I play Dominion almost exclusively now and here are my thoughts about Dominion.

Balance: I think one reason that this map favors AD damage dealers so much is due to how effective life steal is in 1v1 and 1v2 situations. I think that life steal shoves a lot of the AP carries out of this game mode because any harass/burst they throw at AD carries with life steal can just get healed up in a few hits on a minion wave or by attacking the AP carry after they blow their cooldowns.

Another concern I have is that I see exhaust on at least 8 people every single match. But, I think that the upcoming changes to cleanse will probably solve this concern.

Other than those two concerns I think Dominion is pretty balanced.

pet peeve: my biggest peeve is when your holding windmill and quest time comes around and it sets the windmill as the enemies quest objective. It just feels so unfair that you get handed a objective close to the enemy's base and the enemy gets to go after the point that changes hands most frequently.

Another smaller peeve I have is how many walls there are on the map that champs with blinks can go through.

Keep up the good work Riot I feel like you are almost there in regards to Dominion.

AFKS!

AFKS single handedly RAPE any and all hope of winning in Dominion, unless you are very, very significantly ahead of the other team before they AFK/DC/crash/whatever happens. Especially those people who just straight up AFK, or don't want to win. Having one person out of the game makes an absolutely massive difference in this mode. It feels unwinnable. I've only had around 30 games of Dom. across my accounts, but . . . this happens more than it does in SR, at least for me, and that alone makes this a waste of my time, in addition to all my other complaints in previous posts.

I think there are some OP heroes. But, I think there are some definite overrated champs, and the reason some champs seem OP is because it is such a new metagame and it hasn't settled, with counters found, etc. I also don't think there are really any true "troll" picks yet that will absolutely lose the game for you. There are definitely some weaker champs, but I feel there are no 100% UP trash champs, but some OP champs. I think it is skewed towards the powerful end, with a few really powerful champs, but a larger spread of weaker champs. In SR, I feel it's the opposite, skewed towards the weaker end, with a few true troll picks, but a larger spread of good champions.

I think there are some item niches that can still be filled. Some stats are really important in Dominion, like CDR. Mana-based AP champs have DFG, Morello's, and Hextech Sweeper as options. Manaless AP champs have Hextech Sweeper and then need to go for Ionian Boots or Spirit Visage or something to max out CDR, which are less optimal item choices in many cases. AD champs have... Brutalizer/Youmuu's. If you are an AD "caster" type, the Youmuu's attack speed isn't really all that important. There could be another item built from Brutalizer or something.

Also, with the absence of Wriggle's, there aren't a lot of obviously great armor options for AD champs. There is Atma's, which is the only other armor+offense item. But, Wriggle's was a moderately priced item that gave armor and offensive stats that all felt good to buy on an AD champ, and I miss having an armor item with a similar price that isn't going to gimp my offense if I buy it. For MR, you can buy a Wit's End or Hexdrinker, and get some offense and MR for a moderate price. Or, you can buy a pure MR item in QSS, which is useful in its own right for CC. But, it feels weird to be buying an expensive, full armor item when I need some more defense, if that makes any sense. In Dominion, defense seems to be even more important for squishies than in Classic maps. It would therefore be nice to have more options there.

Specific examples of item niches that could be filled out should be the subject of its own thread, but in general that's the biggest thing that I would like to see tweaked. The respawn mechanics might have been a pet peeve before the last patch. But, those changes were good. Good job!

I now almost exclusively play Dominion. In my regular gaming group of friends, who play LoL, we are pretty much split now between SR and Dominion players. So, each half of the group has to compromise. That's the only real reason I would continue to play SR. If left to myself, I would be playing Dominion exclusively.

The big draws of Dominion, to me, are: 1) The short game time. This indirectly results in fewer surrenders (I never see them in Dominion). The 100% faceroll games end in 6-7 minutes. Closer, but still lopsided games last 20(?) minutes. Surrendering after 20 minutes in SR feels like I just wasted a whole lot of time. Losing a 20 minute Dom game doesn't feel that bad to me. Short games also keeps me playing more LoL overall. I am often reluctant to start up a SR game because it could potentially take an hour. But, the shorter Dom games let me re-evaluate my time constraints between the games, which results in me managing to get in more games, if that makes any sense. 2) Spending 20 minutes last hitting minions feels so boring. It actually feels a whole lot more boring now that I have played Dominion. I keep thinking, "I could have played a whole Dominion game in the time it took me to farm." I like that Dominion games are less reliant on that particular test of skill, or PvE skills in general. The PvE aspects are also less intuitive as being important for success (i.e. farming minions is usually much more important than getting a kill in SR). PvP is more fun and more intuitive. 3) Following from 2, I like the fact that I can play with a fuller item inventory than I would often have in SR. The passive gold rate could possibly still be reduced in Dominion, so that there are fewer games ending in a full item build. But, I like finishing games with at least a few major items, rather than what can sometimes happen in SR stomp games. 4) I am not a huge fan of the snowball, and really lopsided games, in SR. I do like closer games. That said, the respawn mechanic changes in this last patch were great. You still have close games. But, better teams are not held back by artificial comeback mechanics, and you do have runaway games. But, going back to #1, the totally lopsided games don't feel as bad to me since the games are so short.

As far as the players in my group who don't like Dominion, I think their dislike is a mixture of being slow to warm to new game types, dislike of the chaos (particularly the chaos in the first few weeks the game was out when they tried it the most), and frustration with random players who do stupid things (which I would say applies to SR as well). But, they can speak for themselves if they want.

RIOT, please incorporate agro into the scoring system, its massively flawed without doing so if the goal of the game is to win, and the point of the scoring system is to reflect your contribution. The way I see it, it must be done as follows; If a player is visible and within a certain proximity of more than one champ, they should get points for it based on the amount of time. Thats it. That simple. If they are not visible, they arent pulling agro, so they shouldnt get points for that. Whatever the circumstances, while visible in a reasonable proximity to the opponents is a potential threat to them, and is pulling agro. I would also advise that it be exponential, based on the number of champs agro'd. If you can keep 3 opponents busy yourself anywhere on the map, thats an incredible benefit to your team and should be reflected as such point wise. You essentially created a 4v2 for the rest of the team and yet you come out with a rock bottom personal score after pulling mass agro for extended periods of time is a BROKEN scoring system. Its all good, the map is new, and the efforts to develop an accurate scoring system are totally appreciated, but this must be addressed and given significant weight in score.

On balance
I feel that there is nothing one can do against champions that scale super hard into late game such as Akali and Jax. The reason for this being that there is no way to deny them from gaining experience and gold when they are weak at early levels as you could in SR. This basically means that each team only gets one ban (because two of the four bans are always Akali and Jax).

I also feel that it is too hard to defend towers in late game if the enemy has high dps champions. They do so much damage and so quickly that building tanky will not save you (as you cannot kill them before they burn through your tank). Furthermore towers do not do enough damage to really be a factor when the fights are over so quickly. Maybe they get 2 or 3 shots off, which isn't enough to help a smaller group defend against a larger group.

On pet peeves
The transition point from mid game to late game is the most annoying part of any dominion game for me. Once you pass that barrier where kills no longer count against enemy nexus health and the "always keep it a close game" mechanics kick in you have to start playing completely differently than you were in the beginning stages of the game. But the point at which you cross this barrier is never explicitly communicated to players. There are still people who don't even know that kills stop counting at some point. Aside from the lack of communication part, the other annoying thing about late game is how death timers begin to vary. It is at this point that you need to value staying alive (well you always do but more so now) and not enough people realize this yet.

Exclusivity
I only play dominion. I refuse to play another game of SR when the possibility exists of being denied early game and then being stuck in a 40 minute bout of uselessness where the outcome is inevitable but the other team is just too terrible to win efficiently.

My biggest pet peeve about this map is the astounding amount of BAD players.

I only play dominion now. There is always 1 guy that goes to bot lane and they push with 2 bot. Its an auto lose top when they do that and 1 champ can easily fend them off bot long enough for their team to take top. Or how about the people that cannot take top with a 4v3?

This map is more team dependent than SR. In SR you can have that 1 bad player and get carried. You get that 1 bad player in DOM and its game over you lose. Forbid you get more than 1 person who doesn't have a clue.

I play dominion exclusively and I'm about done with it. Haven't found a dedicated team for dominion yet. Because of this I'll probably be moving on soon. Sorry Riot but no matter how many patches and fixes you do you cannot fix stupid.

Last pet peeve: The tons of bugs on this map. I can count about 5 just playing with poppy. Charge doesn't stun when you hit some one into Jarvan's ult. Charge knocks them through the wall with no stun. I've had some issues going straight through some terrain with no stun. Sometimes you hit them into a wall and it doesn't stun at all. Her charge is really buggy.

-What are your impressions of the balance on Dominion?

Balance overall I think tends to favor tanky AD champions and burst casters over supports and sustained-DPS casters. Casters that don't burst their target down in one rotation (Cassiopeia, Ryze, Morgana) tend to die and not contribute as much. I could see there being a place for more Dominion specific caster items.

Champions with built-in mobility tend to be much stronger than champions without it, such as the difference between Kassadin and Annie's viability.

Also, dual-scaling champions are currently very powerful, including Ezreal, Jax and Akali, because they gain burst damage faster than other champions through combined AD/AP items. I think something that might help Dominion is a global reduction of AP and AD ratios, maybe by .1 or .2 across the board to both tone down the burst focused gameplay and reduce the strength that one is given just by being a dual-scaling champion.

There are also a few champions who's specific abilities work very well with the game mode, such as Rammus' Powerball and Shaco's boxes. I'm not sure if it's the right path to buff/nerf champions themselves because of issues in Dominion, but tunings to the aura or counters to their mechanics could be added to deal with them. Dealing with the most blatant of these powerful mechanics via champion adjustments may end up necessary at some time though.

-What is your biggest pet peeve about Dominion?

The bias towards certain kinds of champions. All champions should be playable, and champions with inherent design that leaves them lacking in either Dominion or SR should be reworked.

-Are there any players out there who now play exclusively Dominion?

I play exclusively Dominion as of now. Summoner's Rift feels so slow compared to Dominion. The early farm phase was pretty much unnecessary in my view toward a fun game. The teamfights and actual pushing towers was the fun part of SR for me at least.

Anti-snowball mechanics and comeback mechanics are definitely the way to go. I'm a fan of both, as long as they're in moderation. By moderation, I mean, that they are not significant enough to provide an incentive to lose in the early game in order to come back in the late game.

I hated that feeling in SR when an enemy Tryndamere or other powerful carry was fed out of control by your team, now there's nothing left to do but get destroyed for 40 more minutes.

The fact that teams get more IP for winning the longer the game goes further supported this playstyle. This is non-existent in Dominion, since everyone gets fed by the endgame, and there is an inherent timer to how long the game can go.

Played about 170 games of dominion so far and am really looking forward to ranked dominion. As far as balance goes I think the champs are or less as balanced as they are on SR. I think that there are a few champs who are mostly crippled and I see no easy fix for them. Mundo and Mordekaiser immediately jump to mind since the healing debuff ruins mundo's ult and the recent shield nerfs, along with the lack of creeps really hurt morde. I feel like supports and AP are undervalued but probably aren't underpowered on the whole and probably will just take a meta shift.

Right now my biggest pet peeves on dominion are turret damage, and the lack of valid cdr for AD characters. Turret damage makes an even matched assault on a turret more or less a waste of time unless garrison is up. I feel like this might be intentional, with the goal being for smart players to send someone to back cap their mid and then have the rest of the team either ambush whoever goes to stop the backcap, or maybe surprise 4 man bot assault, but the average solo queue game doesn't have this kind of coordination.

The lack of valid cdr is very frustrating for almost all melee ad and a few ranged (urgot immediately jumps to mind). Brutallizer is a good item, but youmuu's often is not and having to build cdr boots instead of merc treads is not a super good idea a lot of the time. This is an issue on SR as well, but CDR is so much more important on dominion.

Also, I definitely think it's time for 6 bans.

Lastly, I now more or less play dominion exclusively, excepting for when some friends drag me into SR. I love the mode and I love how much more action-packed it is. I especially like how I often don't know for sure how a game is going to go 10 minutes in like I do for SR. I feel like it is a much more dynamic mode and thus more fun to me. Great job!

I pretty much play only Dominion any more. I've got over 500 normal game wins, but am a big fan of FPS games, such as Battlefield 3, TF2, COD series, CS, etc. When I first saw Dominion, I immediately thought of Conquest mode in BF series, as well as other games that have done this style of game play. I like the fast pace and the back and forth, intense action of Dominion. It's really never over till it's over. With SR, sometimes you know the outcome before the game starts, esp. if someone feeds early. With Dominion, you often have and idea with blind pick what is likely to happen at the loading screen, but I've seen some amazing come backs and some games that did not go as expected.

As for balance, obviously some champs that work well on SR don't work nearly as well as they do on CS. Naturally, the reverse is true. Almost every game will have an Akali, Jax, Rammus, and a number of other champs that do very well in CS. I've started playing AD sona and was surprised at how powerful she was. With her low cooldowns and a trinity force/sheen proc, she does some crazy damage, thanks mostly to the fact that she can get a lot of procs because mana is nowhere near the issue that it is on classic LoL. But I really like the overall balance of Dominion and think you guys did a great job on it. Yea, a good Akali or Jax can pretty much decimate, but if you go draft mode, the most powerful champs, such as these, can be banned and every champ has a counter. Like the AD Sona I mentioned, she eats squishies all day long, but tanks will blow her up. So Dominion is a lot about good matchups and countering your opponent.

For me, it's generally players who obviously have not really played Dominion much or chose champs that they don't know very well or who just don't really have the power in CS that they do in SR. But that's just part of the game and I don't know what, if anything, can be done about that. Improvements in matchmaking? I'm not sure, but overall, I think that Dominion is well done and a lot of fun personally. Not all of my friends feel that way, but to each their own.

That's pretty much all I do. I'll play some bot games a lot at night if I just want to get a quick 20 minute game in and want to get my IP bonus of the day, but I haven't played much SR, outside of bot games, since Dominion's release.

You'll get better info from those who don't like it I'm sure. I really like the pace, the action, the "capture and hold" gameplay, the dynamic quests, pretty much everything. All I can say is I feel that Riot has done a great job on this game mode and it has made the game more exciting for me. I know a lot of my friends say "it takes no skill", but I don't see it that way. It takes a different type of skill, and with little focus on last hitting minions, the focus is almost completely on skirmishes and map control.