Shak3y's corner: Dominion tactics

[quote=Shak3y]Good morning, afternoon or evening depending on where you are from. I'm back from my long holiday and I come back in force. For those who have read my previous articles know that I like to speculate. Well this is no different; and today I'm going to speculate on our new map: Dominion. It's been 2 months since Riot teased us with this new map and people have been speculating on many things. New items! What champions are going to be the best! and starting at level 3! But no-one realised what a fast paced thrill ride they were going to encounter when open beta was launched last night. I played 8 games this evening. 6 solo que and 2 full teams. If you read the forums, you will notice i posted a thread about derps on dominion. So, avid to not lose another game I put my thinking cap on. Obviously I wasn't going to win with random people. So I needed my team. I went to the drawing board. What are the strong factors to winning this game: [color=#008000]1.Controlling three or more CPS (Control points) 2.Protecting CPS[/color] [color=#ff8000]Minor factors: 1.Getting mid buff 2.Killing players[/color] [color=#ff0000]Neg. factors: 1.Killing minions 2.Last hitting [/color] Killing players? Minor factor?! Well yes, believe it or not. I tell you why in a scenario. [i]A Lee Sin jumps onto a open control point. It's a trap!! Akali and corki jump him. Lee sin escapes with flash and runs to his CP. they kill him, but in the mean-time a sneaky eve takes the battered and bruised CP that they left. [/i] AS you see from this simple description. All this could have been avoided if they didn't chase a kill. A kill in dominion is only worth 100G from what I saw. A CP is worth the game, and the games are all pretty close! So seconds count! So, stay close to your control points. What I also noticed was that if you spread over four control points it becomes hard to control them and you spread too thin. So how do you defend a control point? with a tank! Tanks with disrupts to stop the CP from being captured from lots of enemies. Such as alistar, cho'gath etc. I like to call these tanks Turret tanks. Because they don't leave the control points. They soak up damage and deal small bits of damage which over time force the opponent away. They also take the garison. (I think that's its name. Basically the dominion fortify.) If a team fight occurs, they can pop it and force the win. While the two tower tanks stay at the towers. The other 3 champs are DPS champs. Like akali, jax, etc. These champs move between lanes defending and matching the opponents attacks accordingly. I.e. 4 attackers top = tower tank + 3 dps 2 attackers top 3bot = tower tank + dps top. Tower tank + 2dps bot. in summary: 2 tower tanks with disrupts 3 DPS Tower tanks stay at top and bottom CPS DPS move between lanes defending or attacking the top, middle and bottom CPS accordingly. ONLY CONTROL 3 CPS. If you are a tower tank you take promote and garrison. Or Garrison and exhaust. You do not leave the CPS that you are assigned to unless you feel it is safe to do so. But return asap. IF you are DPS you move through jungle between top middle and bottom CPS defending and attacking by matching the attack with the correct number of defenders and champs. If you Lose a tower. Re-assemble your team to re-control it. Never chase a kill where you leave your CPS while other opponents are still alive. don't make it an objective to take the remaining two control points. If you follow these rules you will do well. If you have a full pre-made team you will do better. If you have skype or TS3 or vent you will do better still. and finally, if you follow these rules you will find a play structure to a some-what hectic game. And just like early, late, middle game in SR. You will start to find a routine happening in dominion. I hope this gives you guys some food for though, yours in league, Shak3y/vortexi[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf]Good points. After a certain time though, it becomes, "wander around" time. Anyone with a speed boost is a strong pick and should run top immediately. CPs should be taken at every opportunity because, while they're being neutralized, they still deal damage. Strong spells: Ghost, Promote, Garrison, Exhaust. These give you the offensive power that you need as well as some defensive. "Meh" spells: Flash, Cleanse, Revive, Clairvoyance. All of these are utility spells and, not very good in the map. Flash loses all of it's power when people innately have more MS than you and there are no walls to hop over that they can't get around in 1 second or less. Revive is just a waste of a slot as the revive timers are almost always under 40 seconds. All in all, I really like the mode and I think it needs very little improvement.[/quote]

[quote=Nighthawk]I think champion kills are pretty important too. Not only because they do give you gold, but more importantly, that person is reset back to their nexus, giving you a fair amount of time in order to capture points, not to mention someone dying reduces the nexus hp a tiny bit, which can add up a lot. tbh atm I think Rammus is the BEST pick on DoM, he an AoE interrupt on a short cd, a godly speed boost that lets him capture points super quickly, and he can still kill ppl with a simple thornmail >.> Garen and Heimerdinger are also really good picks, Heimer can hold down 1 place indefinitely due to his turrets, without even being there, and Garen can generally own champions all game, although from what i've seen he isn't super super strong since other champions catch up to his power level faster then they normally would. Also Lux is super strong as well. From what I've seen so far, I can probably say Lux and Rammus are the two top picks atm that i've played.[/quote]

[quote=Shak3y][quote=Nighthawk] I think champion kills are pretty important too. Not only because they do give you gold, but more importantly, that person is reset back to their nexus, giving you a fair amount of time in order to capture points, not to mention someone dying reduces the nexus hp a tiny bit, which can add up a lot. [/quote] Yea, i totally agree with you. But the point i was making was that you shouldn't go out of your way to kill someone. Or go looking for ganks. CP control is just far too important for champion kills to be of high priority. [Quote=lugignaf] After a certain time though, it becomes, "wander around" time. [/quote] please explain a bit more. I didn't find we had any wonder around time. You should be either defending your 3 CPS or buying from shop. Or taking mid buffs. If you wander around you leave your CP vunrable to attack.[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf]But, "wander around" time, I mean, It's a new game mode and nobody knows quite what to do yet. Nobody knows where to be and to them, killing comes over everything else. Obviously if you're someone like Twisted fate or Man-theon, you have a lot more of your wandering time available. Also, wandering means securing buffs in the mid. It's just I couldn't think of the word ad the time.[/quote]

[quote=Bryun]Those idiots who push minions thinking it's a turret that hits you.. smh. =.=[/quote]

[quote=Shak3y][quote=Lugignaf] But, "wander around" time, I mean, It's a new game mode and nobody knows quite what to do yet. Nobody knows where to be and to them, killing comes over everything else. Obviously if you're someone like Twisted fate or Man-theon, you have a lot more of your wandering time available. Also, wandering means securing buffs in the mid. It's just I couldn't think of the word ad the time. [/quote] Ahh ok lol :D I did wonder. what you meant. yea true, its the same as new people starting SR. It takes time to be comfortable at whats going on. My IRL friend started league the other day. And i went ali in bottom lane with him to keep him safe. N i coached him best i could. But I realised how much i take the small things in LoL for granted. Like positioning or where to be at xx:xx[/quote]

[quote=Anandre]I approve of the OP. I got a team that followed those tactics and we won in 12 minutes (well, we pushed to 4, but we stomped the other team pretty bad early on).[/quote]