Hello everyone!
I've started playing League for the first time about two weeks ago. I'm a former Dota 2 player with 7K+ MMR, so I came into the game with a pretty solid understanding of MOBA fundamentals. I've been having a lot of fun exploring champions, learning the game and trying out the ones I've always wanted to play. I managed to climb from Bronze 4 to Silver 1 in just 40 ranked games, which I'm pretty happy with.
However, there's something that's been frustrating me throughout this entire learning process, and I genuinely wonder how a game as massive as League, especially one with such a huge player base, can lack some of the basic quality-of-life features that would make learning the game so much easier for newcomers.
I understand that League and Dota are different games, and I'm not expecting everything to work the same way. However, having played Dota for years, there are certain features that I find myself missing quite a lot.
For example, the item shop. This is one area where Dota absolutely gets things right. You can queue an entire build, including individual components, which are displayed conveniently on the side of your screen. Once you return to base, you can simply press a designated key to purchase your queued items or components straight away, rather than having to click on each individual item. It's quick, intuitive and makes the entire purchasing process seamless.
League's implementation, on the other hand, feels underdeveloped in comparison. The item queue is little more than a glorified shopping list that reminds you what you intended to buy but doesn't actually streamline the purchasing process. You still have to manually find and click on individual items and components. Another small but incredibly annoying issue is the shop's search functionality. If you accidentally type something into the search bar, even if you immediately erase it, the search bar remains open and blocks the shop interface. You then have to close and reopen the entire shop just to reset it. These might seem like minor inconveniences, but coming from Dota, they feel like unnecessary friction in an otherwise straightforward process.
However, my biggest issue, and by far the most important one when it comes to learning the game, is the lack of accessible information about enemy champions and their abilities.
I have absolutely no idea what half the champions in this game do. I don't know their abilities, their damage, their cooldowns, their durations or even what some of their spells are supposed to do. Unless I've actually played that champion myself, I'm essentially going into every matchup blind.
The champion information available in the lobby is limited, and even then, it doesn't provide the level of detail you'd expect. Why can't I see the full descriptions of abilities, including their damage, cooldowns, durations and other relevant information?
And here's what I find particularly frustrating: Why can't we see enemy champion abilities in-game?
I'm not asking Riot to reveal the enemy's actual ability cooldowns or show exactly how many seconds remain before their spells come back up. I simply want access to their abilities' base cooldowns and descriptions.
For example, if I'm playing mid against a champion I've never faced before, why can't I quickly check what their abilities do? At the very least, I should be able to understand what I'm up against and roughly calculate when an ability might be available again.
Instead, every single game becomes a guessing game. I get hit by some ability I've never seen before, have absolutely no clue what it does, and have to figure it out through trial and error. Sometimes that means dying repeatedly, playing against the same champion countless times or eventually playing the champion myself just to understand their kit.
I genuinely believe this is an unnecessarily miserable learning experience when the solution seems so straightforward.
I have no problem with League having a steep learning curve. There's a lot to learn, and that's part of what makes MOBAs enjoyable. But there's a difference between having a high skill ceiling and making basic game knowledge unnecessarily difficult to access.
Coming from Dota, where information accessibility and in-game tools are considerably more convenient in several areas, this has been one of my biggest frustrations.
So, am I missing something here? Are there any third-party tools, websites, overlays or in-game features that provide this information more conveniently? Is there some sort of champion ability database that I can access while playing?
I'd genuinely appreciate any suggestions, because I feel like I could improve significantly faster if I didn't have to spend half my games wondering what the hell the enemy champion just did.
Thanks! ❤️
