Beta going down, Back to LOL till evil returns.

[fsj]

Yeah I know what you mean with time. When D3 is out my DOTA time will probably get trimmed by like 90% to maybe a game or two a week. It is definitely easier to random in DOTA and it is easier to learn the basics of a hero for the reasons you mentioned. However, I've found the heroes harder to master and the margin for error is a lot smaller due to everyone being on the exact same level because of no runes/masteries.

[korialstraz]

I honestly don't feel runes/masteries make that big a difference. If you play smart and save up IP, then you can easily afford a full rune page of standard runes for say carry classes. Ofc it takes a longer time to get the runes needed to play a variaty of roles, but in the end you won't have much problems purely based on runes. Masteries are also a non-issue, since once 30 you have access to exactly the same stuff as everyone else, and with 10 mastery pages available, you can set up for several different roles/champions. But I can imagine it's easier to get going with learning different roles in DOTA 2, since you won't have to worry about runes. :P