels bad because literally no one knows how to stutter step and ability animations are slow so even someone with bad reflexes as myself could dodge most stuff or Raynor Q intrerrupt gap closers. For example, I rarely see an immobile mage like Jaina auto attack in HotS however when I played her, auto attacks were my highest damage source. Having multiple maps simply feels like it restricts creativity and limits what you can do because if you choose to ignore the OBJECTIVE, you straight up lose.

On the hand, LoL is at a point where knowledge just trumps everything. If your game knowledge is at a high enough level you can literally tell if you will win/go equal/lose a lane based on the way your enemy is moving in lane or which/what/when he attacks in the minion wave. Even if it's a single map, there are multiple win conditions and in order to win a game, you must take care of almost every single one of them.

Let's take last hitting for example: You know both team compositions and you should also know what every champion wants to build in general and in specific situations. You should know the cost of the items and the value of minions. With that information, you can pay attention to which minions your enemy kills so you'll have a very good idea of how much gold he has. You can then force trades in such a way that you make him go back to base with not even gold to buy a good item for his champion and also you having enough gold for your items(through better CS or winning the trade when he goes for big creeps such as cannons). Doing this multiple times (most of the time at high elo once is enough) will allow you to hit item spikes faster. Hitting item spikes faster means you can not only snowball your own lane but also win most team fights you are involved in or roam to give your other team members and advantage.
That's something very simplistic but with high impact that literally stems from proper cs/wave management. There's a lot more to this particular example and there are a lot more examples like this that simply can not be replicated in HotS, the ways you can improve, the strategical depth or what you can analyze in HotS seems to be very restricted or one dimensional because the lack of some features like item shop, last hitting, multiple win conditions, etc.

A quick note on Jaina's AA is that Blizz greatly nerfed the damage - Compared to Beta, Jaina's AA damage has been cut nearly in half. Same with most other mages - While every last bit of damage helps, Chromie, Li-Ming, Kael'Thas, Gul'Dan, and Jaina all have AA damage output on the lvl of Murky without talents. Given that all 5 tend to have abilities with a range greater then 5.5, they don't tend too much unless they talent into AA builds where available.

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Both games have a few characters from other franchises though. Ryu makes an appearance in Smash, while Streetfghter has quite a few characters from Final Fight.

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Well under 40% for the first couple of days and early 40s a week or two later.

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HotS has not really removed last hitting. Last hitting has a different value and is actually impactful for some heroes and maps. Examples are: Kerrigan and Tychus on Infernal Shrines. Theres Nazeebo and Azmodan who actually need to last hit if you take certain build paths.

While Azmodan does have to last-hit, or at least have cooridnation with another hero that has strong AoE capability, Nazeebo doesn't - He merely needs to get in 1 hit in within 6 seconds of death.

Not sure how Tychus utilizes Last-hitting, given he has absolutely no interaction with hero deaths beyond a talent that has effect as long as he was around when an enemy hero died.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

HotS is easily much faster, longest match I've had was either 36 or 38 minutes. Longest match of LoL I had was over 75. HotS is definitely much easier to get started in, as you don't need to: Learn over 100 heroes, learn item builds, reach max level and set up mastery pages for different heroes, buy and set up multiple rune pages.

My personal opinion is that HotS is better for what I want from a MOBA, more action less farming.

@theWockey Learning curve is a bit easier than DotA and LoL, however what you have to learn is slightly different. Different maps means you need to understand how objectives are prioritized on each map. On the Esports side of things it seems Blizzard is very much investing into it. For a FPS I suggest you consider Overwatch, it is pretty enjoyable and easy to get into.

[Kolvarg]

HotS is easily much faster, longest match I've had was either 36 or 38 minutes. Longest match of LoL I had was over 75. HotS is definitely much easier to get started in, as you don't need to: Learn over 100 heroes, learn item builds, reach max level and set up mastery pages for different heroes, buy and set up multiple rune pages.

My personal opinion is that HotS is better for what I want from a MOBA, more action less farming.

^ This for me. Mobas aren't really my favorite genre, and not something I want to dedicate a lot of time to.

While I haven't ever played enough LoL to really have a solid opinion on it, I simply prefer HotS because of the basic concept and consequences of the core design decisions.

Short(er) games, team-wide exp, no items/gold but multiple ways to play a hero each game, with different possible talent builds that change fairly frequently as they re-balance heros.

It's simple, to-the-point, fun and can be played in short quick bursts, which is exactly what I (as a filthy moba casual) want from such a game. There's still exp and levels, but it all feels seemless as matches intensify over time.

+1 for having characters I know and like.

+1 for playing with unconventional/crazy/creative heroes like Abathur, The Lost Vikings, Cho'gall and Ragnaros.


Also people compare a lot HotS to other mobas as HotS being "easy" and "casual" because it misses some of those (imo pointless/uninteresting) "strategy" elements. To me it strikes me as very similar to the old WoW talent system. Sure, it can be satisfying and fun for some, especially in a MMORPG, but complexity doesn't always provide proper depth. If you're getting almost always the same talents, almost always buying the same gear, almost always farming exp the same way... then it's pretty much just an extra thing to learn that doesn't really have much impact on actual gameplay difficulty.

[Deleted]

You might be able to master more characters in HotS - in LoL you master only very very few characters but HotS has a lot more counter strategy as well as less personal skill impact.

[Dug]

I stopped playing LoL almost 2 years ago so I can't really compare the way it is now to HotS but I played a ton of aram towards the end of my days in LoL and HotS kind of reminds me of it in a way. There's objectives and such but you just jump right into the action and are capable of fighting right away. Whereas a regular LoL game you have this slow build up of xp, unlocking spells, having to buy gear (which I got bored of I'll be honest).

Fair disclaimer I'm not that into HotS. My friends and I got into it for the Genji skin and ended up liking it and went all the way for the 30 wins and played some more after it cause the MOBA fighting was fun without having to deal with the BS in LoL. I also really like the character selection because I know all the characters, their lore (most of them), and it makes me feel cool playing that character knowing what I know. Compared to league where they get a tiny paragraph or two of lore and it's never really brought up again.

I can definitely see why people would prefer LoL though. It's a bit more complex after all.

[Raugnaut]

You might be able to master more characters in HotS - in LoL you master only very very few characters but HotS has a lot more counter strategy as well as less personal skill impact.

I honestly have to disagree with that. LoL has more character power then HoTs - If you gain that character power faster then everyone else, of course you are going to roll em over, its like someone with 910 ilvl in WoW pvping against 5 with 800 ilvl in the open world - Those 820s are going to get wrecked extremely hard unless they have precise coordination. Heroes is more akin to instanced PvP - Good heroes is akin to having +20% stats, and good skill lvl can let you make critical plays, but the only way you can 1v5 the enemy team is if they are all mouthbreathers. A mouthbreather in 910 ilvl gear will wreck 5 800s, but in rated PvP, you need to be more competent then your competition, and your allies need it as well

[ro9ue]

HotS was easier for me to get into. I also already had a long rapport with the Blizzard characters. Simple and fun. That just suits me better. LoL seems cool, but HotS is my preference.

[ttak82]

While Azmodan does have to last-hit, or at least have cooridnation with another hero that has strong AoE capability, Nazeebo doesn't - He merely needs to get in 1 hit in within 6 seconds of death.

Not sure how Tychus utilizes Last-hitting, given he has absolutely no interaction with hero deaths beyond a talent that has effect as long as he was around when an enemy hero died.[/QUOTE]

In Nazeebo's case, the last hit is the Dot tick/status.

As for Tychus in Infernal shrines, the frag grenade can deal a lot of damage to minions and if hey are at low health he can just throw the grenade and steal skeleton kills that count towards his team's objective. If you are facing tychus on Infernal shrines, you want to zone him out of the shrine area as much as possible because of this.

There's also talk about another interesting kill talent for Zuljin (Headhunter: Kill all 5 enemy heroes and get vision on them on a cooldown.) but its not confirmed yet whether it is kills or takedowns (I hope it is kills). So that's another different take on Hots limited yet unique take on last hitting mechanics.

[Deleted]

I've played Dota2 and Hots, and as a support player (like that playstyle more) it is waaay more fun to play Hots in terms of gameplay.
In Dota2 (and League) if you kill someone as a support it is a big no, because carry is missing out on gold for items, while in Hots it is awesome! So, it is more focused on advancing as a team in Hots and that's why I can't play the other mobas after starting to play that.

[Deleted]

HotS seems to be just easier and more comfortable to get into, really.
Especially if you play support.

It feels like a more complete game also.

Hi, everyone -
Is it an ESPORT thing? and is it fun to watch?

Not a fan of streaming, but i spent a lot of my night shifts watching streams.
For me HotS was way more fun to watch than the other games in the genre.
The real game just starts way quicker in HOTS than in LOL.

[RH92]

I think it is pointless to compare LoL and HotS. Even though they share some similarities, they are very different.

I always said LoL is team sport like professional cycling. You have a whole team trying to achieve a goal, but ultimately you want one of those guys to carry the team to victory and rest just helping him out to on his journey.

On the other hand, HotS is classic team sport like Ice Hockey. It doesn't matter who scores, the fact a goal was scored is important. Sure a player can show his class, but it is much harder for him to win a game for his team if rest is playing bad.

[Nikkaszal]

That one Riot Games developer who said they had to keep "Summoner's Rift" official and avoid adding new maps to create the atmosphere of authenticity nailed it.

There will NEVER be reliable HOTS tournaments because... What fucking map are they playing on?

Someone has obviously never played HL or watched a HotS tourney, because you are shown which map is being played even before the draft.

I play HotS because spending 10 minutes posturing with your lane opponent, doing nothing but auto-ing once every 5 seconds on a minion, or using a skill only because your opponent overextended (because otherwise you're wasting a fifth of your mana) is REALLY FUCKING BORING.

I want teamfights at lvl 1. I want objectives at lvl 4. I want constant movement and pushing and dynamic play, because the LoL system of laning is tedious as fuck.

I want a game that is completed in 20mins because it was fully played and close, whereas LoL games end at 20 because that is the earliest that the team being absolutely roflstomped can surrender, and its 40min+ otherwise.

I want a game where if one person fucks up in the first five minutes and feeds two deaths, it's not all-over-red-rover because the enemy ADC is now literally overpowered.

[Setheria]

Someone has obviously never played HL or watched a HotS tourney, because you are shown which map is being played even before the draft.

I play HotS because spending 10 minutes posturing with your lane opponent, doing nothing but auto-ing once every 5 seconds on a minion, or using a skill only because your opponent overextended (because otherwise you're wasting a fifth of your mana) is REALLY FUCKING BORING.

I want teamfights at lvl 1. I want objectives at lvl 4. I want constant movement and pushing and dynamic play, because the LoL system of laning is tedious as fuck.

I want a game that is completed in 20mins because it was fully played and close, whereas LoL games end at 20 because that is the earliest that the team being absolutely roflstomped can surrender, and its 40min+ otherwise.

I want a game where if one person fucks up in the first five minutes and feeds two deaths, it's not all-over-red-rover because the enemy ADC is now literally overpowered.

Pretty much my view.

Adding another point: I always found that LoL (or more so DoTA for me) had some games that provided a greater level of depth and potential enjoyment than HotS, but that gets balanced out by the bad games. However, the reverse is also true. Your worst HoTs game is never as bad as your worst Lol or Dota game.

Spending 45 minutes in a game when you realise in the first 5 minutes it's gonna be crap is never fun.

Community wise, there's also no comparison, particularly for new players.

[Deleted]

Well I haven't played LoL for a while but I actually liked that game because it had runes and talents and you had to level up your account which could take a while as well as it being possible for a good player to carry the team.

So while Im not heavily into MOBAs, I still enjoyed LoL as it offered tactics as opposed to fast button smashing skills and reactive gameplay and let players nearer to the math behind the skills as well as the numbers having more impact in general. HoTs on the other hand is just not a game I would want to play at all as it really lacks those elements.

[Kromtar]

I played league for a year before getting sick of it, I've played HotS since beta. Overall I find league is better if you have tons of time to dedicate to it and be competitive, personal skill can make a bigger difference but the time sink required is daunting. HotS is more fun overall while league is a lot more stressful. As I do not have the time to dedicate to any single game that I used to HotS is for me the far superior game at this point in time.

[Deleted]

Hots is waaaay better than LoL. Before I played in LoL, but when I tried Hots I understood I just can't get enough lol