New Dota player needing help

I play League a lot (a lot a lot), and a friend told me to try out Dota 2 to see how I compare the two. After a few practice with bot games I still don't grasp everything. So here's a few questions.

1.) What are roles like? Is there a jungler/support/adc(basic attack-related carry)/apc(burster)/tank type system like League, or are the roles even important?

2.) How do I know what items come from what shop? It took me ages to figure out why the lane shop wasn't giving me Clarity and the main shop wasn't giving me tp.

3.) Are there any particularly low skill heroes? I'm talking Master Yi/Ryze type of low skill. Mash buttons until you have a penta-kill.

I really want to give this game a fair shot before I tell him "No League is better", but the system feels really cluttered and complicated. I'm trying to practice with bots right now until I find out what items actually do things and what the stats all relate to.

2) It just takes time to learn. But the quicker you learn the more of an advantage you'll have. So many basic items can be made just using the side shop. The only main time i'll use the courier on most heros is for wards.

3) Off the top of my head Drow Ranger Sniper Skeleton King Lifestealer

Sniper is quite possibly the least skilled of those. He has two passive abilities one that's not really worth leveling (imo) and his ultimate. With Drow you just have to remember to turn Frost Arrows on and off when you need them and occasionally silence. Skeleton King has 3 passives and a stun.

Thank you. I find the Necrolyte to be fairly easy as well. I have to get used to the shopping system still. Mostly the lack of a recall to base throws me off. Quickly figuring out the mechanics and hopefully I'll be stomping soon.

I suppose you can just find a role explaining vid on youtube or something, but there are (basically) 2 main roles in dota.

The carry, and the support. The supports run the early game so late game can be smooth for the carries, the carries dominate the late game. It's hard to explain like this, so I really recommend finding a vid on youtube like I said.

Watch this playlist, it's very useful, even I who played for so many years still found out new stuff from these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF50cvv4MhVrEdrQw2kGnJ7ag7eT1RfO2

I can also suggest my Tip of the Day series, showcasing tricks and advanced mechanics, which a lot of new players have found useful - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEybpVd5N8Tfn-3fziwg2XeJF4t5wGMJ7

thats the main difference to LoL imo ....LoL is much more structured in terms of hero- and lane setups.

In LoL you always have the same team composition: 1 AD, 1 Jungler, 1 AP, 1 Support and 1 Solo. With the exact same lane setup (1 top -1 mid- 2 bot and 1 jungler) while in dota this is far more chaotic.

If you have 1 jungler, than there has to be 1 solo laner besides mid, and whether he is bot or top depends on various parameters: does the solo hero have an escape skill? can he farm from afar? is he fragile or can he trade hits with the enemy lane support?

if you dont have a jungler, your team can still have 1 solo laner whilst trilaning the other sidelane....and again: if the trilane is bot or top depends again on the own AND the enemy team.

as you can see the teambuilding and laning concept of dota isnt as straight forward as it is in LoL and can therefor be a bit cconfusing to new players. But that flexibility is also something you will learn to appreciate, when you get better.

since there is no general setup rule in dota its hard to give advise...but imo a team should always have at least 1 hero, that can guide the team through the various game stages.

1 support and 1 nuker for early game
1 ganker or initiator for mid game
and 1 (hard)carry for late game

the last spot is mostly preference. Some teams prefer 2 supports (which also is my favorite setup) while others get more carries.

list of easy to use and effective heroes according to role:

supports : Lich Witch Doctor Shadow Shaman Bane
gankers: Spirit Breaker Bounty Hunter Blood seeker Night Stalker
initiators: Sand King Tide hunter
carries: Drow Ranger Sniper Sven Naix

hope this helps

Order is a form of chaos, one would argue. I mean it's far more based on counters and compositions. League does not permit having split pushing comps since the map is so much smaller (it feels like it) and you have a free B button for you to use. Anyhow, back to the topic, if you have a Dark Seer going solo or a Weaver you aren't gonna trilane since you cannot kill those heroes so you must go either bot trilane or just go for 2 duos. You always have the means to have a new meta, changing the lanes according to the enemy picks.

Just think outside the box and figure out a way of countering their picks and figuring your own heroes strenghts and weaknesses in the early/mid/late game.