5221

I played Dominion about five times. Was last on my team the first time (with Cait), and first on my team the next four (with Warwick).

Gives me hope that perhaps I am so bad at Summoner’s Rift because I’m basically a year behind on practicing that particular game mode. :)

People really do seem terrible at Dominion. Are people really that much worse just because they haven’t been obsessively playing it for a couple of years? I see so many people doing stupid things that are just basic tactical mistakes (they’d be mistakes in any game, not just Dominion, and they’re not rocket science).

Warwick has worked well for me. He’s fairly beefy from the start (particularly with his innate life steal skills), and with the tighter map, his run speed buff is in effect a lot more.

5222

I’m not convinced there’s much tactical similarity between Summoners Rift and Dominion, at any level of play.

No “laning” or “teamfight” phase. Different team comp. Minions aren’t gold sacks. Different items are purchased. Teamfights are decided on who retreats and how fast it’s over, not kills. Tower diving is radically different.

This is a game mode where chasing someone with 5hp for more than a second is a waste of time. It’s going to take people a while longer to adapt.

My latest tip on future team comp: 1 unkillable tank / global ulter for bot lane, two 1v1 specialists for killing enemies capping your points and capping their undefended ones, two heroes great at knocking others off towers somehow (probably with double stuns).
So something like: Maoki/Panth, Jax, Poppy, Kog, Blitz

5223

This and “oh, let me go fight in the center jungle somewhere” are the two biggest mistakes people make by far.

5224

That one fucking infuriates me. Sure let’s go score a meaningless kill while this other guy captures the top point again!

5225

yep, some HP, but mostly just AP. Spell Vamp was also quite funny with her once AP is high. Non-stop healing while kiting is fun.

5226

See, this one I don’t necessarily agree with, if you can actually get the kill. At worst, you are taking one of their guys out of the fight as well on a 1 to 1 basis (because if you are capping because you are chasing him, he is also not capping because he is being chased).

And if you do kill him, you put the other team down a man for a number of seconds. It’s worth chasing someone down for five seconds if you can kill him if it takes him out of the fight for 20 seconds.

(Barring, of course, other factors like chasing him into a bad situation where you get killed yourself, etc.)

5227

Often it’s 3 people chasing 1 through the middle, which is a win for the guy being chased.

5228

Not if (1) you can be capping or (2) this leads to an enemy de-capping a point of yours.

Kills get points (or take life away from the inhib) at >100 (I think it’s 100), but capping is still the path to victory. By a long shot. It’s frequently not true that you “only have to chase for 5 seconds”, but never mind that. Chasing right now is probably one of the major factors (if not the major factor) contributing to people losing a Dom match. They chase while ignoring the sneaky big creep build up a point, losing that point. They chase while another point in need of defending is capped, and lose that point. They chase when instead they should be capping.

5229

I disagree. I can cap more points if there is not a guy contesting it for 20-30 seconds because he is dead.

Again, is it worth tying up 3 of your guys to chase one down (as someone else mentioned)? No. But simple math dictates that if you are chasing someone down solo: (a) by definition he is not capping either (and is not de-capping a point of yours); and (b) if you do kill him, you have a free period of time to cap while the other team is down a man. (Not to mention the direct points benefits from the kill, etc.)

5230

And then you get caught out by his buddy in the jungle. Or the guy you thought would only take a few seconds to finish off actually kites you halfway across the map. Or the creep wave neutralizes your tower. Or while you’re chasing Singed that sneaky Teemo with Priscilla’s Blessing captures the point you abandoned. Or any number of other situations that make your calculations wrong.

Dominion is a game about point control. Don’t waste your time for no reason. The guy at 15 health isn’t gonna be a threat for a bit anyway.

5231

All of these things you guys are saying are ruining my predicate.

You are not saying don’t chase a guy down. You’re saying don’t chase a guy down and be mentally retarded about how you’re doing it.

Yes, if you chase a guy down, you shouldn’t try doing it while holding a beer with your keyboard hand while holding a side conversation with your wife either. :)

If you add a bunch of qualifiers to it (don’t chase him 20 seconds across the map into a place where you can get ganked when you can’t see where your opponents are on the minimap and you actually have 10 hp left yourself), it becomes kind of obvious.

It’s also like saying, “You shouldn’t cap points, because you’ll try to cap a point with low health when three opponents are around and they’ll jump you and gank you.”

Yeah, if you add all of those other factors in, a good decision does become a bad decision.

5232

If you chase someone down and kill them, they’re going to respawn about as quickly as if they’d run back home and healed up. It makes sense to chase every once in a while, but most of the time there are better uses of your time.

5233

Except you mostly shouldn’t chase a guy down period. I mean, yes, there are times to do it. But this isn’t like Summoner’s Rift. The default isn’t “get the kill unless it requires you to do something you would normally consider stupid, like run past 2 towers” anymore. You get much, much more of your income from other sources and in a rapid fashion. And you can only win the game via capping.

The default should be “don’t chase”, and then one can learn when it really is appropriate and do so when it is appropriate.

5234

What does the guy you would otherwise be chasing do when you don’t chase him? I assume he either quickly heals back up at home or goes and caps.

That’s what I don’t understand about your respective analysis. It’s like you assume you free up completely to go cap things, but the guy that otherwise would have been chased doesn’t.

When you’re running off capping things instead of chasing, he’s quickly healing up and doing the same.

5235

I don’t assume. The guy who is being chased probably isn’t freed up. That player cannot adequately defend and must either blue pill or wander collecting healing buffs and waiting on regen; either of these things is time they spend not doing things that can hurt you. Sure, that person can go try to cap an undefended turret, but this is problematic. They’re much easier to kill (particularly with a global alt like Ez or Plank), and they’ll yield some nexus health unless it is late in the game. Further, odds are going to be against them winning a fight. Also, if you are doing your job correctly, you make a point unattractive just by being there and in good health.

Meanwhile, if you don’t chase you are freed up 100% of the time. Sure, if there are no points being threatened or in need of capping, chasing might be a good idea. But if you chase and get the kill, but then are unable to defend a point, the enemy team might counter and flip the point. They stand to profit overall in that scenario.

Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but this is pretty obvious in SR so far. People chase and leave points uncapped or worse in the hands of the other team. People chase and spend too long doing it, which creates a counter opportunity for the other team and negates the fact that they already blew one.

Also, that last line is 100% wrong. While you are capping, your team is getting score and his is not.Further, he’s not quickly healing up and doing the same. He is healing up and then trying to get back to capping. Regardless of what he does once he gets back to being in the field, he was out of play. For longer than you realize (for him to flee to a safe place, blue pill, and then shop/heal is probably 15 seconds if he’s a good player; note someone was claiming blue pilling was quicker in Dominion but I haven’t noticed. I’m assuming SR length blue pills in that estimate).

Even though kills take away from nexus health (to a point) they are not what win dominions.

5236

It actually is faster in Dominion. 4.5 seconds vs. 8, I think.

No, if you add ANY of those factors in it becomes a bad decision. And a lot of them are based on faulty assumptions. Yes, if you can kill a guy in two more seconds of chasing, sure, it’s probably good to do it. But it’s easy to be really, really wrong about how long it’ll take you.

You really don’t NEED to kill someone to take them out of play. If they’re too hurt to do anything, they’re as good as out of play. They still need to recall, and then get back to wherever they were trying to go, if they even want to be there anymore. The guy who got away with a sliver of health is not going to come attack your tower again, because he knows he’ll just die.

5237

On the other hand, that Maokai with a sliver of health left who’s running away is probably going to turn around and chuck a sapling at your face from max range to interrupt your tower cap, so go to the opposite side of the tower from where he ran!

5238

Also please stop clumping up while capping. The extra .5 second it takes you to spread out is good when it prevents 4 guys from being interrupted by one aoe

5239

And he’ll still be out of play if you chase him down and don’t kill him. It will just add the time of the chase to how long he is out of play. Of course if you actually do catch him and kill him, he’ll be out of play even longer, and you will gain rewards for it (on top of having kept him out of play for whatever the chase time is).

The reasons for not chasing someone with a sliver of health revolve around many factors (are you needed for defense elsewhere, are you likely to get ganked yourself, is your team is behind and you absolutely need to flip a point now, etc.). You’re going to have a very hard time arguing that in the absence of a separate mitigating reason that chasing someone is bad. Because it simply doesn’t make sense mathematically. Again, for every second you are chasing the guy, it may be a second you’re not capping, but it is also a second that he isn’t capping. And it’s not like if you chase him, it magically restores him to health. Even if you don’t catch him, he’s lost the time of the chase as well, and still has blue pill, shop, etc. after the chase is over.

5240

Sure. But then you’re not really giving a good rule. You’re saying that most people won’t get it right, so the correct strategy is to never chase. The second part is wrong. The correct strategy depends on the circumstances. Advising people to realize that there are often overlooked factors that mitigate against chasing is one thing. I just think it throws the baby out with the bath water to simply turn that into a hard and fast rule.