Comparing Moba's: Dawngate to League of Legends

Hello Everyone!

In case you did not know, there is a new promising Moba game in closed beta right now. I am one of the lucky ones who was accepted into this beta, and so I would like to talk about some of the major differences in Dawngate from League of Legends. Please note that I have not been in the beta very long, and since it is beta, things are very much subject to change. I will likely make a part two of this later when I have played and understood the game more.

So, on to the discussion!

Difference 1 - Wards:

Wards function similarly in Dawngate as they do in League of Legends. The only main difference in functionality that I have noticed is that they cannot be targeted, which means they cannot be destroyed. However, there is one major difference, and that is that they cannot be bought from the store. Instead, every Shaper (what they call their champions or heroes) has 1 ward they can place every three minutes, at which point their previous ward will disappear.

This is cause for many changes from League, most of which I am a huge fan of. First of all, map vision is limited to 5 wards per team at most at any given time. This means that you have to be more strategical in your ward placement throughout the whole game, because wards are a much more scarce resource. Secondly, this means that no Shaper has to go putting all of their money into wards like supports do in League. Instead, everyone get's to buy items. Now, some characters are still more farm oriented than others, and will therefore have more gold than other shapers, but even the support (or tactician as they are called in Dawngate) will still get some nice items. This brings me to my next difference.

Difference 2 - Roles:

Dawngate has 4 main roles: Gladiator, Predator, Tactician, and Hunter. Any Shaper can play any role, though of course some Shapers are better suited for certain roles than others. By selecting a role, you gain certain bonuses during the game that only Shapers with the selected role gain. The gladiator gains additional gold for farming, and getting more last hits in a row earns you more and more gold. The Predator gains additonal gold and experience for killing enemy Shapers. The Tactician gains additional vim (gold) for both harassing enemy Shapers, and for being near enemy minions that die (a difference I will discuss later). The Hunter gains additonal damage against jungle monsters, and heals a small amount when killing a jungle creature. To compare to League of Legends, The Gladiator is the farm champion, the Tactician is the Support, the Hunter is the Jungler, and the Predator is the Assassin/ganker/duelist.

So what does this mean for the game? Well, first of all I think it makes it a little easier to balance multi-role Shapers compared to League champions (Alistar being gutted in support because of jungle for example). Secondly, it rewards all roles for doing their roles well. It also allows for easier doubling up on roles, and different strategies that I have heard about, like tri lanes, double jungles, etc. You also gain a little more flexibility in play style for a Shaper than you do in League I feel, though that could change as the game matures.

Difference 3 - Spirit Wells:

Dawngate has 4 spirit wells on the map. Each team starts out having control of two. Shortly after minions spawn, additional minions begin to spawn periodically at each spirit well. These minions do not fight anything, but instead will collect additional Vim for your team globally. Each minions collects 1 gold per teammate per minute I believe. When you first take control of a spirit well, it becomes locked, meaning that the enemy cannot capture it at the moment. However, the minions at the spirit well can be killed, reducing enemy Vim gains over time. After the gate is unlocked, the enemy team may capture it by standing on the center of the well and not taking damage.

This is a huge change! You can actually affect your enemies passive gold gains just by going and killing a few minions. You may also increase your own by taking control of enemy spirit wells. This also gives your team 4 more global objects that they have to constantly think about defending and attacking. Smart jungler's may also really be able to take advantage of this, especially if their lanes are pushed, or the enemy jungler(s) is known to be somewhere else on the map. All in all I really like this addition to the game so far, as it adds a lot more gameplay throughout the game outside of the lanes.

Difference 4 - Parasite:

The parasite is the largest monster on the map in Dawngate, located in the center of the map. He functions as sort of a combination of Baron Nashor, and The Dragon. Over time, the parasite will evolve, gaining stronger, and gaining a buff at evolutions 2 and 3, along with additonal global gold and experience buffs. This allows your team with a concerted effort to kill the parasite early on, like a dragon, while then letting him live longer later in the game so you can take advantage of his buff. Or you could just keep killing him in his first form to keep him from the enemy team at all times. It is really up to you how you want to prioritize him, which is great. There are so many options. Another great thing is that the map is symmetrical around him, so no team has a map advantage around him like what could be cause with dragon and baron nashor in League.

Difference 5 - Respawning Bindings

Dawngate's turrets are instead called bindings. There are three of them in a lane. If your binding is destroyed, it will slowly start towards respawning over time. The further out in the lane a binding is, the longer it takes to respawn.

This clearly has obviously consequences. First of all, it forces you to keep putting pressure in lanes, because if you do not, your previously done work can be undone (besides global gold gain), which of course no player wants. It also adds a little bit of rubberbanding to the game, giving you a little help in staying alive later in the game if you had a rocky start. From what I can tell, this rubberbanding effect is not too strong at the moment. If anything actually I feel there should be a little more rubberbanding, because I have not yet seen a comeback or a team even start to comeback a little that occurred for any reason other than a disconnect of one player on the other team. In League, only inhibitor's ever respawn, which makes comebacks a little harder in that regard. However, Bindings do also function similarly to inhibitors as well, which brings me to my next difference.

Difference 6 - Striders:

Striders are powerful minions that spawn every few waves. In the beginning of the game, they function similarly to cannon minions. However, as enemy bindings are destrodyed, Striders begin to spawn more often, and become more powerful. Once all three bindings are destroyed, a Strider will spawn every waves, and just as with super minions, you will have to help to kill them yourself, you cannot just leave it to your teams guardian (a difference I will explain later).

This isn't too significant of a difference, but it does give you more minions pressure to add to a lane from 1 or 2 bindings being destroyed, as opposed to needing all three to get super minions in League. A nice additonal reward for destroying a binding in my opinion.

Difference 7 - The Guardians:

Instead of a Nexus and two turret's defending it, Dawngate has a Guardian on each side of the map. These Guardian's are the ultimate objective for each team to destroy. They serve as a boss monster, and it functions as follows. The Guardian has several abilities, AoE and Single Target that it can use to defend itself. The guardian has three health bars that you much deplete. If a health bar is not fully depleted, it will regenerate itself fairly quickly outside of combat, but it will not replenish fully depleted health bars. Once all three health bars have been depleted, the Guardian is destroyed and the game is over.

So, not a huge difference from League as far as how it works goes from the Nexus turrets, but, it serves as a much more fun and cool objective to destroy than a few buildings. It is pretty cool to fight against him, and he is a powerful ally for defense.

Difference 8 - 2 Lanes, Bigger Jungle:

Quite possibly the biggest difference between the games, and perhaps the first one I should have mentioned. Dawngate only has two lanes, as opposed to the standard three that Moba's usually have.

This causes some pretty exciting differences in the game. There are a lot more different combinations that can now work in the game. You can have two duo lanes, or you could have a solo, duo, and 2 junglers, which the jungle is big enough to support. I have also heard of 3 Shaper lanes being played, and that is a cool thing to see if it can work. It probably could for pushing objective based team comps, as the meta in competitive League kind of uses the jungler as a third laner when they are ready to kill a turret. All these different combination that can potentially work for different team compositions is really exciting, and I am hopeful that there will be no one combination that is the meta like with League.

Difference 9 - Common Spells:

In the place of summoner spells, Dawngate has a spellbook with 8 (current number) spells in it that you may select to use. You can gain your first spell at level 1, second at level 10, and third at level 20 (max level, and you do not gain ability points to spend at levels 10 and 20, ranking up spells is the same as League). These spells are similar to ones in League. For example vanquish deals damage to jungle monsters like Smite would, and blink works similarly to flash. Another thing to note is that you can change which spells you are using throughout the game, for a small fee.

Another really exciting change. Being able to select your spells in game allows you to adapt to your situation, and pick what you need when you need it. Being able to change your spells allows for compositions like double jungler to be more effective, because you can trade in the additional vanquish once you are max level and probably only need one on the team. Really nice customization in game that I have enjoyed so far.

Difference 10 - Shorter Ranged Spells and Slimmer Skill shots:

One huge change that I am still having to get used to is that a lot of skill shots, especially some ultimates, do not have the kind of range that I would expect them to have based on playing League (I can only imagine how short they feel for Dota players). Also, skill shots are generally much shorter in width from what I can tell, making it take more skill to land a skill shot. For example, Amarynth's ultimate Riptide functions pretty much the same as Nami's ultimate in League. However, it has a much shorter range, and smaller width, meaning you have to aim a lot more carefully than you would on Nami in League.  These changes definitely add in a higher skill ceiling to Shapers, and I look forward to seeing how players adapt to this, especially those used to playing League of Dota.

Well, these are the main 10 differences I have noticed in the game, and some feedback on how I think that will affect things. Feel free to leave a comment to discuss this below!

Until Next Time!
"They're all dead now"
-Rikukun

For some cool information, check out Info on the map

note: I know there were some differences that I left out. These were the ones that I noticed the most though.