Despite their similarities and that both are Mobas, Dota 2 and League of Legends are fairly different games. While both have their strengths and weakness in certain areas (being debated at this very moment), there is no doubt that Dota 2 is often found to be the more complicated beast to master. For those looking to give Dota 2 a try after a career in League this can be a little overwhelming at first. To ease the transition here are some of the differences and challenges you can expect when making the jump from LoL to Dota 2.

What's the Same - The first step in pointing out all of the things you need to prepare for, is going over the things you should already be familiar with. For starters, the overall map layout is pretty much the same. The battle takes place across three lanes separated by jungles, while a large "river" neutral area runs between the two halves of the map. Lanes also have towers and lane creeps, along with two barracks that function much like the inhibitor on LoL.

The objective is the same. Both teams are fighting to reach the enemy teams home base and destroying their central structure (ancient in Dota 2, nexus in LoL).

Players choose from a pool of Heroes, each of which has a role they're are more attuned to playing than others. The roles in Dota 2 are, for the most part, the same as those in LoL such as the Jungler, Support and Carry.

It's all about the gold. To purchase items you're going to need gold, and what's the best way to get it? Farming of course. Both games place a huge emphasis on farming enemy creeps for gold to purchase better items.

Recalling - To get back to home base in LoL one only has to hit B and away you go, things aren't as simple in Dota 2. The ability to teleport is done via the Town Portal Scroll that must be purchased from the shop and can only be used once per Scroll. The bright side of the scroll is that you can use it to teleport to any friendly building, not just the shop.

No Runes or Masteries - Unlike LoL, Dota 2 does not have any way to modify a Heroes stats outside of the in game items and levelling of abilities. That means no runes or mastery pages to build and customize for each champion.

No "Summoner Spells" - What's the Hero comes with is all you get. There are no global abilities to be chosen before a match, only the ones that come with your chosen hero.

Buying Items - When you buy an item in LoL, you've got to go back to the shop and pick it up yourself. In Dota 2 you can get your goodies delivered to you wherever you are in the field by the handy courier. This is great for two reasons, one because you don't have to stop farming creeps to go back and buy, and two, without a recall in the game you would have to use a Town Portal Scroll to quickly return to base and by unless you wanted to walk.

Death - Dying in Dota 2 is a little more consequential than in LoL because not only does the player get a bounty for taking you out, a portion of that bounty is taken from your unreliable gold (gold from creeps and neutrals) leaving you not only dead but broke.

Being dead in Dota 2 also functions a little differently than LoL as players can choose to buy their way back in (reduce the respawn timer to zero) if they've got the gold. This is especially helpful in the late game when you've already got most of your items and the respawn times start getting lengthy.

Abilities - Abilities are similar in most cases to those in League of Legends. There are three abilities (usually),one ultimate ability, and you can put a point into one of these abilities whenever you gain a level. The Dota 2 ability bar however comes with an additional spot you can put the ability point called the Attribute Bonus. Located to the left of your abilities, the attribute bonus will give a you an[glossary_exclude]upgrade[/glossary_exclude] to all of your stats in exchange for an ability point.

Another more subtle difference with the Dota 2 abilities is that they are more mana hungry when compared with their LoL counterparts. This means less spamming of spells and and more strategic use of them to conserve resources.

Denying - Creeps in Dota 2 are last hit to receive a gold bounty but you can also kill your own creeps, effectively denying the enemy the last hit. While this wont give you any extra gold it prevents the enemy from getting any either. Friendly creeps can be denied after they have fallen below 50%. You can also deny heroes and towers when they are at 25% and 10% health respectively.