LoL Difficulty Compared
Is League of Legends more difficult to play than Dota 2, Valorant, or Fortnite? Let’s compare LoL difficulty to other popular multiplayer online games.
The matter of how difficult League of Legends often comes up as an interesting topic for new players. However, the issue with quantifying LoL difficulty is that it depends on many outside factors. For starters, LoL is a PvP-oriented online arena – it’s only as difficult as other players allow it to be. Also, any previous experience in strategy games can make or break your initial time with the game.
Comparing League of Legends difficulty to games like Dota 2 may give you an idea of what to expect from Lol.
LoL Difficulty Compared to Dota 2
This comparison is easily the fairest in this article, purely because the games are very similar on many levels. Both Dota and LoL are giants of the MOBA genre. Both are responsible for making MOBA games so popular and widespread. With that come other perks, such as the fact esports was almost a foreign notion before these two came around.
All of this caused a bit of a rivalry to develop between the two and their respective player communities. The two are often compared on many grounds, and not without reason. Let’s focus on the difficulty of LoL compared to Dota for now. Most players who have dedicated significant time to both titles claim that Dota 2 is a harder and mechanically more complex game. This tends to be the prevailing opinion in both player bases, too. Still, it’s important to understand why Dota is more difficult than League of Legends. After all, this doesn’t apply to every single aspect of the game.
First of all, the map and basic mechanics of Dota have more moving parts and need more attention to figure out. For example, the map in League of Legends is relatively balanced – it doesn’t really matter whether you’re playing as Blue or Red. As a result, team compositions are almost always the same, with 1 top, 1 mid, 1 jungle, and 2 players on the bottom lane.
Dota 2, compared to LoL, leaves more room to experiment with team comps. Depending on the current meta, sending 3 players to one lane can be an effective strategy, for example. This means you can’t just pick a hero and move to your designated lane. Every hero pick has to be carefully considered within the context of the match.
Why is Dota 2 Harder Than LoL?
What are the differences between League of Legends and Dota that allow this to happen? Well, for starters, the fact that top and bottom lanes aren’t identical means that Dota players have more room to control their team’s stronger lane. More importantly, though, Dota introduces the concept of “denying.” Essentially, you can last hit friendly minions and structures. The idea is to deny the enemy team the gold and experience. This effectively means you have to worry about last hitting both your enemies and your own team. This complicates things quite substantially.
Moreover, there are a lot more ‘active’ items in Dota 2 compared to League of Legends. These have to be used as if they were skills. This means more buttons to push and more things to keep in mind. Also, some heroes are a lot more complicated than anything LoL has to offer. For instance, heroes like Meepo or Chen have to control several units, each of whom has to be micromanaged. There’s a lot more on your plate as a player.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning there are some reasons why League of Legends is harder than Dota 2. First of all, LoL is more demanding on your reflexes. Skillshots are present on almost every LoL Champ, while they’re quite rare in Dota. League also has quite a few more character stats to juggle, especially with Crits, ArmorPen, Magic pen, and so on.
Also, League of Legends difficulty is compounded by out-of-match features like Runes and Masteries. You have to unlock these, and broaden your champion roster before you can truly be ready for high-level play. In Dota, all heroes are free from the get-go. Additionally, nothing you do outside of a match can affect your in-game performance in any way.
Is League of Legends Harder Than Fortnite?
Comparing LoL and Fortnite is not really a 1:1 matter. These two games are simply not similar to each other in any way that truly matters. One is a battle-royale style third-person shooter, while the other is a top-down multiplayer strategy arena. Keep this in mind while reading onwards. League of Legends and Fortnite were made with different goals and attract completely different players. Still, we’ll try to answer the question.League of Legends is definitely harder and more complicated than Fortnite in many ways. It’s mechanically more complex, requiring more difficult and precise movements from the player. It’s also more intensive from a strategic standpoint. You have to crunch numbers, consider hero compositions and the metagame, and so on. It may take months of LoL practice before you can say you actually understand what’s going on. Getting to a level of being considered ‘good’ is harder still.
On the flip side, most FPS players will quickly feel at home with Fortnite. While building adds another layer of complexity, your reflexes and aiming skills are ultimately the key to victory. It’s not that Fortnite has no strategy involved, of course. It’s just that there aren’t nearly as many moving parts as in League.
Is League of Legends Harder Than Valorant?
Again, these are two vastly different games. However, Valorant took off as an esport in ways Fortnite never could. It’s a far more competitive title with deeper strategy requirements. It’s easier to compare LoL and Valorant. Both games have matters like abilities and team compositions to worry about.
However, most people believe that League of Legends is more difficult than Valorant. However, League is harder for new players because game knowledge and micromanagement skills are far more important. Valorant relies more on mechanical skills, which makes it easier to pick up and do well.
Another common factor when comparing Lol vs.Valorant difficulty is the fact that it’s easier to “carry.” A single player’s skills can shine and carry the team to victory even if their teammates are having a bad game. In LoL, a team is only as strong as its weakest member. Proper communication and cooperation are what ultimately wins the day. If you’re a new player matching with strangers online, that can significantly increase the difficulty. What you have to do to win LoL is much less obvious, and matches are decided on the backs of very small decisions. As such, figuring out optimal League of Legends strategies is extremely difficult and time-consuming.