f13.net

I logged in and saw that message, FYI

And played it once on my lowbie account...tried Xin for the first time and ripped everyone a new asshole (I just spammed qwerqweqweqweqwe : ). It's def fun and fast paced.

Poppy :)

Unbelievably fun with friends.

Poppy on a map you don't need to farm = VROOM SMOOSH!

Wait, you have more than one league of legends account......why?

Hehe sometimes its fun to stomp some lowbies who don't know how to play the game on a lower level alt summoner account.

I mean this with love, people that do this can fuck right off.

I can't see this, is it a lvl30 or US server-specific thing?

I have it to fuck around with at work. I have a shit computer here and don't want to taint my name! :) I play free week champs and fuck around basically.

I have an extra account for playing with folks who are new or for when I really can't deal with the intensity of a game at whatever my ELO is. Sometimes it is nice to play the game sans flash, jungling, and level 1 team fights.

Seems Dominion no longer available to play :(

Seems pretty fun. It's LoL, stripped of all the unintuitive mechanics that make Classic strategy so opaque to new players. No last hitting, no wards, no jungle timers, just hero fights and map control. I think AD champs are weaker due to the lack of a late game, but otherwise I can't make any calls regarding balance (I managed 4 games in the two-hour window it was open).

I suspect that if Classic were released after Dominion, people would take one look at it, say "lol, pve," and ignore it. Kind of doubting Dominion can overcome the momentum Classic has at this point though in the competitive scene.

I do think Classic does a better job of making team dynamics important; in Dominion you get a steady, rapid flow of gold and xp so champ kills are a lot less of a big deal. Really seems to de-emphasize careful ganking and baiting; everyone spent most of their time in my games just running haphazardly from point to point. That could just be because everyone is new though; we'll see.

Hehe I know mostly my smurf account is to play with friends who just joined lol so I can group with them a bit more on random without my summoner level skewing things like crazy.

What was seen this morning with all the level 1 accounts though I think was more a matter of Euro people making NA accounts to play dominion since it was actually closer to their prime time and more of them were on than US players.

The one nice thing about dominion is its almost 100% PVP without the 20-25 minutes of semi passive farming we see in the ranked matches.

My only worry for Dominion is going to be players who have only played Dominion games joining normal games with me and thinking they are pro but having no clue.  :awesome_for_real:

Back up gents.

I played a few games of D, great fun. It's good that the games are shorter, as it removes one of the big hurdles of playing LoL after a workday. I'm usually way too tired to play more than one regular game, unless I'm grouping with friends.

Balance wise, it seems to me that frail ranged types really suffer. The one constant of my games (using Xin Zhao and Sion) was ganking Ashe over and over. Speed 3 boots + phage = dead ranged.

(http://i.imgur.com/0cENM.jpg)

First game as Morgana.

Impressions:

 - This game really sucks if you are a support character, or lack an escape.
 - This mode is made for tanky DPS
 - You can mostly ignore the minoins, but having a wave with you can really speed up captures
 - At the moment, blobbing seems to be the most sucessful strategy. Have a ball of four champs rolling over the opponents and then have another interrupting backdoor captures
 - Everything happens too fast, and I'm not sure what is going on a lot of the time
 - Capturing nodes is more important than hunting enemy heroes.

Overall I'd say this mode is fun, but I think in general I prefer the pace of Classic. I think players who are attached to squishy support heroes and carries will find the initial meta so unfavourable that it will really put them off. This is definitely going to take quite a lot of effort to balance.

I played a match with Morgana here a few mins ago.

Really like Dominion, but Morgana just doesn't have the run-speed or burst dmg to really shine (though I was pretty pro at turret saving with the new fortifylike spell).

Guess I am going to have to learn a tanky DPS for realz now.

First impressions of dominion are hilarious. People are still playing it like it's a game where kills matter, at the end of the game everyone was like "wtf how did you win?"

Seriously people, teamwork. Being an old hand at arathi basin it was very simple to grasp, whole team fighting elsewhere? ninja node.  Mine was a fairly quick game as morgana but I had no trouble with her in this playstyle. It just wasn't about dps at all just root and run. I ended up with 3/2/11 and 9 captures 7 assists in a 13min game.

I can see some people say it's hard to come back from a early game disadvantage, an early 5cap in AB was just the same way but I'm not sure that's the fault of the map. The games are also quick so if it's over soon it's over.

I really wouldn't discount support classes in this mode though, there was more than once a clutch root kept someone from my team mate capturing a node. In this game kills mean fuckall if you aren't controlling the board.

This isn't as different as I thought.   If you just run around ganking or capping you'll lose.   Basically you treat the circle like 2 lanes and cap towers or defend them.   Going through the mid if they group up on one side makes sense but in general you just grab a speed buff to get to where you want to go.   A good team will have 2 groups and just defend at top and the 2 towers next to your base.   If your heros start slaughtering them then you can start 4 or 5 capping.

The quest system is supposed to provide an incentive not to turtle. Not sure how much the bonuses are though.

It gives you a 10% dmg buff, maybe some gold/xp/nexus points too.

From what I've seen the quest just causes a team fight between two adjacent nodes.   It's interesting but defending still matters in that case.

You get a chunk of nexus points for winning the quest.

Also, I'm pretty sure Tear/Archangel isn't the right Karthus build: but spamming Lay Waste before the game starts is pretty cute.

Karthus is actually not so much about Requiem as he is just about holding points. You killed him? Fine. Now spend another seven seconds waiting before you can actually start to cap, which in Dominion, feels like an eternity. I'm not sure that's actually worth it: I found myself more valuable running around with Defile up and dying quick.

What do the minions actually do? Do they actually take down towers?

I just noticed dominion adds an overall 'rank' for your team, k9, you got top total points that game with morg, only higher was other teams jax. With my own last two plays I got top rank as morg as well and I gotta say, she's not a ganker but she can ninja/harass nodes REALLY fucking well in this game.

Played 4 matches today. Its new and shiny right now, but I think I prefer classic. Classic has a slower pace that I enjoy more, where they just feels chaotic. In my games today, I never really got to a point where I was thinking ahead, it was just move to nearest tower and Fight if enemy, capture/move on if not. Maybe once I get more used to the map and how it flows it will become more interesting for me.

Best part of dominion? Little to no time for players to be obnoxious assholes in chat

Yeah, Im thinking Ill only be playing SR with 5 mans from now on  :awesome_for_real:

Yea if you build up a fair size creep wave they will cap faster than heroes even.   That and gold pinata.   They give a lot more than normal mode.

Tried it...pretty sure I don't like it at all.  You just run around the map fighting and taking fights but it seems to have very little strategy involved.

Really right now people are fighting too much.  As the day has gone by people have been steadily playing more conservatively.  I see a lot more games where people defend instead of running around like a headless chicken atm.   Nobody knows good item builds either so it's so very random.

Why would the item builds be so different? AP still buys AP items, AD buys AD, etc.

There's a couple of items that increase your capture speed.

Many items are gone.  Bloodthirsters, Frozen Mallet, Banshee, Dorans, Snowballs etc etc.   Then there are new items that sort of replace some of these but not really.   There are also entirely new item types.  Not to mention you start at 3 and have a bunch more gold.  Sustain is kind of worthless.  Gold per 10 is mostly worthless.  Other assorted stuff as well.

I agree, and when I realised this I was focusing on capping/denying nodes and we did better. It's just hard to persuade the other team to do so. Morgana is pretty good for this since with the stun she can lock heroes under the towers where they take damage and she can interrupt caps quite easily, even 1v2

With some balance, this'd be interesting.  Color me skeptical that this will ever occur. 

I think with some slow-the-fuck-down, it'd be interesting.

But right now it feels all a little too frantic, a little too thoughtless. I think I'd start by increasing cap times.

It'll turn into twisted treeline. Its not frantic, if you can't play a skirmerish champ your out of luck because the other side gets fed fast and early. also this map gives a little too much vision. overall it needs a 5 minute surrender option

It's back up!

The 20% health gain nerf is so rough on some characters it seems to make them almost unplayable.

only hurts those who don't have a built in heal, if you have to buy your life steal your fucked

OMG rammus is so much fun on Dominion. Also, once you get your Warmog (and FON) going, dying? What's that?

That said, last two games have started with a rammus versus rammus fight at top, which is hilarious.

Mundo disagrees.

It needs tweaking but I like the idea of some of the normal mode champs becoming "unplayable".   There are several heroes that are just trash in classic that could be made good here instead.



Isn't Mundo's problem more with the mode in general?  I don't play him so I'm just curious.   He seems like he depends on farm/gold per 10 to get a bunch of HP items?  In a couple hundred games I've only seen him a few times so I don't really get how he works.

mundo been nerfed bat as riot pleases. every other tanky champ is fine. especially ones with built in life steal and vald is defiantly still good. its twisted treeline again. Mundo is good on the map, if you tech him right.

Dominion is fun!

if your team can't run more than 1 garrison you deserve to lose. also if you have more than 2 squishy champions in your team, you also deserve to lose.

I grabbed Yorick today and he is indeed quite pimp on this map.   I wouldn't put him on Jax's level but I imagine in many comps he'll be quite the scary mofo.   Tanky Irelia worked quite well for me too but I didn't get much time to test it.

The points system needs revamping, it sucks being last in points because you spent your time defending alone vs. 2 other dudes, allowing the rest of the team to cap everything.

Yeah, I think I'm out on Dominion solo queue now. It just seems to be a pressure cooker of rage and dysfunction.

Was it up again and i missed it?  Funny I found it to be far less stressful because a loss happens so much faster.

That describes all LoL solo queues.

I find Dominion much worse than SR. Seems like you can get away easier on SR with people who just chase champion kills.

I definitely prefer Dominion at this point.   I can agree SR is more skill intensive but it's also way too conservative at higher skill levels.   Frankly I'd prefer for them to switch focus to Dominion or at least give it equal focus.   The only way they could really do that though is to start doing separate balancing for each map.

I finally got to play it this weekend: can't say I'm a fan.

Dominion is growing on me just because of the fact I can play a quick game, and it actually ends up being a quick game and not an hour long marathon.

I can play 3 dominion games in the same time it takes me to grind through one summoner rift game. I would play the fuck out of it now before riot nerfs the IP gain and the community figures out the most boring meta.

Yea the IP really is better due to the flat bonus.

I played tonight finally and it's fun and fluffy. I think I prefer the regular game, but I'll definitely play when I need a quick fix.

Which flat bonus ?

Much easier to pick up your +150 for the day playing Dominion.

Oh... THAT flat bonus.

No you get a 20 ip flat bonus for any game SR or Dom.   It's called "match" bonus or something like that.