I’ve been playing a lot of League of Legends lately. Didn’t really expect to like a DotA clone but I’m enjoying this one. I’ve been curious about it for a while and decided to give it a shot when I had some free time last week. I like how it streamlined a lot of things from the original. First, there’s only one vendor, removing the need to memorize which guy stocks what. Items are sorted by category so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Need mana regen, life steal or faster attack speed? There are categories for those. Also, shortcut keys are universal and customizable. Again, you don’t have to know which hotkey matches what skill.
To be fair to DotA, I’m not blaming it for not having these features. I’m no programmer but I think part of the reason why it doesn’t have them is because it’s still just a map for WarCraft 3, making it limited to what its base game is capable of doing. If a single, category-based vendor isn’t possible for WarCraft 3, it isn’t going to be possible for DotA.
Back to LoL (I don’t know if the acronym pun is intended) I’m partial to AD champions, especially ranged ones, but there are some AP heroes that I like as well. Tristana and Caitlyn are current favorites. For melee I like Jax, Mordekaiser and Akali. Nidalee is fun to play even though she needs more micromanagement than most. That’s about it, I think. I don’t enjoy tanking, no surprise there.
Part of the fun is playing with different champions. This week I had a blast with LeBlanc. She’s an AP-based hero designed to take out other champions. I like her Q+W combination, especially W since it reminds me of a Vanguard’s Charge in Mass Effect 2. Her laning and pushing skills are very weak though, so I end up going from lane to lane hunting for other heroes to deal with.
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