User blog comment:Ysana/Changing Around the Lanes/@comment-5686533-20130908083918/@comment-15244341-20130908141255

Bots in Dota also leave you to pick lanes so that there are always 2-1-2. But bots in Dota being smarter than bots in league is kind of a moot point in a meta discussion.

Also, the Dota-LoL comparison in kind of moot. The way characters are designed and scale is different. In League you need to buy your damage if you are a skill reliant champion, not so much in Dota, since damage comes exclusively from bases. In Dota you BUY magic inmunity, autoattacking inmunity (dodge %), and most importantly CC with that cash. Many of those items you do buy also include extra stats and tankyness. That makes the way lanes work totally different. A Lina support midgame can still kill someone with her burst, while only having Arcane Boots and a bunch of wards purchased. Lulu midgame will burst not even a melee creep. Also, jungling is quite less useful than it is in League because there are no buffs to secure, so the jungler is a laner that has no lane presence. And trilaning works just because of the way in which you can pull your creeps out of lane using the jungling creeps so that at least one of the supports is out of the exp range while also getting some gold and experience AND making the lane push a crapton to their tower, so the carry is as safe as he could ever wish to be.

So the things that make Dota's meta so much more varied are a matter of game design that has no bearing in why League is played as it is played. Or it is, since they probably were changed by Riot not to go full Dota clone on their game.