Which champions are suited to League of Legends Dominion Map (and which should be avoided)?

Question

I'm not regularly playing League of Legends as a pre-made team and was wondering which champions are more suited to playing the Dominion map.

Obviously it depends a bit on what other champions have been selected for the team and your playing style but there is likely a number of champions which are more capable on this map than others...

Answer

Riot games have put a special effort into having balanced champions for this game style as well. I don't believe there are any champions to avoid. However, the team composition changes a bit.

AP Carry

You will still need one, or else the other team will just build against AD and will own you as soon as they are a bit stuffed.

Tank / Off Tank

King in solo holding the bot lane, also very good in "tower diving" (if we can still call it so in Dominion).

Melee Fighters

They tend to be the heroes everyone picks as they are sort of kings on this map. They deal quite some damage and have high sustainability (so they don't need to Back often), and are often very good in 1v1 (which happens pretty often in Dominion).

Ranged AD Carry

More than one is too much, but not having one (to have more fighters) is a handicap. He deals crazy damage and can attack out of tower range or defend minion waves without exposing himself in front of the tower. From the games I've played or seen, having only melee champs is clearly a handicap.

Support

I rarely see them in Dominion and believe they are overlooked. Each time I've had one on my team, it was awesome to hold the windmill (we never had to back, support would always buff/heal us). However, having a support requires good team play, because the champion won't do anything on its own (compared to fighters).

General

As XP gain is so fast in Dominion, teams are usually built with mid/late game champions. Riot tried to correct this in a previous patch by lowering the XP gain aura on the map, however, you still get to level 6 tremendously fast, so don't hesitate in taking weak early game champs (like Kassadin, useless before level 6).

Try having a hero or 2 (at least) with high mobility (Rammus, Kassadin, Nocturne, Twisted Fate, etc.) to do lane swaps and be unpredictable in your tower attacks.

Conclusion

All heroes are viable. It all depends on the team composition.

Good Akali, Irelia and Xin Zhao champions can however be freaking awesome with their ganking abilities and life steal.

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What actions earn points in Dominion?

Question

So League of Legends currently has its new Dominion game mode open sporadically for testing, and I've been checking it out. It's pretty neat; one of the biggest changes from the traditional MOBA-style "Classic" mode is the advent of a scorecard.

I've noticed that certain actions give me points. Some of these, "Kill", "Kill-Assist", "Point Captured", etc. are self-explanatory.

Others, like "Martyr" are less-so.

What are all the possible ways to earn points in Dominion, and how many does each action earn?

Answer

Can't guarantee that this list is complete yet, but here's all the awards I know of:

• Kills & assists on a point grant double award (30/15 kill, 10/5 assist).
• Point capture & neutralize are each +40 award.
• Standing on or near a friendly point gives +5 award for point defense.
• Channeling a point when neutralization or capture occurs grants a reward. If you cancel or are interrupted before your teammates complete a neutralization or capture, you get an assist reward (+20).
• Interrupting an enemy channel grants +5 award.
• Additional awards are granted for multi-kills & shutting down killing sprees.
• Applying a friendly effect to an allied champion grants a supported ally award for +2 points.
• Picking up a health pack grants +2 award.
• Capturing the relic grants an award - Relic Hunter - and +3 points.
• Capturing a quest point grants 20 points to the entire team.
• Dying near a channeling ally who subsequently completes the capture grants a martyr award. (variable)
• Dying shortly after interrupting enemy channel on a friendly point grants a martyr award. (variable)
• Minion kills grant 2 points each.

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Why is Akali supposed to be overpowered in Dominion?

Question

I've been playing some draft mode dominion games, and it turns out that almost always the same champions get banned. I know that Rammus gets banned because of his tank abilities and high speed.

Now I know why Akali gets banned: in the few games I've seen her been played, she was much better than the other champions. The thing I was wondering is: Why? In normal games she is pretty balanced and easy to counter.

I just don't know what makes her so good in dominion. Is it because of the dominion items? Or was it just luck that I fought against or with really good Akalis?

Answer

Akali has huge advantages in her skill set that allow her to excel in Dominion.

1. Dominion involves a lot of 1v1 fights

   Akali is one of the best 1v1 champions in the game. Her mark of the assassin just gives her enormous burst, even at early levels.

2. She has an amazing escape mechanism using Twilight shroud

   This is perfect for juking in the middle of the map, and perfect for protecting her when she is defending a turret.

3. Her mobility using via Shadow Dance

   You are never going to escape from her, especially if she has a slow. She can also use it to bink to escape by targeting minions. This, along with her Twilight shroud make her a very tricky champion to kill and a champion almost impossible to escape from.

4. Her damage is hybrid

   Is is pretty hard to counter Akali because of her different damage types. Getting the balance of defense, mobility and offensive items is hard enough.

5. She has innate spell vamp through her passive Twin Disciplines

   Her spell vamp combined with the high burst makes her very hard to kill quickly. This also gives her a lot of sustainability through leeching health from minions. Without the ability to nuke her down easily, she can try to escape using her shroud/ult/summoner spells.

6. More champions play 'glass cannon' builds than on Summoners Rift

   Glass cannon champions tend to be easy prey for Akali. A lot of builds are base around kiting and mobility. Kiting just doesn't work on her because of her ultimate and she has HUGE burst which will bring down any squishy champions pretty rapidly.

7. The Dominion is map is designed to be played offensively

   Akali can gank pretty freely as there aren't really any 'safe zones' you can run to, i.e. behind your tower line on normal matches. This leads up to her snowballing pretty quickly as she is just fantastic at picking off roaming enemies.

8. She snowballs rapidly

   Her burst gets insane if she is fed, combine this with the inability to escape from her and your team are in for some big trouble.

9. Akali is based on energy

   She is not the only manaless champ, however manaless champs have always had the advantage of being able to spam skills at no cost. This means Akali can constantly push lanes and leech health through her passive, without having to worry too much about going back to base to heal up.

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Is it faster to run straight to the windmill or to grab the speed buff first?

Question

Is it faster to run from spawn to the windmill, or to run to the speed boost and then the windmill?

http://dominion.leagueoflegends.com/overview-dominion

Answer

I just tested with 400 speed, going either way gave me 23 seconds, that's with no additional speed boosts. seems it's balanced in that way to not give an advantage.

without speed boost L: 9:51:50 A: 9:52:13

With speed boost L: 9:05:30 A: 9:05:53

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How long do defend quests last?

Question

I played a round of Dominion last night and noticed two quests that came up for our team. One of them was for capturing a point, and the other was for defending another point. Our team wasn't doing too well at capturing the required point so I decided to help out with the defense point. We defended it for a good five minutes or so, repelling several enemy attack waves. Alas, in the end the enemy managed to capture it.

My question is, how long do you need to defend a point in order to complete the actual quest? There doesn't appear to be any kind of explicit indicator for this in the game. Capturing a point is pretty simple, once you capture the point, you complete the quest. But defending something is different, how do you know when you're actually "done" defending? I can't imagine it's indefinitely, because what would be the point of the bonus you would receive for the quest?

Answer

You have one false assumption in your question: what you observed was not two quests, but rather only one.

In other words, the quest was "Capture Point X, while defending point Y from Capture". The quest lasts until one team manages to capture the other, which means, in your case, the 'defend' portion of the quest lasts until your team manages to capture the enemy point in question, rather than a simpler, "defend for X".

You could theoretically have to defend that point for the rest of the game, as long as neither of the two target points changes hands.

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How do quests work in League of Legends Dominion matches?

Question

During Dominion matches (new League of Legends mode) it happens to read a message that a new quest is available, but I didn't understand really what my team should do to accomplish it.

Can you explain me which type of quests could be available, how to complete them and which is the prize?

Answer

The League of Legends Devs recently posted a design blog about what went into developing the quests, and why.

An excerpt:

One of the major objectives of the quest system was to prevent the emergence of a metagame that promoted capturing three command points and turtling to hold them for the remainder of the battle. Turtling strategies like this one are contrary to the high-energy combat that we wanted to promote with the new game mode. So, in order to prevent these sorts of stratagems from emerging in League of Legends: Dominion, we instituted quests to allow us to alter the strategic value of each command point on the fly.

A quest triggers at random intervals (I've seen two in one match, before) and will always involve two adjacent capture points, one controlled by your team, and one controlled by the enemy.

Completing a quest, that is, capturing your target point before your enemies capture their target point, gives you a short duration 10% damage buff, and immediately deals 20 damage to the enemy nexus.

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League of Legends: Dominion center map buff (Storm Shield)

Question

I played Dominion yesterday for the first time, and I noticed that in the center of map there are two buffs (a flashing icon on the mini-map), one for each team.

What are the bonuses granted by these buffs? And what are their respawn times?

Answer

Alright, I pulled these up with a LoL Replay of a Dominion game.

Bonuses Granted:

The character model grows by roughly x2

Spawn Time: 3:00 Minutes

Channel Time: 5 seconds

Respawn Time: 3:00 Minutes

Duration: ~45-60 Seconds (Not positive on this one, hard to find a game where someone kept it the whole time.)

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