When I started Dominion I tried champions like Kayle and Gangplank and they did alright.... But tried my favorite champion and I basically dominated every single match.

Ryze is a great champion pick for Dominion:

• Caster/Taker role
• Can Defend well if needed
• Good ranged damage
• He is a great for team fights AND 1 vs 1.

I'm going to explain the build I've been using for my latest matches and I hope it helps.

• There is no lane phase
• You level quick
• Keeping more capture points under control = win
• Champion kills DO matter, just don't risk losing a capture point chasing after someone
• Use the speed shrines ALWAYS. Enemy can't see you. It's faster and You will keep the speed buff on while poking and ganking. Teemo and Shaco love to place traps there, but they are more annoying than threatening. Especially to a tanky caster like my friend Ryze.
• Use health/mana boosts, they help

Leaving an unfinished capture point to chase a fleeing enemy is usually a BAD idea... EVEN IF you know you could get the kill. This is an important difference from playing on Summoners Rift.

On the same subject. People on Dominion seem to ignore a very important fact... If you are outnumbered you are probably going to die. Team up to take a CP most of the time. Poking or staying back from outnumbered fights has got to be the best way to go. If you go on suicide missions trying to take the windmill, you are not helping very much.
Teamwork.

Other Tips

• The CP stops attacking you immediately if you start channeling it
• Using the Fog of War can be quite lucrative, having 3 people lie in wait @ the speed shrine closest to their mid CP can be fun.
• Let the "Takers" have the Relics, like Ryze :)
• Keep an Eye out for all the enemies, and predict their movements

If you have tips you want to add, just post in a comment.

For more information on how to Play dominion:

I recommend Zemiazas guide
or for a slightly different small guide UberSquishy's guide

These builds are very very good alternatives.
Gets exactly the same items(Except the Hextech Revolver), just in a slightly different order.

Also shows you can use different runes/summoner spells.

1st and 2nd Builds are almost exactly the same. 2nd build focuses a bit more on early game damage.

3rd build incorporates the hextech revolver.

The fourth and fifth build gets multiple rod of ages.

I have not actually tested the multiple rods but, but I believe it has great potential. I'll do some games and see how they do :)

Abilities

No Skill Shots, 3 abilities that need an enemy unit to target and those 3 also make up his burst


• Arcane Mastery - Makes Ryze awesome.
• Overload - Your low cool-down poking spell, 675 range is pretty good. It has longer range than most non skill shot abilities so use that to your advantage.
  The passive is great as well, for no need to get any CDR items except Frozen Heart.
• Rune Prison - A snare/nuke. It doesn't stun. It just doesn't allow target to move for 1-2 seconds. Ryze's most useful spell IMO, CC is always nice to have.
• Spell Flux - Not that great, but if you are 1 vs 1 and close you can bounce it off yourself for some noticeable damage. It's mainly used to proc Arcane Mastery and to reduce the enemies MR.
• Desperate Power - For an ultimate it's not much. The spell-vamp can be semi-useful and the AOE can really help out if the enemies are bunched up. You can turn this on quite often due to Arcane Mastery. Only use it when you other abilities are off cool down. Use it to push minion waves and always use it in your main burst.

The Burst

Due to Arcane Mastery and his already low cool-downs, he can chain cast his spells like crazy.

His burst = Overload -> Spell Flux -> Rune Prison -> Overload.
If you don't smart cast, this will take longer to cast. If you just hold shift and spam them all in this order you can do it all in under a second.
The burst itself won't be fully useable until 4.2-8 seconds after using it .. Overload has a 2.1-3 second cool-down so you should Kite with it once(Twice if not > level 8) and then just a second or two after that they get bursted and snared again.

Remember, you can start your burst again even if your Spell Flux still has 1 second to go AS LONG as your Overload is off cool-down. The Overload will proc Arcane Mastery and take Spell Flux off cool-down and then Rune Prison(as long as you used them at the same time earlier).

2 overloads will do 16% of your max mana in damage
and the 1 rune prison will do 5% of max mana in damage.

That means every time you throw your full combo, 21% of your max mana will be thrown onto your target as magic damage.

So, 1 mana = ~0.21 magic damage (the full burst only)
And 1 ap = 1.35 magic damage (.2+.2+..6+.35)(the full burst only)

Items

1. Catalyst the Protector by itself adds a total of 68.25 magic damage into the burst. Upgrading it to Rod of Ages brings it up to 191.25. Ten minutes after buying it... brings it up to a total of 260.25 magic damage.
2. Sorcerer's Shoes +20 Magic Penetration will always help Ryze.
3. Buying Tear of the Goddess gives the burst 73.5 more magic damage.
   In a normal Dominion game you can probably manage to get around 300-500 extra mana which brings this items damage up to ~178.5. When upgraded to Archangel's Staff it ... will give ~401.25 damage but it depends on the current max mana.
4. Buying Glacial Shroud gives the burst 51.45 more magic damage (AND CDR). Upgrading it to Frozen Heart brings this item to a total of 105 magic damage.
5. Buying Odyn's Veil gives the burst 73.5 more magic damage. And if you add the active 273.5 up to 673.5 magic damage.
   

These items are best for Ryze, as no other items give more mana(without stacking multiple items). Plus he gets a good amount of health, AP(nowhere near other casters), MR, and Armour.

You don't have to buy them in order.... But generally you want catalyst and tear as early as possible. And glacial shroud is very important for the CDR.

A Ryze with all 5 of these items @ level 18 will be dealing over 1700 magic damage in just a second with his full burst. If you use a fully charged Odyn's Veil active with that it brings it up to ~2300 magic damage. Overload being usable every 2.1 seconds(max cdr) and the full burst (no Desperate Power or Odyn's Veil though) being usable every 4 seconds(max cdr with robot like casting).

But of course it will be quite a bit lower after MR takes affect but you get the picture.

6th Item

You probably won't ever get this far. But if you do...
Either pick Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff (if you see a LOT of MR), Abyssal Mask, or another Rod of Ages

Runes

9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - There is already +5% MP for everyone on Crystal Scar, but there probably isn't any better Marks to take for Ryze. These will help your damage output.
1 Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction - To be 0.1% away from the 40% CDR cap.
3 Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed - Ryze needs more speed, especially on dominion
9 Greater Seal of Knowledge
8 Greater Glyph of Knowledge - I was looking for the best runes to take to help damage output, and these seem to be it. Health, MR, or Armour runes probably help just as much if not more. I prefer the mana runes though.

Masteries

9 0 21
Completely left out the mana regen on purpose.
Ryze has so much mana anyway and on dominion.... you get mana regen from the Crystal Scar aura and Tear of the Goddess.... and you have the Health/Mana spots and Catalyst the protector every time you level.

Summoner Spells

Ghost - is always good on Ryze, and it's definitely the best way to go on Dominion.
It's kind of obvious.
Promote - is great as it helps put pressure on enemy CPs. Sometimes just the Buffed Minion will neutralize a point all on its own.
Ignite - is good to use on Ryze for more burst potential
Garrison - It can be great for tower diving and defending a CP. Good spell to take if you know how to use it. I always take ghost on Ryze though, otherwise He'd never get up to the windmill fast enough in the beginning. And I feel that Promote is a better spell than this one.
Flash - This spell is great for any caster. Makes it hard for people to get you or get away when it's off cool-down.


I don't think any others would be viable.

He's a Taker, but can Defend well if needed.
He does Damage and a lot of it, and when is abilities are off cool-down... he can even take some hits if needed late game.

Game outline:

-Get Catalyst the Protector and Health Potion and dance.
-Run North, and ignore the mid CP just go straight for the Movement speed shrine and head to the Windmill. (Pop Ghost if you have to to catch up)

Take the Windmill

There should be two allies ahead of you, which is great because you don't really want to be first.
When the other two have picked a target then do your burst.
At this point you can't do your second Overload immediately but it'll be up in a second.
Keep out of range of enemies and hopefully you'll be @ full health when you have your second burst ready and If you made it this far you should have taken Windmill :)

It's important to make sure you DON'T DIE. DO everything you can do prevent it. You can stay up there for awhile with the health shrine and catalyst. Don't try to take on multiple enemies by yourself unless one is very near death.
You can 'B' if you are very near death, or you just had a double/triple kill.

Push a Lane

-If your team got owned and you are still alive, go for the health/mana shrine and use Promote if you have it and push your minion wave. Kite enemies with overload if you can. Your capturer probably went for their mid. Hopefully that stopped the enemies from damaging nexus.
-If your team took windmill successfully, then still push the lane but on the other side of the windmill. You can 'B' if you think you can get up there fast enough for the next battle.

Important: This should be a recurring thing you do throughout the game and you shouldn't spend much time on it! This is to force your teammates to kill your minions or risk losing CP health. It shows their location and prevents them from doing other things.

Rest of the game

You then just make sure you are with your main 2 buddies and defend your teammates and CP's.
All you really do is burst, and stay back kiting with overload. If they come for you just burst and then back away from them and you'll probably win the fight even if they catch you. They'll hopefully be taking damage from your two buddies and when they get to you they'll realize they can't take you down as fast as they thought they could, especially because you snare and burst one of them every ~7 seconds.

You can 1 vs 1 most champions so you don't always need to be with your teammates, but only split up if it's needed.

Make sure you are always putting pressure on the enemies CPs and keeping the windmill under your control.

Thanks for reading.
He's a great Champion Have fun!@$@#.

Update Log:
OCT-04-2011 Guide originally created
OCT-24-2011 Added 5th build, changed 4th build entirely, and changed first build to use Ignite instead of Promote, and did some random changes for better explanation.
NOV-19-2011 Changed to updated masteries