I remember a time when MMORPGs were among the most popular video games around and perhaps you remember it as well. That time is gone now and there’s a new sheriff in town that goes by the name of MOBA. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena games like Dota 2, League of Legends, Smite, and the newcomer Heroes of the Storm are what most people seem to be playing these days, or if they’re not playing them, they’ve at least heard a lot about them. Although I’ve started with League of Legends a few years ago, my MOBA of choice became Dota 2 after a while and I never looked back. That is, until Heroes of the Storm came out.

Blizzard’s take on the genre is certainly an interesting one and it seems to attract more and people people despite the fact that it’s arguably the most simplistic MOBA there is. Actually, that might be it’s main selling point in a way. After spending a couple of years in the frustrating and nerve-wracking world of Dota 2, finding something as lighthearted as Heroes of the Storm is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. Now, please don’t think of this as me saying that Heroes of the Storm is a very easy game, but after playing Valve’s MOBA for an extended period of time you’ll likely find that most other games seem like child’s play by comparison. Having said that, there’s definitely more to Heroes of the Storm than meets the eye and you can rest assured knowing that Blizzard are sticking to their guns when it comes to gameplay depth and addictive fun.

There are plenty of differences between Dota 2 and Heroes of the Storm, but there are some noticeable similarities as well. When it comes to playable heroes you will find that some from one game closely resemble some from the other one, although (with some exceptions) they’re similar only from a visual stand point. Examples of this include Pudge/Stiches, Puck/Brightwing, and Tinker/Gazlowe to name just a few. It’s not surprising to see these similarities given that Dota 2 features the heroes from the original Defense of the Ancients, which in turn were modeled after Warcraft 3 heroes and units. However, the similarities stop when you move away from the Warcraft universe because Heroes of the Storm also includes well known characters from the Starcraft and Diablo universes, something that Dota 2 doesn’t have.

Half-Life 3 confirmed?

It’s also worth pointing out that Heroes of the Storm let’s you play as some of the most famous characters in gaming, such as Illidan, Arthas, Kerrigan, Zeratul, Diablo, and many more, while Dota 2’s heroes will not be familiar to you if you haven’t played the game or its predecessor before. On the flipside, there’s currently much more variety in Dota 2, with its hero count coming in at 110 while Heroes of the Storm can only boast with 35, for now at least.

In principle, the two titles have identical main objectives – destroy buildings to get to the main building and then destroy that as well to win. Pretty simple. However, there’s a plethora of other things that need to be taken into consideration and each game does things just a little bit differently than the other one. For example, in Dota 2 you need to take into account very important things such as farming, jungling, last hitting, purchasing items, not feeding, and many more. Granted, feeding could pose a problem in Heroes of the Storm as well, but its impact on the game is far less noticeable because of the core gameplay mechanics. Above all, Heroes of the Storm is based on good team play and coordination. This of course also applies to other MOBAs, but here you will find this principle in virtually every aspect of the game.

An experienced Dota 2 player can make all the difference in the world and sometimes win a game almost single-handedly. Not in Heroes of the Storm though. In Blizzard’s game you can’t afford the luxury of relying on your overfed carry to win the game for you while you’re wandering around placing wards and upgrading your fancy courier. Blizzard went for equality when they decided that the whole team should gain experience and level up at exactly the same time. Basically, everyone benefits from the experience gained by everyone else in this game and it seems to work great. You won’t feel the Dota 2 badassery of having a six slotted Faceless Void tearing up noobs left and right, but Heroes of the Storm compensates by allowing you to feel equal to your team mates at all times even when their skill is clearly superior to your own.

One man army coming right up

Another aspect that streamlines the experience even more is the lack of gold and items in Heroes of the Storm. This is something that you’ll need to get used to, but you’ll eventually come to understand why Blizzard developed the game like this. As mentioned, Heroes of the Storm is less difficult and less complex than Dota 2, but Blizzard didn’t remove traditional MOBA mechanics in order to make it like that. Rather, the lack of gathering gold and purchasing items comes as a direct result of the whole “all are equal” philosophy that they were going for. Even if you always have the same level as your team mates, equipping various items would potentially make you far stronger than the others and there’s no room for that here.

Truth be told, I prefer Dota 2 and the hassle of gathering gold coupled with the constant fear of being ganked and losing a large part of it. I just feels more rewarding than hitting level 4 and picking a talent. Aside from being able to make you considerably more powerful, some of the items in Dota 2 can also essentially give you some new abilities to work with. Need Blink? Buy a Blink Dagger. Need Silence? Buy an Orchid. At the end of the day it’s all about customization and making your Slark stand out from the thousands of other Slarks, you know? Coming up with a gimmicky build that uses all sorts of shenanigans to surprise your opponents will definitely make them remember you for days to come.

New meta I guess

Meanwhile, Heroes of the Storm also allows you to have builds, although of a different variety. Since there are no items at all in the game, you’ll need to create your winning build using the talents given to you. Every few levels you’ll get the option of choosing one of several talents and you’ll have to carefully asses your team mates, enemies, and even the map (yes, there are multiple maps here) if you want to make the best possible choice. Overall, there’s arguably less variety in Heroes of the Storm when it comes to this particular aspect, but let’s be honest, in Dota 2 you’ll often buy pretty much the same items in most matches if you think that your go-to build is solid enough. I have no problem with either of these systems since it’s up to the player to make the best use of all the tools given by the game, but I do have to criticize Heroes of the Storm for giving you a ridiculously low amount of options to choose from when you’re playing a certain hero for the first time.

Think you can simply access all your abilities right off the bat? Think again

Specifically, for some reason Blizzard thinks that it’s a good idea to lock some of the talents (often the best ones) right off the bat and will only grant you access to them once you have gained a few levels with the hero. Now, I’m not talking about levels during a match, but rather about hero levels that you acquire by gaining certain amounts of experience when completing matches. I mean, that’s all fine and dandy, but it essentially makes Heroes of the Storm very unfair for new players. Say you’ve heard some good things about Illidan and you want to take him out for a spin for the first time in order to test out some cool builds. Well though luck because you’ll need to be at least level 4 before you receive access to all of his talents. I know, right? This progression system is very helpful for gradually introducing you to a hero, but it also gives you a disadvantage when playing against people with all the talents available to them. By comparison, Dota 2 doesn’t have this, nor does it have a hero progression system for that matter. You do have a player progression system in both games however.

Since I’ve mentioned heroes again, I also need to point out another major difference and one of the most noticeable ones in my opinion. As mentioned, there are currently 110 playable heroes in Dota 2 and the great thing about them is that you can play each and everyone of them whenever you feel like it. This is a feature that really makes Dota 2 stand out from the crowd considering that most other MOBAs have some sort of rotation system and heroes that need to be purchased either with in-game currency or real money before they can be played. Heroes of the Storm falls into this category as well, with most of the existing heroes being locked the first time you boot the game.

“I just love the weekly hero rotation system,” said no one ever

Personally, I’ve never liked this system and that’s why I prefer Dota 2 as opposed to other MOBAs, but in Heroes of the Storm it’s actually pretty easy to unlock heroes without having to spend a dime. Aside from getting a small amount of gold after every match, you get larger amounts as you gain player levels, when you bump any hero up to level 5, or by doing the daily quests. In short, there’s plenty of ways to gain gold here and the heroes themselves are pretty cheap all things considered, so Blizzard’s business model is pretty fair at the end of the day.

As it’s more often than not the case with free to play games, Blizzard and Valve have come up with ways of monetizing their titles. After all, developers have to put food on their table, too. On one hand, you have Heroes of the Storm with the traditional pay a few bucks for this skin, mount, pack, xp boost, or hero, which is pretty much the go-to business model for these types of games. But on the other hand, Valve have managed to implement a system that not only allows you to play all the heroes for free straight from the word go, but also allows you to acquire most of the purchasable items for free if you don’t mind dabbling in a bit of trading. Although Dota 2 features something akin to full skins for some hero, most of the cosmetic stuff is part of an item set and you can get the pieces individually from the marketplace.

Naturally, you can get full sets and any other purchasable items as well from there. Be ready to spend a lot of time learning the prices and hunting down the best offers though because other Dota 2 players are not too keen on giving away the best stuff for cheap. But that only adds to the appeal of the game in many ways. I don’t know about you, but there was a time when I was spending much more time trading Dota 2 items than playing the actual game and to this day I regret nothing. Heroes of the Storm doesn’t feature a trading system, but I probably wouldn’t be doing any trading there even if it did because trading some hero skin for another one is far from being as interesting as spending several hours trading for various pieces of a certain set just to eventually complete it and moving on to the next. Ah, those were the days.

It needs to be said that some Dota 2 sets should clearly not be added to the game

But back to the present now and heading towards the end of this article. There are undoubtedly plenty of differences between Dota 2 and Heroes of the Storm, and there are two in particular I wanted to finish off with since they can really make someone decide to switch from one game to the other. First off, map selection. Dota 2 only has a single map and that’s absolutely fine since that’s all it needs. The game already offers a lot of variety, so having multiple maps wouldn’t really add much. Heroes of the Storm on the other hand has several maps and they each come with a unique set of objectives. This is one of the game’s most important features if you ask me, especially since each map is more awesome than the last.

The other important difference is time. Dota 2 is a game that will eat up a large portion of your time and sanity if you let it, with each match potentially lasting for an hour or more and each bitter defeat leaving burning questions in the back of your mind: “should I finally uninstall the game? Am I a Russian?” Meanwhile, a Heroes of the Storm game usually only last between 15 and 20 minutes and losing is not really a big deal since you were probably playing just for fun anyway. All in all, the stakes are no very high in Heroes of the Storm, but the victory isn’t particularly sweet either. Do you stand up and perform the chicken dance after winning a difficult game of Heroes of the Storm while shouting to the world: “I feel so alive!”? Thought so.

There’s plenty of reasons to do that or something similar after winning a Dota 2 match where you were brutally bashed by all your team for having 0/8/2 and only a pair of boots at the 10 minute mark, but you still somehow won against all odds and were able to bm your opponents at the very end with a well earned “gg ez noobs”. And yet despite all of that, these days I find myself perfecting my Zeratul build in Heroes of the Storm and dreaming about the day when I can get my Dota 2 mmr above the shameful 3100 I currently hold. I’m not sure if I’m just learning to be a better MOBA player or if I’m in it for the long run, but right now Heroes of the Storm just seems like a more appealing game than Dota 2.

Blizzard, you cold mistress, it seems I’ve fallen into your web once more, and with Overwatch and Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void looming on the horizon, I’m afraid I won’t see the light of day again any time soon. Don’t worry Valve, I still love you, but for now I think we should see other people.

Meanwhile in Heroes of the Storm: Big Heads Mode!