Your changes since the last few patches have made Dominion into a cookie cutter nonsense game. AP carries are rushing that witchcap and blackfire torch and now every AD bruiser is just rushing Black Cleaver and Last Whisper, Ranged Carries, Supports, and even tanks can't really play on this map anymore. I'm not however saying it's wise to go without SOMEONE doing one of the other roles at anytime but their ability to hold their own anymore is literally gone and relies more on luck and hoping the enemy assassin is new.

Dominion is no longer fun anymore, the builds are entirely cookie cutter there's no variance no secret. It's pretty much boiled down to who has the most bruisers/assassins wins anymore and I just lost all desire to play this map anymore. I hope in one of your future updates you fix this issue but I honestly doubt you will. I'm sure many will give me some backlash but I said my peace.

tl;dr - Dominion is broken and needs a LOT of changes in the right direction... do any of you even play this map?

So it was okay that everyone built FH before these last few patches?

Making stupid generalizations is a really easy way to not be taken seriously,

I've complained about FH many times and no one said anything when I did so I kept my mouth shut after.

The problem is the game dynamic has shifted from tanky derps/tanks reigning supreme (brick walls) where most fights came down to who could out last the other, and relied heavily on carries getting lifesteal/spell vamp.

But now the dynamic is "best defense is a good offense". In the majority of games there really is no reason to not just build full offense, even on AP tanks, and just try and out right kill the enemy before they kill you.

While it is refreshing to have a change of items, it has made the game mode pretty boring most of the time. The only tanks that can cope properly are the ones with high base stats and armor/MR steriods.
Most of the others are better off going tanky AP, with the emphasis on AP.

It's good to see some of the lesser able champs able to be played now with the new items, but there are still so many that are pretty much unplayable because of the same few champions spammed in almost every game. (hyberbole). This is more of an issue with blind pick than anything else.

I agree it is a major issue, I too like there there is a refresher but these items specifically (blackfire and cap) are exclusive to the dominion map meaning it's meant to be used but is far too overpowered to the point that it makes Ranged Carries and even Tanks useless cause they have to build MR and Health quickly to offset a fairly inexpensive item. Attack Speed has made general Ranged Carries nigh worthless due to the steep costs as well so the problem before (of AD Carries needing a while to rev up) never plays out because bruisers can snowball and stay there all game.

The previous poster mentioned a lot about FH and I agree that was bad before but I can't go into detail on *every* problem from a single post. I mostly want to address the Blackfire and Cap as these right now are really big problems that are exclusive to dominion and also make AP Carries (especially god tier ones like kassadin) way over the top. The only way to win blind matches (which unfortunately no one plays draft cause there's not really a point without ranked) is to rely entirely on bruisers and tanky assassin every game to reliably win and it's no fun that way.

If a Ranged Carry even wishes to stand a chance they need several escape mechanisms so they can at least delay people (Ezreal comes to mind for this.) I feel like I'm probably ranting at this point which is very likely true, but I still wish Riot would evaluate the negative impact this has had and change it. the whole point of S3 is to add variety to players but we're not getting that, instead we get cookie cutter items that everyone *has* to buy or you're screwed all game.

FH was nerfed... directly to it's stats, and indirectly with the introduction of new penetration scaling and BC...

at least riot tried to do something.
Will matchmaking ever find true balance?
at least they are working on it.

Easily.

People notice offensive items, people notice Darius. People notice "overt power", as in - damage.

That doesn't mean these things are stronger. Subtle power can amount to a lot. You can carry a game and not get one kill.

Edit: They also take the same resources - gold and slots in my inventory, so it's really easy to compare them. The only question is "Which is better to get, and when". I can even compare AD to AP items. Naturally, such comparison is usually champion specific, but if we say S2 FH>>> S2 Rageblade we actually mean "On most champions, at most points in the game, building a FH will be better than building a Rageblade."