I've never understood this.

If you have a separate balance team for Dominion.... why not let them balance the game?

If Heimer is such a problem in Dominion, nerf him. In Dominion only. Surely there can be a numbers modifier for specific champions? You have hidden passive debuffs when specific conditions are met, why not have a condition be "this is Dominion" like the Dominion/Proving Grounds buff is, and just flat out change Heimerdinger's numbers?

Oh and I'm only using Heimerdinger as an exmaple, this thread isn't about him. Same for items, and every infamous Dominion champ.

I thought this is actually what Riot was planning to do with Dom. Separate balance for TT, SR, and Dom would definitely make the two 'lol' gamemodes more viable.

Sidenote, Dinger is def not that bad =P

They could, but they won't. I'd rather they didn't anyway. Riot knows not a damn thing about Dominion and it shows. They probably would nerf Heimer.

Burden of knowledge, makes the mode less penetrable to new players. This is kind of silly reasoning though, as Riot doesn't seem to care if new people get into dominion or not.

Adjust something that doesn't really exist in SR: gold income over time.

They've already done it to items to a small degree. Odyn's Veil is basically Banshee's Veil with a different passive/active. Sanguine Blade is a different Bloodthirster. Basing Dominion items on existing Classic items decreases the burden of knowledge for new players. It's much easier than champion-specific Dominion changes.

This is not "dumbing down" the game. Making a game quick to pick up does not require you to ruin it for experienced players; the human element makes simple games much more complex than games that are trying to be complex by restricting human flexibliity.

Items and map changes are the right route because making similar items means the player already knows something about the item in question, and because sweeping map-wide changes mean you only have to learn one thing.

I haven't seen a Heimer in so long. :O

they physically cannot, probably due to client they built it on