When comparing Heroes of the Storm vs League of Legends, the Slant community recommends Heroes of the Storm for most people. In the question“What are the best LAN party PC games?” Heroes of the Storm is ranked 48th while League of Legends is ranked 99th. The most important reason people chose Heroes of the Storm is:
More teamfighting, less laning. Games are largely decided by how well each team can work as a unit instead of one player carrying.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Teamwork is encouraged
More teamfighting, less laning. Games are largely decided by how well each team can work as a unit instead of one player carrying.
Pro No last hitting, no gold, no items
The game does away with the shop mechanic entirely. No last hitting means players don't have to focus on a minigame for the first 20 minutes so they can jump into the action much faster. No shop means that supports aren't starved for cash and can remain strong and relevant throughout the game. No items allow for the hero-specific talent system to shine, which provides a much more unique and easily balanced way to enhance your character.
Pro Can get skins for free
And many more cosmetics with the 2.0 version.
Pro It's always possible to make a comeback
Even if you are in trouble because you lost almost all the game, you can still win by killing the enemy team on a stupid move they made at the end of the game. And it's never unfair: it's always because the losing team was overconfident and the winning one was the focus.
Pro Shorter game times
Games on average last approximately 20 minutes. Much more manageable for people who don't have as much time to commit to one match. AI games are even shorter.
Pro Deep but not complex
The game removes a lot of pointless features of other games like last hitting and out-of-game rune/card buffs. It's also much clearer, with natural percentage based increases for characters rather than "armor/intelligence" stat increases. It also has a large map pool with greatly differing objectives in each one forcing you to consider how your playstyle will adapt to the opponent and the map itself. It may appear to be simple, but there is a lot of hidden depth.
Pro Easy to learn
Heroes of the Storm was created to be a streamlined, modern take on a MOBA, something that many others have aimed for but HotS succeeds in. Shared XP keeps teams leveling together; No Last Hits means that everyone gets XP from minions and puts less importance on who gets the kill since there is no Carry-player. Choosing talents instead of having to buy items give the game complexity without forcing players to wade through menus and travel back to base. The game still offers a challenge to master at higher levels but is more accessible to new players.
Pro Hero and playstyle diversity
Blizzard has gone above and beyond to introduce Heroes that break the standard molds for Tanks/Support/Damage characters. The talent system allows for diversity in how a character plays. Some heroes can even talent into multiple roles, like Varian, who can become either an assassin or a tank. Each Hero has 2 Heroic Abilities (Ultimates) to choose between, providing even more diversity in how each character can be played. Also, Blizzard has introduced several highly unconventional heroes, from The Lost Vikings, who are three separate characters controlled by one player, to Cho'Gall, who is two different players controlling one character, to Abathur, who doesn't venture out into the battlefield himself but manipulates the map and assists teammates from afar.
Pro Characters from all Blizzard games
Heroes of the Storm features characters from other Blizzard games. Play as Jim Raynor from Starcraft, Arthas from Warcraft, or even Diablo himself from the Diablo series - and many more.
Pro RNG is almost non existent
Except for some objectives in specific maps, RNG doesn't exist in this game. No luck, pure skills.
Pro Pioneers the MOBA genre
The talent system, innovative mechanics, creative new maps and extremely unique Hero design make this game a real stand out.
Pro In-game quests mean you can still dictate how the game goes
The fact an entire team shares a level had players worried, but with personal Hero Quests, you can now take greater gameplay risks that yield immense power and reward skilled players for good plays sooner rather than later.
Pro You can carry if you are smart
Hots maps are designed so you have a lot to do all game. Doing the right thing at the right time can win a lot of games. If you are a good shot caller, you will carry your team.
Pro You don't have to learn what items do
In other MOBAs you have to learn which items are good for which situations as well as learn the actual classes themselves. Since HOTS does not have items, you don't have to learn what they do.
Pro Fun emotes from heroes upon team work and team kills and more
If you play Nova and Kill Vala, Nova will say "HUNTER!?!? more like Hunted!!"
Or if you play support and heal Raynor he will say "This medic is my new best friend".
These emotes make it very clear what happened, and add a dimension of fun that you don't see in other MOBAs.
Also, you can hear some emotes after other events, like your own hero death/respawn or during starting second of the match.
Pro Community
Has a relatively smaller playerbase than other MOBAs and Blizzard games, but one that comes from fans of every franchise represented in HotS, whether it be WC3 or Starcraft, leading to a wide range of players of all ages familiar with raiding in WoW, or the micromanagement in Starcraft. Regardless, many HotS players will share a common love for at some Blizzard franchises. All chat is disabled outside of Custom games, which arguably leads to less toxicity, as well as the fast paced nature and shorter match time which means less time for trivial flame wars as well as no surrender option and many comeback mechanics, as well as very little last hitting or kill stealing to be had leads to a far more relaxed environment.
Pro Moba with the most polish
The graphics and sound design are amazing and the voice acting is top-notch!
Pro It's just overall a great game
HotS got a great mix: fun heroes, versatile character builds, different meta on different maps, intense teamfights, different map objectives and so on.
Pro Great developer support
Blizzard has a great track record of supporting their game. Starcraft 1 latest patch 1.21.1 is released on December 2017, a game released 20 years ago.
Pro Every hero is playable
The game balance in HoTS is amazing. Even heroes that are ranked by pros as the worst heroes in the game can win MVP. Even the supposedly "broken" heroes are not far above average.
Pro Free to test any characters
You can test and play any characters for free in an in-game test environment with customizable values (levels, enemies, towers, skills).
Pro Easy to get chests
You can get a chest by doing missions or leveling up.
Pro A new hero every few months
The game had only 12 heroes when the beta opened, now there are 88. Blizzard have hundreds and hundreds characters across all their other games, so Blizzard adds one hero per month, so even if you learn every hero, there will be just another one in weeks.
Pro Deep character design
Pro 1st Esport broadcast on live network television
While other esports have aired on ESPN 3, Heroes of the Storm was the first video game broadcast live on Network TV on ESPN 2. Blizzard hosted the Heroes of the Dorm tournament, also one of the first college esports events, in which college teams played for the prize of full college tuition.
Pro Marked difficulty ratings for heroes
Each hero has a marked difficulty rating to make it easier for users to pick the player that best suits them.
Pro Intelligent AI
The AI is responsive, challenging and fun.
Pro Now there are 15 available maps
Different maps with different mechanics and appearance. And they keep adding more.
Pro Making huge progress
The patches come with great effort and positive effects in game.
Pro Free to play
It's free to play without being pay to win.
Pro Frequently updated
LoL has frequent patches pushed to the game client. However, with every patch new bugs appear.
Pro The world's biggest e-sports title
League of Legends is the worlds top e-sport title. It raises e-sports to a completely new level, making it real sport, no compromise.
It's funny that people still think of "biggest e-sports" as of "highest prize pool", playing other games, they are accustomed that there is nothing except Worlds championship and another couple of big events. On the contrary. League of Legends is a constant big event. Although it's not the first in highest prize pool on Worlds, its e-sports competition is not limited by rare championships here and there. That's why it is the biggest.
Since 2010, there have been several professional leagues, with four major: LEC (Europe), LCS (N. America), LCK (S. Korea), LPL (China) and more than 10 "not major" in Russia, Turkey, Latin America North, Latin America South, Brazil, Vietnam, South-East Asia, Australia and Oceania, Japan, Taiwan and more.
It has big "physical" infrastructure, studios and "stadiums" (usually one per region, but they have more than one in S. Korea and China) are built to take regular championship events. Each region has large "TV"-teams, a large number of analysts and casters. Major regions have more than one caster teams, one of which is English-speaking. Overall, several days a week they produce about 6 hours of an expensive TV show.
They have two seasons a year (splits). In each, 10 teams are competing. Each team plays 2-3 games each week, so the total number of games is around 10-15 a week.
Teams have large infrastructure. Each has several coaches (strategic, analyst, etc.), sports psychologists, cooks, etc.
In major and some other regions, each organization has 10 or more players, who also play in challenger league (as the second team) and/or are raised to play in the main team somewhen and/or for substitutions in the main team.
So, LoL is a real sport and the biggest of e-sports ever.
Pro The most popular MOBA by a huge margin
More than 27 million players log in each day to play the game and more than 67 million players log in to play each month. It has peaked at 7.5 million concurrent players.
Pro Largest diversity of champions with unique play styles
Having 144 champions League of Legends ought to offer the greatest diversity, and it delivers.
Many champions have long combos that need precision in positioning and timings on par with fighting games, while others can be effective without combos at all.
Also, many champions feel really unique (not necessarily complicated) in play style, unseen in other MOBAs.
Pro New Champion every 3 - 4 months
It may sound not much (and it was much more frequent), if you don't realize there are ~150 champions already.
Pro Constant champion reworks and visual updates
They are updating champions that have "outdated" gameplay/visuals on a regular basis. And usually, they hit bull's eye, giving those champions new life and making them feel "right" to the player (there are much more praises than complaints from the community).
Pro League of Legends Championship Series
League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is a weekly 10-team league.
Pro 14 free champions in weekly rotations
Pro Offers free skins
Pro 3 different maps
There are three different maps that users can play on, which offers a bit of a change up of play and familiarity as well as allows for the player to not get burnt out on a singular stage played over and over again.
Also, there are game modes with new experimental maps.
Pro Balanced game - requires skills
The game is quite balanced and second its skill(requires) dependent.
Pro Fun mode every weekend! New fun mode every second weekend
There are a number of fun modes that are switched on Friday evening and switched off Monday evening, rotating every two weeks.
This include always highly awaited URF (Ultra Rapid Fire), AR URF (all-random URF), Nexus Siege, Hunt of the Blood Moon, Legend of the Poro King, Doom Bots of Doom, Hexakill, Ascension etc.
Cons
Con Reconnect system
It's extraordinarily difficult and frustrating to reconnect to a game in Heroes if you disconnect for any reason. Reconnecting players can't simply "pick up where they left off", they have to simulate everything that has happened in the game between the moment they disconnected and the present time, which causes the reconnecting process to be extra slow and occasionally impossible.
Con Contains loot boxes
Loot boxes are often considered a version of a "Skinner Box" which uses psychological tricks in order to encourage purchases. Loot boxes contain random items such as skins or emotes and can be considered a form of gambling.
Con No surrender option
No surrender option means that you have to waste 30 minutes playing a match you know you're going to lose, if the enemy team has 20 kills more than you and they're 4 levels ahead the game is basically over, if two players disconnect the game is basically over, if someone is deliberately feeding the game is basically over, you cannot win these games but if you leave you get leaver status and then you have to win 4 matches in order to play normal rounds again.
Con Lower playerbase game knowledge
The average Heroes of the Storm player is less informed about the mechanics and basic strategies of the game compared to the average player of other MOBA games. This is due to a variety of reasons, like the popularity of Quick Match and the relative lack of learning resources both in-game and out because the game isn't like other MOBAs so people bring the wrong knowledge and expectations to this game.
Con Dead game
Dying since Blizzard closed Esports.
Con Easy to abuse player report system
Con Can feel difficult to make an impact as a solo player
Since Heroes was designed to be more team-centric rather than individual players carrying games, games can often feel beyond your control. For example, ranked games can often feel like a coin flip of which side gets lucky and avoids players prone to tilting or toxicity.
Con Expensive
Getting new heroes for free takes too long. Buying new heroes can be expensive.
Con Terrible matchmaking
In any of the matchmaking queues, the chance of being put against someone with much higher skill than yourself is very high. The ranking system goes in this order: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster. On multiple occasions, silver players have been placed against an entire team of Grandmasters with bronze allies, leading to very poor experience.
Con Badly designed and unbalanced game mechanics
The whole game mechanics are terrible: the fact there's no in-game currency ironically make the game heavily focused on farming (due to levels being an extremely important factor to win battles), there are no strategies you can use since objectives have a big impact on the game, so basically you end up just repeating cycles of farming/objective. Last but not least, the game balance is horrible, since skills were directly based on Blizzard's universe and without any adjustments to make characters unique or to create synergies with other characters or specific strategies. It's basically an oversimplified version of every MOBA out there.
Con Slow development
Blizzard is taking years to implement obvious features or fixing bugs (Ready-button regularly breaks since 2015).
Con Lack of good talent diversity
Compared to the flexibility of an item system, the talent system limits the number of ways you can build a hero. The talent system is often structured so that there are 1-2 primary builds which usually focus on empowering one of the heroes basic abilities, and then a handful of niche talents. This causes a hero to feel very much the same every time you play it.
Con Designed around team play (per the MOBA genre)
Heroes of the Storm has been designed around team play, as the company calls it a Hero Brawler, that focuses more on team fights and working toward objectives as a team. As with most team-based games, this means that if a player chooses to solo queue, that it may be difficult to play and coordinate with the rest of your team. The game does provide chat and a ping system similar to other MOBAs.
Con Reconnect issues, UI issues
You cannot turn off camera lock on a hero if you accidentally press L to the game restart (on blizzard forums users reported also not being able to turn off this option until the restart of the pc)
Not being able to enable music and sounds if you disabled them with (alt+s for sounds and alt+m for music) till the game restart.
Listed bugs are from the game launch…
Broken matchmaking system, AI fills teams unbalanced.
Overall heroes are not feeling balanced, you most likely will lose against heroes like Gazlowe, Abatur etc
They also deleted interesting map (the name of the map was copi i suppose) with undergrounds with no obvious reason.
No updates at this point or hero/maps adds.
You can’t win solo due to shared exp, you always tied to your team performance no matter what.
Good ideas mixed with bad ideas and poor implementations.
5.3/10
Con Constant hero additions slowly ruins the game
Blizzard keeps adding new heroes that get more and more mobility and defense by default. These new heroes are not fun to play against and the trend only seems to get worse.
Con Not always possible to buy skins with real money
Con Individual skin quality has dipped in exchange for numerous mediocre skins
Gone are the days of high-quality skins with cool spell effects and amazing visuals. What was once a dime-a-dozen, skins of actual "worth buying" quality now come once every 6 months or so, as the game's conversion to "2.0" switched their skin philosophy from QUALITY to QUANTITY.
Con Clunky camera movement
The way the camera moves makes it difficult to follow your hero. Update: there is an option to switch Camera off.
Con The XP sharing system has some flaws
You can get a bad player to your team, and he or she is able to ruin your match with some bad decisions, intentionally or not because XP sharing hurts the whole team in that way.
Con Ranked mismatchmaking
Con Boring and monotonous
Many matches are very similar one to another in the competitive game mode where the meta game has a higher influence.
Con Incoherent setting
Sci-fi characters (Starcraft) and fantasy characters (Warcraft, Diablo, etc) exist in the same time and place for no real reason other than to fight each other.
Con Slow fights
Heroes inflict little damage to each other, which has the potential to make fights seem long. On top of this when one falls behind many of their skills will become useless making for a fight that one is delegated to a support role, which will also add to the slow feeling of a fight.
Con The community is very toxic
Your teammates will most likely be hostile towards you for every mistake.
Con Characters are unbalanced
There are heroes that are OP, and others that are completely unplayable.
Con Unbalanced
They release a new champion every 3 months which requires a series of patches every week for a year to balance properly. Too frequently changed.
Con Balanced around pros and not the average player
Riot keeps balancing the game around the professional players, disregarding the majority of the players, making the game unbalanced until you reach top 0,1%
Con Bad matchmaking
Con They want you to spend money
You will just buy RP and your accounts gonna be banned for calling someone a degenerate. Hard-worked money is gone. No refunds, exchanges, or skin transfers.
Con Support never cares about players
You can get banned just by spamming chat.
Con Takes a long time just to learn the game
If you want to get in the game as a new player, you'll have to play for at least a year, or put in hours and hours of studying just to be able to keep up with what characters do what, and what items to get for which character in any given situation. If you take a few months off from the game and return, you will probably have to relearn the whole game again. Almost every Champion is different, not just in stats, but in mechanics and gameplay altogether, from their original launch. The item shop is changing quite frequently, making you have to relearn it every so many months.
Con Player Support is useless
They can't speak English and they can never help you out. No exceptions, and no exaggerations here.
Con Not fair
Every match you will find someone who will give kills to enemy and you will loose almost every match because of that person, and then you will unninstall the game.
Con Can't get blue essence easy enough
Not even if you play the game 20 hours a day.
Con Only 14 heroes are free each week
There is a rotation of 14 heroes that are available each week for free. To unlock the rest they can be purchased for ingame currenency.
Con It's boring
It's repetitive, always the same, not challenging, gets boring very fast. You can feel that the game is made to get money in for Riot and not to make you happy or excited. Its not like that
Con Too many champions
141 champions are too much and too expensive, when you want to buy a better champ you need to play constantly for 1 or even 3 weeks to get that big amount of gold that is required.
Con Buggy engine
With every new patch, a wave of game breaking bugs are created yet the developers still refuse to update the game engine. Some bugs result in characters being removed from the game for up to a week.
Con Items are broken
Con Terrible graphics
Models of champions looks flat.
Con Long games (average 25-30 min) and leaver penalties
Long games aren't bad per se but when paired with leaver penalties (not just for ranked games but also normal games) it means once you start a game you are practically locked to your computer for a good amount of time.
Con Champions cost money
While in Dota 2 every hero is for free and you can catch up which characters you like, you have to buy them in LoL and spend a lot of time and hopefully (what they want you to do) spend real money.
Con Not complex enough
Very static game. You get pushed into a pattern you have to play, can't make your own decisions.