I don't have a long time relationship with MOBA games, although I could say that I got an early introduction to DOTA 2 through my first Steam friend. Back then it wasn't on Linux, but I could still play it via Wine. I am proud to say that I have a 50% winrate, 1 win and 1 loss. :) But to play it on a decent level it requires so much time to learn, that I couldn't dedicate myself to one game.

Years later I heard about Strife, a new MOBA from the creators of Heroes of Newerth (the first MOBA on Linux), it was native, so I jumped on it, which I regreted later. Every night I was dumped on, verbally humiliated. I wanted to learn the game so much, but I got so much shit in only 1 week, that I had to quit.

In 2015 I got into the Heroes of the Storm beta, a little bit late, but still. Very playable via Wine, since it used the same engine as Starcraft 2. And finally a friendly MOBA. People rarely flamed each other, and we get to play our favorite characters from the Blizzard-verse. So awesome.

Of course later the MOBA-rage got to me, cost me a mouse and a cheap headphone. It took me several months of break, here and there, from the game to appreaciate it, how lucky I am to play it.

The game however in recent months turned to shit, and I also had technical difficulties playing the game, even with a brand new graphics card. It was nothing new though, as most patch straight up broke the game on Linux every time. Lutris has a nice installer script though.

Since there is no pro-scene anymore for HotS after a month+ silence Blizzard cancelling the pro league out of the blue (people say it was excpected, but even most pros said, they were only expecting cuts), and most of my favorite people moved to League of Legends, I looked into it. I heard it was always trouble to play on Linux, but we have Lutris now, which seemed reliable.

First install didn't worked for some reason, but you need some packages to run it properly (general Wine stuff), second install went really well. Meanwhile I registered a new account, and I could finally play the game.

Tutorial was alright. Get to try out many heroes…ahem, champions. You get one free. You can get also shard which makes champions a little bit cheaper. Pretty nice. Otherwise every frakking item looks pricey. If I am still playing the game by March, I maybe buy something. Otherwise I am just a f2p player, since Heroes was enough for the last 3+ years.

You get stuff for leveling up, so this is nice. In HotS you get a frakking lootbox, with pretty useless stuff for a new player. You have to grind for gold to buy someone. Brr… Here you get blue essence or a free champ in the first 10 levels. Half of my champs are free or come from champion shards, which is basically a cupon for that champion.

In LoL you have in-game currency from the start, called blue essence. That helps a lot. I already have 14 champions. For ranked games you need 20 champions and level 30. I am not rushing. In Heroes I made the mistake to start playing hero league as soon as I could. Never again. LoL is also harder: gazillion characters, items, lanes, and shitty behavior. Everybody thinks they are the next world champion, but we are just iron players. Iron is the new league below bronze. I know I will pretty much belong there.

I play for fun however. So far I am so tilt proof it's funny. I was never banned or silenced in Hots, but still. I just want to play my character better than the last time. Try not to die too much, and focus on last hitting. I already feel that my position will be top/mid, because they are the lonely lanes. I liked playing solo laner in Hots too, I was relatively good at it, at least on my level (low-gold, hehe) Because of that I started playing draft mode already, since in this your role is more garantueed. I weirdly also like playing support. They don't need to last hit to earn gold, instead it comes from an item, and you need to hit enemies.

My favorite champions are varied. At first it was Garen, Darius and Brand. Then Nautilus and Nasus (support and a tank/jungler). Now it's Veigar, and mages. last one is a weird one, because he plays like Chromie from Hots. I didn't like her, but I am better with Brand. Maybe the game is more responsive? To be honest LoL is for the flashy players most of the time.

I also discovered that unlike in Hots I like playing as a support, and in this game they are not heal bots, but sometimes tanky, stun people, and I like that. I like Nautilus and Brand so far, two different characters though…

But I am not one, by nature. I am also not the young, target demo, so I will settle with my lonely role, hehe.

The only role that I don't like to play is jungle, and you don't even have to last hit, "just" killing monsters in the jungle and occasionally gank somebody, when the opportunity arise. Recent days I like to play mid more and more, especially Veigar. That little shit is just such a troll, especially if I get some boots, and I am flanking, hehe.

Anyway probably this won't be the only post about League of Legends, and I hope I can continue to play.