EPTA Basic Guide to Dominion
by AdrenalUK
by AdrenalUK
Contents
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: What is Dominion and how is it different?
• Chapter 3: Important concepts to understand
• Chapter 4: Basic Team Composition and Strategy
• Chapter 5: The Opening
• Chapter 6: The Midgame
• Chapter 7: The Endgame
• Chapter 8: The Metagame (to be updated)
• Chapter 9: Thank-Yous and Guide Updates
Disclaimer: The images in this guide have all been spoilered for presentation purposes. They are large - my gameplay images are 1920x1080, for example - and you can view them by right-clicking and selecting your preferred option. It's an inconvenience, but without causing headaches by making people concentrate on tiny details there's no way around it!
A Quick Note on Personal Score: It's good, but not a cut-and-dry indicator of a person's skill. See Chapter 4.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Hi there! My name's Adrenal and welcome to my basic Dominion guide. First, a little about me. I'm a current-but-casual SC2 player who used to play in and place reasonably highly in national tournaments in the UK, most notably 5th-6th place in the old Dignitas Gamer Search event that resulted in Bling joining the team.
I've played LoL for 5-6 months, discounting a break for my exams. I'm not highly ranked because it's obviously a secondary game for me after SC2 and I'm still farming all my runesets for ranked play (just an AP runeset to go!) but I do follow the competitive scene plenty.
Now I don't doubt you read the last paragraph and scoffed. But he doesn't play much ranked! Well, not to worry. Dominion, as we'll discover, is an entirely new experience. In a few months it will hopefully have its own ranked ladder and I intend to be playing that night and day. For now, I've had to remain content with being online for and massing games in virtually every limited beta session, as well as since it was released.
There are two reasons I'm writing this guide. Firstly my right hand hurts and so logically in my brief injury break from gaming I am typing instead, because only the weak and feeble are afraid of CTS. Secondly, this is designed to be a starter guide for the game mode; in particular, for those of you who are out there wondering "is there any strategy to this?". Yes, there is. You might not be finding it in pubs but after running many 4-man and 5-man teams we're already starting to see recurring themes in everything from composition to summoner spells.
It's labelled basic not because it's necessarily short, or for low level players, but because we haven't seen enough high-level Dominion play yet to really know what advanced is. I see this as something that will get you going on the path to "advanced play", whenever that shows up, so you've got a grounding from which you can understand new concepts and compositions.
I hope you enjoy the guide and find it educational. Please do leave feedback and talk about new things you're seeing so they can be added to the guide. Please don't whine about how Dominion is different, or badly balanced, or not fun.
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Chapter 2: What is Dominion and how is it different?
Dominion is the name for Riot's new gametype in League of Legends. It's played on a new map, called The Crystal Scar, and there are a host of new gameplay mechanics that I'll be going over. If you've ever played Territories in Halo, Domination in CoD or Arathi Basin in WoW you'll have a rough idea of how it works.
+ Show Spoiler [The Crystal Scar] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/46Ij7.jpg)
It's not Summoner's Rift!
Credit: Dominion Concept Art, Riot
Very simply, there are five control points (turrets) dotted around the map in a pentagonal formation. You capture (cap) these points by right-clicking on them and when you hold an advantage in numbers over your opponent, you damage their Nexus, which starts with 500HP. More on turret capping behaviour later, but two important things I should mention before continuing are that minions can also cap turrets by "damaging" them and that controlled turrets act like slightly weaker towers from Summoner's Rift in that they will attack you!
For the remainder of this guide, each turret will be referred to by its direction (North, West, SW, SE, East) rather than its name so those of you with less experience of the gameplay can still follow.
As you'd expect, the more of an advantage you have the faster their Nexus dies. A nice tidbit - you also damage the Nexus to the tune of two points when you kill an enemy hero!
There are also quite a few changes to gameplay. I'll list the major ones below;
- The biggest change are the stats. From the start to finish of each game, a global aura grants every champion the following stats;
- 15% armor penetration
- 5% magic penetration
- 20% healing reduction (this affects Spell Vamp and Lifesteal)
- A bonus to mana regeneration (anecdotal evidence says this works like a Chalice of Harmony)
- 15% armor penetration
- In addition, the following effects are also present;
- An experience gain over time (roughly 8 EXP per second untalented)
- Increased gold gain (6 gold per second)
- Reduced gold gain by killing champions
- Increased gold gain by killing minions (30 per ranged creep, 60 per melee)
- Recall channel time decreased to 4.5 seconds
- Reduced respawn times
- From what I can tell, the experience required to level up has also been reduced
- An experience gain over time (roughly 8 EXP per second untalented)
- Minions have been tweaked a bit. They spawn from turrets you control and instead of the traditional 3 melee/3 ranged, you get 2 ranged and 1 "bigger" melee creep per wave.
- At 3:00, a relic in the middle of the map will spawn. Grabbing this relic (in the same way as a turret) will provide a recharging shield and a damage-on-attack buff that lasts for roughly a minute, respawning every 3 minutes. You can prevent somebody getting it by damaging them as they channel the grab. This buff makes you into a George Foreman lean mean damage-dealing killing machine so do make an effort to get it.
- At 5:00 and random intervals thereafter both teams will be given a quest. Quests require you to capture one of your opponents' points while defending one of your own. The first team to complete their quest will be given a global +10% damage buff and damage the enemy's Nexus for 20HP. If you hadn't worked it out yet, quests are really important!
- Dotted around the map are 3 speed shrines and 10 health relics. Speed shrines give a 30% movement speed bonus when walked over, while health relics return health! I'm afraid I'm unsure of the health relic amount; feel free to let me know.
- Some new items have been added and others disabled. The disabled items are ones like Sight/Vision Wards (more on map control and awareness throughout the guide) and Elixirs, as well as some of the items that increase their effectiveness via minion kills - like Bloodthirster. An excellent summary of the added items can be found below. Credit to a Solomid guide, but I'm not sure if they made it.
+ Show Spoiler [Added Items Image] +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xPgyX.png)
- Finally, there are two new Summoner Spells; Garrison and Promote. These two take the place of Fortify and Teleport respectively - and the mastery slots that used to upgrade those two now also upgrade the new summoner spells.
- Garrison can be used defensively on an allied turret to increase its "regeneration rate" (the rate at which it returns to your control after being damaged by creeps or partially capped) and make it fire faster. It can be used offensively to slow the rate of fire on an enemy turret.
- Promote is an untargeted spell that turns the nearest melee creep into a larger creep. When the spell is used the creep is healed to maximum health (important!) and gets extra stats. Also, any kills it gets will give you gold!
- Garrison can be used defensively on an allied turret to increase its "regeneration rate" (the rate at which it returns to your control after being damaged by creeps or partially capped) and make it fire faster. It can be used offensively to slow the rate of fire on an enemy turret.
As you can no doubt tell, the list of changes is extensive and can be overwhelming. The key is just to start playing and enjoy it; how these stats and changes influence gameplay will be talked about in Chapter 4.
A final note to reward you for reading to the end, if you've never played Dominion before - blue team spawns left, purple team spawns right. I'll simply refer to them as blue and purple.
○ ○ ○ ○
Chapter 3: Important concepts to understand
Dominion works very differently to standard Summoner's Rift (SR) and an entirely different skillset is required. In high-level SR matches, the post-draft skill is usually in farming and map control - free hero kills are rare and often seized upon with a Dragon or Baron attempt. Dominion is much more frantic, but there's still a lot of thought that goes into decision-making. In this chapter I'll be detailing important concepts that you should be aware of as you play and that may help you understand team comps and strategy.
Concept 1: The Importance of Capping Points
This sounds disparaging, right? It's the whole point of the game. You'd think I would give you more credit than that. Well, yes and no. The first mistake that new and some average Dominion players make is that they're not eager enough to cap stuff. They cap the first few points and then run around aimlessly in the middle of the map trying to kill the other team. Suddenly they look up at the scoreboard and realise "hang on, now we're 100 points down".
+ Show Spoiler [Fundamental Theorem of Dominion] +
Every decision and movement you make and every fight you get into should have either the defense or attack of a turret (or some other obvious goal, like the storm relics) in mind.
There's rarely a time when you should be out in the middle of the map fighting for the sake of getting a pretty +1 in your kill count, because it's unnecessary added risk unless you can gib the guy and you know where all the other champions are. Even then, you're often going to lose a lot of health - something that could mean a time-consuming trip back to base or not being able to defend/attack a point 30 seconds down the line.
If you're at an enemy point with minions, just cap it. If you're next to some minions in lane and you know you can cap or neutralise an enemy point, don't push the creeps to it first - just go and cap it!
Concept 2: Turret Behaviour
Turrets work a little like towers in SR, but the behaviour is very slightly different. Enemy turrets will still attack you if you get close, but while you're capping an enemy turret or while an enemy is capping yours, it cannot shoot. This means that if you're attacking a normally-defended turret 3v1 (as opposed to chasing a near-dead guy past a turret) then to avoid unexpected deaths it is almost always beneficial to have somebody capping the turret. The alternative is going straight for the enemy champion, killing them faster but possibly losing an ally due to turret damage and then capping the point later.
Another important corollary of capping preventing turret fire is that if you're on 100HP next to an enemy turret, having just killed a champion, your best chance of survival is to turn and cap the turret as quickly as possible rather than running away!
Turret range is roughly to the edge of the capture point graphic on the ground and you can cap a turret before it shoots at you. Be aware; turrets will attack you slightly further away if you're fighting an enemy champion.
As mentioned earlier in the guide, minions can cap turrets! It won't take them long, so if there's a big wave headed to one of your turrets then you'll need to stop them very quickly.
Finally, remember that if there are 2 or more champions capping a neutral turret then unless you have an AoE ability that will hit all of them, the fastest way to stop them capping is to cap the turret yourself, which will break off all of their cap attempts simultaneously. Neat!
Concept 3: Movement
Again, this sounds obvious. Movement clearly refers to where you're heading on the map in relation to your opponents, but the more important element to it is the art of moving your opponents themselves. Just like in Starcraft, by forcing your enemy to move to a spot on the map, you open up holes in other areas of the map that can then be exploited. In Starcraft, you'd exploit them by covering a weak base against a push by counterattacking or luring his army somewhere with a drop and then taking out an expansion. In Dominion, our fundamental rule states that you're always moving your opponents with the intention of capping or defending another point by spreading them more thinly.
Here's a very simple example. Let's say you're playing Twisted Fate (a reasonable capper - more on roles later). You spot four purple heroes in the middle of the map and one pushing from SE to SW, with North/East/SE under their control. Your team are on the back foot and the opposition has good control of the middle.
If you can find a way in that situation to use your ult and get over to East, you'll force a reaction. One or more of their heroes will return to stop you (or you'll get a free cap, which is always good) and that will in turn free up space for your team to attack North and SE. Mission accomplished!
+ Show Spoiler [Another Good Example] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RQcIq.jpg)
In the above pic, it's easy to see that the other team's champions are mostly out of position. Tryn and Orianna went to countercap West and Fiddle, whether he realises it or not, is doing a great job zoning Teemo from the bottom half of the map, so I'm quite happy to jump in and take the free cap of SW!
The idea of movement is most important for the dedicated capper in your team but it's something that everybody should be aware of.
Concept 4: Position and Extension
Riot did a good job designing Dominion. They were aware that without the inclusion of quests, we'd just build comps around getting control of three points and turtling for the win, kind of like when two closely-matched teams late on in a Halo 3 Slayer match would take opposite bases on Guardian and just sit there. So with the inclusion of quests, we are encouraged to go and cap points that are nearer to the enemy base even if we already hold a 3-2 advantage in the knowledge that if we don't, our opposition will cap their quest point and they'll be 3-2 with a 10% damage buff. Not a good situation.
So this concept is less about where you should be and more about understanding the idea of extension on the map. SR experts will be at home here as the analogy I'm going to draw is that of pushing a lane. You have the opportunity to damage your opponents' tower, but it makes you in turn vulnerable to a gank by the other team's jungler.
In Dominion, you can hold 3 points (let's say North/West/SW as blue) and be relatively safe from a backdoor capper, but if you move into to start trying and taking the other two then you're leaving yourself open back closer to base if somebody can sneak past you. Watching your minimap in such situations is essential so you can catch even the slightest glimpse of somebody breaking past your formation to go cap something. Obviously, if you see someone doing so you must ping their direction to your teammates. I suppose you don't have to, but it would be nice if you did.
Concept 5: North is the Most Valuable Point
Yes indeed, North (Windmill) is the MVP. We'll see in the strategy/team comp section that you'll be sending most of your team here at the start in an attempt to gain the upper hand. So, a quick explanation of why North is more valuable than the other bases;
- Firstly and most importantly, all the other turrets are close to someone's base. This means that it's very difficult to reliably cap and hold them and unless there's a big disparity in team levels and gold (and/or skill) they will be re-capped eventually and if I use the word "and" one more time in this sentence it'll just sound strange.
- Conversely, (possibly the same point phrased differently,) North is the furthest from anyone's base - meaning that it is the most out-of-the-way point to get to and thus the most difficult point to cap without leaving holes at other turrets. This harks back to our Movement concept, ie. if you're trying to cap North with 1-2 champions then your allies are spread thinly and it will be easier for the enemy to trade North for 2 other turrets.
Here's a few quick pics explaining this concept a bit better;
+ Show Spoiler [Good Trade 1] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/K4fUR.jpg)
In this game, Rammus and I have just pushed SW and pulled three enemy champions down to stop us. In the resulting chaos, Urgot and Nocturne head up to top lane and take an easy North cap!
+ Show Spoiler [Good Trade 2] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ydaEL.jpg)
Here, Twitch and I have a gentleman's agreement to trade North for East. I'm getting the better end of the swap, though! East can be easily recapped by anyone who recalls back to base or Fiddle when he respawns.
+ Show Spoiler [Good Trade 3] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Knh4N.jpg)
From the same game, Twitch sneaks past us to cap North but Heimer and I have just capped SE and with their team mostly at West there's a big hole for us to cap SW, which we eventually managed! We gave up North but got a 2-for-1 turret trade.
+ Show Spoiler [Bad Trade] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oJgp6.jpg)
And because I'm not God's gift to mankind, here's an example of a bad trade we made; we've pushed and capped SW but with Nocturne mid and one dead Jax facerolls up to North to get a free cap. You could argue there's a hole at West, but we hadn't killed many and they would have easily prevented a cap. It's always easier to trade SE and SW for North than two base turrets!
Make sure you've read these concepts through thoroughly! They'll be very important in the next section.
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Chapter 4: Basic Team Composition and Strategy
Before We Begin
Shortly after I began writing this guide, I was linked to this brief Reddit post and for a second I thought there was no point in me continuing because someone had found a better strat. Thankfully though, after reading through it I realised there were a few similarities to the way we were doing things and the guy had just come up with his own names for them.
While they run a different and much more defensive strategy than our 5-man teams, there are common themes. They take champions with high mobility in their "Poker" role, that will be covered by our Dedicated Capper later on. Their "Mid" role is similar but not identical to the Anti-Cap property I will cover in this chapter.
But ultimately, what their strategy and mine has in common is the level of organisation present. Dominion has been pretty chaotic for the first week and what is propelling both his team and ours to a good number of wins is the fact that we're both running well-oiled, solid teams who know their roles. Neither setup is better and I'm not going to sit here and slander his work, because it's good!
If you want a comparison then both can work fine but this is the aggressive style to AHaskins' defensive style.
Introduction and Team Comp
This will certainly be the meat of the guide. You've probably just read that sentence and gawped because of how long the guide is already, but I envisage Chapters 5 through 9 will be considerably shorter, so don't worry too much. My CTS hasn't ravaged my hands too hard yet and some nice Plan B, Justice and Adele songs are keeping me sane (look them up). Hopefully you haven't dozed off, either. Give yourself a pat on the back if that's the case.
Right now, I use the word basic because team compositions are very much in the construction stage. I and my Dominion buddies have a good idea of different comps that can be run and we've tried a good few champions to get a grasp on how they fit into the scheme of things. However, the metagame will probably evolve more quickly than current SR because of the vast player population and intense interest.
Initially, it was thought that everyone should just play bruisers (for newbies, a bruiser is usually a tanky-DPS style champion) and good 1v1 champions like Akali. Early beta games were a frantic melee as everybody thought they should be fighting each other. Things quickly calmed down as people started to work out the best ways to cap points early and apply pressure wasn't always a heavy-aggression approach.
I break champions into two sections for Dominion; "roles" and "properties". Roles are the same thing as you'd get in a standard SR game, but different. You want certain numbers of certain roles. Properties are characteristics of champions which don't necessarily constitute a role that will help you accomplish certain tasks, like preventing someone from capping a point.
The below is as close to a "standard" team comp as I can give you, but I really hesitate to use the word standard as the metagame will probably have changed a bit by the time I finish writing this! I'll just jump into the comp and explain the different types of champion in a bit.
○○ ROLES ○○
1 Dedicated Capper
1 Bottom Laner (Pusher)
3 Fighters
○○ DESIRABLE PROPERTIES ○○
The following aren't essential, hence the "desirable" label.
Anti-Cap (1 should suffice)
Map Control (again, 1 is enough - there aren't many map control champions that are strong picks yet)
Poke (2 or 3 would be handy, but too many and you risk not having enough firepower)
Long-Range Teleport (the more the better, but most champions with this property are played as Dedicated Cappers)
So, here we go. Let's explain all of this!
Role 1: The Dedicated Capper
Examples: Rammus, Twisted Fate, Pantheon, Blitzcrank, Zilean, Master Yi
Skillset Needed: Good map awareness, positioning, map awareness, movement and great map awareness.
As you might expect, the Dedicated Capper's (DC's) job is to cap points. He's that really irritating guy. You know the one. You look at the minimap one second, all is well - and then suddenly he's half the map away capping West while you're pressuring their base turrets.
Remember my note on personal score? Well, if you're a score junkie just play a DC. It's not difficult to top the leaderboard. This is an excellent example of how your contribution to the game can't be measured by a number;
+ Show Spoiler [Standard Rammus Game] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OAhj9.jpg)
Yes, I'm getting a third armour item against 2 AP/3 AD. Lux and Orianna weren't really giving me much trouble.
As a DC you need to be pretty much constantly on the ball as to where the holes in their formation are and when you can move the other team around to better suit a goal. No role embodies the Fundamental Theorem of Dominion as well as this one. You need to be consistently aware of where the enemy champions are; for this reason, for a long time I was taking Clairvoyance on all my DCs but I eventually passed that up for Revive/Ghost. More on summoner spells later.
Your early game items will, without exception, be 3 Healing Pots/Rejuvenation Bead + Boots of Mobility followed by a rush to Priscilla's Blessing for the cap speed and you'll then build your champion for whatever suits it best. Some prefer stacking Phantom Dancers later on but as DCs are often required to fill in for other roles at a moment's notice with their mobility I prefer to have some combat utility that fits my champion. Of course, if you're playing a DC who really benefits from the +AS and Crit then by all means do it!
Skills-wise, a good DC champion will always have either a long range teleport spell (eg. Twisted Fate, Pantheon) or a good spammable movespeed buff or some kind of stealth. They're pretty easy to spot. The examples I mentioned at the start of this part are all excellent - Twitch and Evelynn are also great. Teemo and Gangplank are other examples of champions that perhaps fit another purpose which can also be played as DCs if you want more of a "hybrid feel" to your champion.
Role 2: The Bottom Laner (Pusher)
Examples: Heimerdinger, Morgana, Brand, Cassiopeia, any Pusher
Skillset Needed: Good laning ability, good aim on skills, good map awareness
The Pusher is about as close to a standard SR role as you're going to find. The fighters will be fighting, yes, but the Pusher is the only champion that actually generally lanes. Early on a lot of players scoffed at the idea of laning but I'm happy to say it has quickly found a place in the gametype.
Note that sadly the Pusher gets the other end of the stick compared to the DC; the DC should really have the highest score - as the Pusher is mostly dealing with minions and keeping a lane pushed (he rarely ever deviates from the bottom half of the map) he won't be getting nearly as much score. Oh well!
+ Show Spoiler [Pushers Are Underappreciated] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WFcuk.jpg)
Summoner spells are simple: Flash and Promote, or Ghost and Promote. Promote is the single greatest summoner spell right now for a Pusher; because it heals your first melee creep to full on use, you've got an instant advantage from the first creep wave over somebody that didn't take it and assuming roughly equal pushing power you will be able to apply much more pressure to their tower thanks to that first creep wave.
The reason why a solo bottom laner as opposed to an aggressor is so effective will be discussed later on (see "Why 3/2 Doesn't Work") but it's absolutely the best way to go and as pushing the lane isn't ever a negative, like in SR, it's best to have somebody who can destroy creep waves there as opposed to a traditional solo who may do better on the CS/aggression front. You might be able to damage them a bit, but the smart Pusher has ways to avoid this.
That's right, how does a Pusher start so successfully? Provided he's a mana-based pusher, he rushes a Catalyst! "But that's silly!" I hear you cry. All around, there are anguished cries of "but he'll have Boots and you won't!". The thing is, when you're a pushing a lane you want to be casting as many spells as possible to melt the minions. The levelling rate in Dominion is so fast that a Catalyst's regen will simply dominate any laner who didn't go for it, not to mention the mana regen stat increase we touched on earlier. Case in point;
+ Show Spoiler [Good Start!] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OtRDT.jpg)
This is the start of one of the games from earlier on. I go Catalyst and Promote against a Heimerdinger who unwisely goes tier 2 Boots + standard SR summoners. As you can see, I'm already near to his turret with full mana despite pretty much spamming my spells! I got there a level later and forced people away from the other turrets to defend. Even though I didn't cap it, Heimer's bad item/summoner build caused his team to lose turrets and we ended up winning the game very convincingly.
As mentioned in that spoiler, the ultimate goal of a Pusher is to force enemy champions away from more important turrets like North that they would rather control. By doing this, the Pusher creates holes that his team can easily exploit. The only thing you need to be aware of is the DC taking advantage of your pushed lane to cap a base turret because you were too far away; that's where the map awareness I mentioned comes into play.
Items on a Pusher after the Catalyst are simply your preferred build for that hero, but bear in mind you should always have enough firepower to keep comfortably and quickly pushing minions.
Role 3: The Fighter
Examples: Nocturne, Jax, Akali, Gangplank - AP carries like Kassadin can also work
Skillset Needed: The same as a good AD carry or tanky-DPS in SR, plus some map awareness would help
The aggressor is the role that was initially so widely used in limited beta. It's still very important - and your fighters will always decide who gets North in the opening - but it's not as much of a massive brawl as before.
These guys' jobs are fairly simple to explain compared to the other two roles. You'll build your champion mostly as you would in a standard SR game and your job is pretty much to be where you're needed, killing people to cap or defend points. The storm relic in the middle of the map should always go to one of the three fighters, so make efforts to pick that up when you can.
The only big mistake you can make is fighting when it's not a good idea. This is a subtle concept and takes some getting used to. Sometimes you'll have killed a guy and be able to recall to safety but it'll still be a bad idea; why is this? Well, occasionally you'd rather have not lost a big chunk of your HP and would prefer instead to be at full health so you can go stop somebody from capping a point that nobody else can reach. It's not always clear when a fight is a good idea until it's concluded - and that can be confusing when you're trying to improve your play as an aggressor.
I've tried to provide illustrations where possible throughout this guide but for this point it's pretty tough. How do you illustrate whether a fight was a good idea or not without extensive screenshots at different stages of the game? Let's instead try an example.
+ Show Spoiler [A Theoretical Example] +
Let's say you're on blue team and you control West and SW. There's just been a big fight at North and you won; both sides took casualties and now there's just you left, at three-quarters health, with the Pushers comfortably tucked away in the bottom lane. One other champion remains for them - hanging around North - and he's at half health. You reckon you can take him, but should you?
If you fight and it takes a while, one of two things will happen;
In my opinion, it's much better to play it carefully and keep yourself in good condition for when the respawns show up to attack again. The half health champion will still be there, but probably still on or around half health so you'll have an advantage in the fight as opposed to you both being dead or at base, when the fight is level.
If you fight and it takes a while, one of two things will happen;
- You kill him, but you're low on health now and everyone else is back to normal. You don't have time to pick up several health relics before the respawns reach North turret to attack you. You're forced to recall or play a diminished role in the next fight .
- You don't kill him, but you're low on health. This is even worse!
In my opinion, it's much better to play it carefully and keep yourself in good condition for when the respawns show up to attack again. The half health champion will still be there, but probably still on or around half health so you'll have an advantage in the fight as opposed to you both being dead or at base, when the fight is level.
Like I said, it's a subtle thing but it's important. I would suggest as a rule of thumb that just not going crazy and chasing champions is a good start before you begin working on the finery.
Now let's talk about aggressor champion choices. Because there are so many, in the examples section - rather than list a few off the top of my head - I chose to list the best. And Nocturne is the best aggressor we've found. He's pretty insane. His ultimate is perfect for Dominion; allows him frankly disgusting mobility from a central position and reduces map awareness for his opponents. He's also got a solid CC spell, a nice movespeed buff and when farmed can wreck entire teams. Jax is another good mention and in good hands can be a huge asset.
Akali and Gangplank are other examples of great fighters, which is why I haven't yet seen Gangplank played as a DC. His poke and +damage along with a sick ultimate are just too good to pass up when attacking a turret.
A Brief Note on Gold Per 10 (gp10) Items
In an SR game, an un-upgraded gp10 item will generally pay itself back. Each one gives 5 gold per 10, which will pay itself back in anywhere between 25 minutes (an Avarice Blade) and 27.5 minutes (a Heart of Gold). Assuming a 45 minute game, these are probably going to make their money back after being bought; essentially making them free stats. In Dominion, however, with the average game length being so drastically reduced (typically 15-25 minutes) these items will never pay themselves back and are thus not a good option unless you intend to upgrade them into an appropriate item.
Now, on to desirable properties!
Property 1: Anti-Cap
Examples: Gangplank, Ezreal, Lux, Ashe, Nocturne, Karthus
A champion with an anti-cap skill is, as you'd expect, adept at stopping cap attempts from long range. When taken by surprise, these guys buy you enough time to get someone back to help out on a more permanent basis.
- When using an anti-cap hero, bear in mind that it's often beneficial to save these ults in a tight 3-2 turret situation rather than use them to fight the other team, just incase the DC shows up at a base turret while you're out of position. The use of your ult is a big deal, so make sure it's a good situation for it!
- When fighting an anti-cap hero, be aware of when his relevant skill is down - this is a good window for your DC to be capping as much as possible.
Property 2: Map Control
Examples: Teemo, Nidalee, Shaco, Caitlyn
A champion with a map control element can be used to get a lot of vision in key places on the map and thus make keeping up good map awareness a much easier task for your DC and other players.
- When using a map control hero, remember that it isn't everything. It's a nice bonus and where possible you should drop traps/boxes/etc along routes you're travelling, but try not to go out of your way to get vision of places. Time is so important in Dominion that it's only really beneficial to spend time moving somewhere to trap it when you're massively in control, at which point you generally don't need the trap there!
- When fighting a map control hero, remember that if there isn't a limit on the amount of traps they can place then that skill generally takes up a big portion of their utility. As a result, champions with map control abilities have less firepower and are almost always worse off in a straight-up fight.
Property 3: Poke
Examples: Lux, Talon, Gangplank, Cassiopeia
A champion with poke has cheap, spammable spells that can be used to quickly lower the health of enemy champions near turrets without taking much damage from those champions or the turrets themselves. This allows you to attack turrets much more safely. They're also great at defending turrets by landing several small hits on the champion(s) trying to cap them. Generally the more of these in your team the better.
- When using a poke hero, try and get into these situations; your skills are incredibly strong when defending a turret from two mid-health attackers or when your team needs to break a heavily defended turret. Don't go crazy and don't jump in, just be content to quickly whittle down their health and make them force a fight somehow.
- When fighting a poke hero, you need to force an engagement somehow; either by a flank, a good initiation or sometimes just luring them to cap the turret and then stunning them when they're in range.
Property 4: Long-Range Teleport
Examples: Twisted Fate, Pantheon, Nocturne/Akali (less so)
A champion with a long-range teleport or jump has it much easier when they're getting around the map. Not only can they get to enemy turrets to cap them quickly but in a pinch their abilities can also be used to defend their own turrets. There's not a huge amount to say about these guys, other that the ones with untargeted skills (eg. Twisted Fate and Pantheon) are normally played as DCs.
- When using a hero with a skill like this, the same stuff as for the Anti-Cap section applies. Remember that your ult is a big deal; you should always be confident you can get a cap or a neutralise from using it - just moving enemy champions with a backdoor would be acceptable if you've got a spammable movement speed buff like Blitzcrank or Rammus, but when it's an ult on a long cooldown you need to do more on each use.
- When fighting a hero with a long-range teleport, it helps to be aware of when the skill is and isn't available. Just like high-level players would measure Flash timings in an SR game, you should aim to be on the ball with rough timings of when their ult is up so you can adjust position on the map accordingly. I'll profess I'm not very good at this, but I'm working on it and so should you!
An Example of a Good Team vs a Bad Team
The below picture is an example of a reasonably typical team comp on our part. There are three of us in a premade and thankfully the other two guys picked pretty good heroes!
+ Show Spoiler [Good Team vs Bad Team] +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/a1Z3Y.jpg)
So how does our team work? Well, clearly the pub Rammus is going to be our DC. He's taken Ghost, which is good, and Ignite (which is a bit strange). Urgot is the other pub and he's picked an aggressor, with summoner spells to match. We round the team out with Morgana on bottom lane and Poppy/Nocturne as our other fighters. Haz is a friend of mine who likes to take Garrison - I'll discuss it more later but I think Nocturne is one of the few champions it's good on and most others shouldn't bother. (It's a waste on Zilean, for example.)
Roles are sorted, so let's check properties. Well, we've kind of got an anti-cap in the form of Nocturne. It's not ideal, we'd normally run Gangplank in the place of Urgot in a 5v5 premade - but it'll do. We've got no map control skills, (aside from Nocturne's ult in a sense,) but we do have strong poke; Urgot and I can spam spells all day long at their turrets and Nocturne's Duskbringer is reasonable for that purpose too. The long-range teleport/jump should be obvious!
On a sidenote, this is why Nocturne is so strong in this gametype; note the amount of desirable properties he fulfils while still being a great basic DPS champion.
Now let's check out the other team, who have gone a bit weirdo for their picks! Clearly their Heimerdinger will be in the bottom lane, but who's their DC? Sona, Rumble and Zilean all have movement speed buffs but only Zilean has one that I'd really consider effective and spammable enough to make him a DC; he's certainly the best DC of the three. That would leave Katarina, Rumble and Sona as your fighters - reasonable picks for the first two, but Sona is going to let the side down here.
Unsurprisingly, we destroyed this team.
The Utility of Summoner Spells
In this section I'll be giving a brief runthrough of each summoner spell and whether or not it's worth taking. Most are cut-and-dry yes/no cases but there are some which are very situational or divisive (only one person, for example, has ever thanked me for taking Clairvoyance!).
- Exhaust: Yes. This is worth taking on any fighter, just as you'd expect. Obviously standard SR rules apply; it's better when you're facing heavy AD, for example. But don't be afraid to take this on anybody except a DC, Pusher or AP Fighter.
- Ghost:: Yes; again, standard SR rules apply. Champions which need to autoattack a lot to kill somebody benefit greatly from Ghost and it's important to remember that Ghost gives more mobility than Flash overall. Mobility's very important for Dominion - and if you're in a fight, you shouldn't need Flash because it should be a good choice to fight! - so I'd take Ghost over Flash on most champions. Exceptions in the Flash section!
Bear in mind that Ghost is way too good to pass up on DCs. Ghost increases movement speed by a percentage, which also affects the flat 130ms bonus from Mobility Boots and any other flat bonuses - so you're getting a massive movespeed increase. Make sure to talent Ghost when you take it on a DC. - Heal: No. Heal doesn't really mesh well with Dominion. Although in theory it provides solid sustainability, with the reduced healing effects it's just not that good and you'd usually rather take something else.
- Promote: Yes. Bread-and-butter for your bottom laner, but not much point for anyone else. It's a good pushing ability but if you're attacking an adjacent turret to one your team owns then you just go cap it - and if there are enemy champions there, either you're ahead and you don't need to worry or there are 2 other points you can cap. You could argue that Promote would allow you to sort of set a ticking bomb on an enemy turret (as eventually a creep wave of yours will reach it) but given that you have to be in range of your minion to promote it you may as well just go cap the point yourself.
- Revive: Yes. I've heard a lot of discussion on Revive and why it is or isn't good. I take this on DCs the vast majority of the time; situations where I might choose not to are if, for example, I'm using TF and most of my mobility is from a teleport rather than movespeed. Otherwise I just die, tap the Revive key, use my +ms ability and I'm zipping across the map at anything up to 1.8k movespeed (my record so far).
Yes, it's on a 9 minute cooldown untalented so you'll only get 2-3 uses. But as a DC you've generally got enough of an escape mechanism to reliably get away from 1 or 2 champions. Most of the time I will die 2-3 times in a game and having the option to get back into the fray immediately and save yourself 15-20 seconds (plus the time saved from the extra movespeed) is invaluable - not to mention the fact that having effectively a 5v4 in a North fight is ridiculous. With a +ms ability it's just too clutch for me to pass up. - Smite: No. Sadly has little to no use in Dominion. The only situation I would even consider taking this is if you wanted to try sniping a melee minion before it was Promoted in bottom lane, thus giving you some extra pushing power early. However, given that you'd be taking this over Promote (unless you went Smite/Promote, which gives you no escape of any kind) I just can't see how it's worth it.
- Cleanse: No. Again, little to no use. You could argue that it's worth taking it on a DC to get away, but if you're against those kinds of champions and they're really giving you trouble you could just buy a Sash and get the nice added MR/debuff removal. Given the gold income in Dominion, it's cheap.
- Garrison: Yes, occasionally. I mentioned earlier I'd be talking about this and that Nocturne was one of the few champions it's worth taking this on. The problem is that in champion vs champion situations, Garrison only really affects turret attack speed or damage, (we haven't seen the regen bonus come in useful yet,) so its uses become limited to 1v1 situations when the turret cannot be capped by another champion to prevent it firing. These situations are few and far between.
However, if you're a champion like Nocturne who dives in with his ult and goes smack smack smack on the other guy, using an offensive Garrison on a turret certainly isn't a bad option. You'll lose a lot less health and may be able to pick up kills and caps in situations that you'd otherwise have to back away from. Save this spell for champions with very little poke that are likely to need to break turrets in a 1v1 situation. - Clarity: No. There's a large mana regen buff in Dominion and you should be going Catalyst first most times as a pusher. No excuse for taking this; there are much better options.
- Ignite: Yes. A solid option on the right fighters, just like in SR. Shouldn't need to say much about this.
- Clairvoyance: Yes, probably. I suspect that CV will eventually become commonplace on somebody but it's tough to find a role that uses it well yet. There's no real support role in Dominion so there's nobody who should automatically take CV. For a long time I was laughed out of the park when I took Clairvoyance on my DC champions to scout ahead, but I did come across the odd person or two who agreed with me.
While it's certainly handy, Revive/Ghost is too useful for a DC in my opinion for me to take CV - but given the right set of circumstances (for example, playing Pantheon as a DC) I might take it. Seems strange, but it's invaluable for picking the right spot to jump to. - Flash: Yes. It's a bit strange, though. Flash gives better survivability, but Ghost is probably preferable overall in this mode for the extra utility it gives. Ghost isn't just used to get away; you can also get around the map quickly - much quicker than with Flash. So if you're unlikely to be moving a lot (example: pushers!) then Flash is a solid choice. For anyone else, Ghost is probably better.
Why You Should 4/1 - or Why 3/2 Doesn't Work
4/1 and 3/2 are simply the ways that we're referring to how many people are sent to North and bottom lane respectively at the start of a game. Very early on 3/2 was the standard in pub matches, but people soon realised that 4/1 is much better. Here's why!
In the following theoretical example, blue are running a 4/1 and purple are running a 3/2. It is assumed that all players are of equal skill.
- First, let's consider the "imbalances" in the situation. I'm not referring to balance in the traditional sense here, in a nutshell this is just a chess term (Silman, if you're wondering) to describe advantages that each side holds or can gain.
- Blue will have 3v3 top as West and East are capped and eventually 4v3. As the turret is neutral, blue should win the fight without a problem and cap North.
- Purple will have 1v1 bottom lane immediately and eventually 2v1 once East is capped. They could run their East capper top and start with two in the bottom lane but it will work out similarly. They'll cap their base turrets and then start pushing the lane.
- Blue will have 3v3 top as West and East are capped and eventually 4v3. As the turret is neutral, blue should win the fight without a problem and cap North.
- Blue will win North quickly while purple are still pushing bottom lane. They'll get to the turret quickly but by that time North is already capped - plus SW is firing at them so the blue Pusher has an easier time defending. The first fight is over and blue can divert forces from North to defend their 3-2 advantage in the bottom lane. They need only send one champion, leaving it 3v3 top and 2v2 bottom with a 1 turret lead!
The Matter of the North Fight
This bit is going to be incredibly important, because I'd bet money on it being the biggest deal in draft picks as Dominion progresses into ranked matches. In the above example, the North fight was the key. Bottom lane could not be pushed quickly enough to prevent champions getting back in time to help with a 3-2 advantage. This makes the 4-man team that you send to North at the start very important.
While there are a near-infinite number of combinations you can send, certain champions will emerge as popular and this is a section of the guide that I expect to be updated frequently.
I would liken this fight to a Level 1 jungle-invasion on SR. When a team feels like they have a good/better Level 1 comp they will run into their opponents' jungle and attempt to force a fight. The only difference is that in Dominion if you don't fight you'll lose North and give up an immediate advantage - so it's clearly an important part of the game!
Because of the team-based nature of the North fight, champions with strong teamplay or AoE abilities are often likely to do well; however there's often a big overlap with AP champions here which will tail off as the AD-carry-type champions get their farm going through the mid and late game (which is much easier thanks to the 6 gold p/s). That means that sometimes the best Level 1 fight is comprised of champions which won't be that useful later on. A great example is Fiddlesticks; Dark Wind can silence multiple champions and deal a good amount of damage, making it a brilliant Level 1 ability - but as the game goes on he'll start to be less effective in snap-fights where he needs time to get in a good position for his ult and so forth.
Contained in the spoiler are a list of current good Level 1 champions we've discovered or seen. This will be updated as the metagame continues and each champion has been picked because they also have some utility later on. You're very welcome to suggest and demonstrate champions.
+ Show Spoiler [The Level 1 List] +
- Brand (sick AoE and stun)
- Kassadin (Level 2 Force Pulse, can be charged by allies in pre-game)
- Blitzcrank (Grab + knockup into a group of 3 or 4 is a guaranteed kill)
- Rammus (Powerball/Taunt)
- Singed (Poison)
I think we're probably done for this section, so let's move on to specifics.
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Chapter 5: The Opening
I'll keep these chapters more brief, because I've written a monster guide so far.
I consider the opening of a Dominion match to be the duration of the North fight and the first Storm Relic buffs, right up until the quests start happening. Battle lines are drawn, the first team to win North is established and one team should really have locked down the middle of the map to get their Storm buff.
We begin with a simple 4/1 split. All +ms abilities should be popped as the barrier goes down to allow you to move out. Your pusher should head straight to their base turret in the bottom lane and cap it, while one of the four who will head North (not the DC) caps East or West. The DC, assuming he doesn't need 6 for his extra movement, (like TF or Pantheon,) pops his Ghost and any +ms abilities available and runs straight to top to start attempting to cap or preventing the other team capping North.
Remember, by popping Ghost against the same champion not popping Ghost, you'll get there in time to cap maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the turret - giving you an extra advantage in the North fight, because the other team has to be alert for when you sneakily try and finish that cap.
After the North fight is over, play switches to the middle as the Storm Relics spawn at 3:00. Getting a relic over your opponents is huge in a straight-up fight and will allow you to defend or attack North much more easily, so the team that capped North should always move to secure the middle of the map while still keeping an eye on North. Rarely will both teams just form a gentleman's agreement to pick up their respective relics and run in opposite directions! Good positioning is key here; pick up any Health packs you need and then try and occupy a spot near a speed shrine that gives you good vision of fogged paths to North.
If you lost North, you have two options; give up the Storm Relic and go banzai to cap North (usually forcing another fight, if you think you can win it - eg. they're all on low health from the first fight) or try and secure the middle to force them back to base, getting the Storm Relic and then capping North in their absence. Either way, the team that gets the Relic should look to play as aggressively as their health counts allow.
Meanwhile, keep an eye on bottom lane and send champions to help as appropriate. But remember, the more champions you send, the easier it'll be for the other team to re-cap Relic and North!
At this point your DC should still largely be sticking with the rest of you. Without a +cap item he doesn't have the same surprise-value he'll have later on, so he's best used in a combat role. This is one of the main problems with Zilean as a DC; you either choose a +ms ability with Rewind to go cap top and have extra mobility through midgame, or you go for more of a combat role with Time Bomb and Rewind but lose out on +ms!
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Chapter 6: The Midgame
The midgame is considered (by me!) to be after the quests start at the 5:00 mark. Play becomes more dynamic and your DC should have, or be close to getting, his +cap item. This allows him to break away from the pack and start moving other heroes around by backdoor capping turrets.
When the first quest spawns, you should pretty much drop everything in an attempt to get the nice 10% damage buff. The only person who doesn't need to directly help out with the quest is your DC, because his time is better spent capping other enemy points as they're busy trying to get your quest turret, thus creating possible holes for your quest-chasing team to exploit.
Having a central position in advance of the 5 minute mark is handy; the Storm Relic fight will have finished recently, the quest could spawn in one of two cross map positions and you'd rather not be caught out being clumped on one side of the map.
As the game continues, your DC continues to zip around the map, quests continue to spawn and your job is generally to be there ready to get the quest damage buffs (random respawn) and Storm Relics as they spawn (remember, it's a 3 minute respawn timer on those - timestamp them!) in order to better facilitate map control. Remember, the more health packs/relics/damage buffs you pick up, the more free advantages you're getting over the other team - and free advantages convert to free points at a pretty favourable exchange rate!
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Chapter 7: The Endgame
When you start crossing the 15 minute mark, item builds are nearing completion, people are starting to reach high levels and Nexus HP counts are getting lower. Here's where the good lategame champions start to come into their own.
It's important to recognise before you start which team is better lategame. Some teams can get a 300HP advantage in double-quick time but suddenly come under huge pressure later on and end up desperately trying to hold on to 3 points for as long as they can. If this is your team, here's a few things you can try to minimise lategame damage;
- Firstly and most importantly, don't fight in a 1v1 situation unless you're at a turret. Giving away free kills is the last thing you want and given that their champions are scaling well, beyond a certain point you need to transition from an aggressive, midgame semi-carry (sup HoN term) style into a more passive outlook.
- Try and keep your base turrets at all times rather than concentrating on North. Your DC will have less space to work in and often capping a point will start to become a luxury for him. For this reason, when he does manage to cap a point and defend it for however long, it's essential that you have your two base turrets up so you can get some valuable Nexus hits.
- Speaking of DCs, if you cap a turret cross map you should defend it with your life for as long as you can! This is one situation where you don't want to get away. If the momentum is with the other team in the lategame and you've got 50HP to go on their Nexus, you sure as hell want to hold that turret for as long as you can - no matter whether or not you die.
Conversely, if you're a team trying to finish off a game with a lategame advantage and low Nexus HP, you'll be wanting to pick up Storm Relics and health packs as they spawn to keep as much control of the middle of the map as possible. It can help to have a "defender" at that point to patrol key paths in the middle of the map and stop their DC from sneaking a turret cap.
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Chapter 8: The Metagame
(to be updated)
(to be updated)
This is a placeholder chapter, designed so that I can keep any changes to the metagame together in one easy-to-read section rather than editing them in so that people have to remember and re-read the entire guide.
Champions that our 5-man groups consider "top tier" as of 01/10 (ie. regularly picked/banned by good people!);
+ Show Spoiler [Top Tier Champions] +
- Talon (a gap closer + silence when diving a Pusher? Yes please!)
- Jax
- Akali
- Heimerdinger
- Karthus (gibs creep waves and crossmap anti-cap, among the best defenders out there)
- Cassiopeia (insane dueling ability and poke)
- Morgana
- Rammus
- Zilean (especially as a counter-Udyr pick)
- Vladimir (gives our bottom laners trouble through the midgame)
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Chapter 9: Thank-Yous and Guide Updates
01/10: Added "top tier champions" list to Chapter 8. Will be updated.
30/09: Guide published. Coding error in Chapter 4 fixed.
Thanks should go to all the people who have helped me with this guide directly or indirectly. Thanks to Hazomg, (best Nocturne EU,) Jacuzzi, Apee and Input for the arranged teams and for being there on Ventrilo to discuss strategy and tactics. Thanks to Andy, Ciel, Iroh, Orange, (sick Heimer bro,) Pigdog and Goshawk for extra Dominion games that provided me with valuable screenshots and time to try out stuff.
And thanks to you, reader, for hopefully taking the time to go through the whole of this guide. Treat yourself to something nice. You deserve it.
