You must not understand the point of getting a free teleport scroll.
No, builds =/= skill.
But, you end up buying that teleport scroll anyhow. If anything, it gives you something that you always want, so it saves an inventory space, saves money, and what not. How is not having a free base teleport better? It really just makes it more difficult for everyone, and makes games last a little bit longer than they need to. It just adds to build freedom.
And you don't seem to be understanding skill. Skill is the ability to do something well. So, having a good build takes skill. Taking the correct summoner skills takes skill. Knowing when to teleport for free takes skill. Having a good counterbuild takes skill. Having a good mastery set takes skill.
These freedoms allow for a variety of combinations. It is the mastery of the varieties and your ability to counter your opponent that constitutes skill. You cannot say that those things do no require skill or constitute skill, because that's just you misrepresenting skill. I'm not going to say denying isn't skill-based. I'm going to say that LoL is skill-based towards other things. Because it's a different game.
You cannot take merely the similar aspects from LoL and DotA and then only count the parts that DotA has so that core + extras = more skill. It doesn't work like that. If that were true, then I could say that DotA + making you enter 4 letter combinations every 20 seconds = more skill. But it doesn't. It requires the same amount of skill. Why? Because they are different skills. In DotA, you aren't expecting the 4-letter thing, but in my new game, you are. You can use those 20 seconds bursts to your advantage, because this is a new restriction you must try to abuse. All rules are like that. Your ability to abuse and utilize them is your skill. Having a different set doesn't make you more skilled. It means you are skilled in a different manner.
I agree with Kael. Bay12forumites, you guys are nice and all, but you sure as hell know how to turn a debate into a full-blown argument! Stop belittling people because of opposing views. Just... debate.
Both games have huge (and I mean HUGE, LoL has gotten to be a giant and DotA hasn't stopped throwing its massive girth everywhere) playerbases, which must mean they are both doing something right. I personally prefer dota, could probably argue with the two penguins in this thread for ages. But in the end, its pointless. We each prefer different things, and nothing I say is going to bring them over to the DotA-side.
(Although to be honest DotA vs LoL has always been a heated rivalry. Its not too odd to see it leak onto this board.)
I think both games are great! I, however, do not want people to say things like "DotA is more skill-based" because that is just flat-out wrong. I am not saying LoL is better than DotA, because that isn't necessarily true. However, the DotA community is notorious for being terrible, and you cannot have the mindset of "You're new, so you're bad" if you want more people to like it. They need to change that.
I will, however, say that I am more fond of League of Legends, because I never did care for the denying aspect. It seemed cheap. LoL lets me focus more on harassing and last hitting, so it's more of a direct battle with the enemies, instead of a passive (aggressive
) one. I never noticed the super powered champions until now, because I had never played that often, but I kinda like that LoL tuned down their power. Sure, it does make them more similar, but seeing as how you don't get direct access to all of them, that is also a benefit. You don't need to have one specific champion to counter another. You can use a subset. It also makes memorizing all of the enemies skill a lot easier.