Which champions are suited to League of Legends Dominion Map (and which should be avoided)?

league-of-legends

Riot games have put a special effort into having balanced champions for this game style as well. I don't believe there are any champions to avoid. However, the team composition changes a bit.

AP Carry

You will still need one, or else the other team will just build against AD and will own you as soon as they are a bit stuffed.

Tank / Off Tank

King in solo holding the bot lane, also very good in "tower diving" (if we can still call it so in Dominion).

Melee Fighters

They tend to be the heroes everyone picks as they are sort of kings on this map. They deal quite some damage and have high sustainability (so they don't need to Back often), and are often very good in 1v1 (which happens pretty often in Dominion).

Ranged AD Carry

More than one is too much, but not having one (to have more fighters) is a handicap. He deals crazy damage and can attack out of tower range or defend minion waves without exposing himself in front of the tower. From the games I've played or seen, having only melee champs is clearly a handicap.

Support

I rarely see them in Dominion and believe they are overlooked. Each time I've had one on my team, it was awesome to hold the windmill (we never had to back, support would always buff/heal us). However, having a support requires good team play, because the champion won't do anything on its own (compared to fighters).

General

As XP gain is so fast in Dominion, teams are usually built with mid/late game champions. Riot tried to correct this in a previous patch by lowering the XP gain aura on the map, however, you still get to level 6 tremendously fast, so don't hesitate in taking weak early game champs (like Kassadin, useless before level 6).

Try having a hero or 2 (at least) with high mobility (Rammus, Kassadin, Nocturne, Twisted Fate, etc.) to do lane swaps and be unpredictable in your tower attacks.

Conclusion

All heroes are viable. It all depends on the team composition.

Good Akali, Irelia and Xin Zhao champions can however be freaking awesome with their ganking abilities and life steal.

There's a few advantages in Dominion that don't equally apply to the classic game:

Mobility
Champions with high mobility can reach top first, or support lanes faster.

Rammus (powerball + ghost = ftw)
Blitzcrank
Teemo
Zilean
Nunu
Twisted Fate (at lvl 6)

Sustain
Champions who don't rely on base to heal can constantly exert pressure on towers. Energy, heal, spell vamp, etc.

Akali
Sion
Vlad

Global Ults
Useful for disrupting a capture or killing minions you can't reach.

Gangplank
Ezreal
Lux

Strong Pushers
Great for bottom lane, they overwhelm the enemy with minions.

Hermerdinger
Nasus

This is by no means a complete list (as I'm not familiar with all the champions). Also, I aimed for specific use cases. Jax isn't anywhere on my list, but as a tanky melee dps, he's very well suited to dominion.

Some of my favorites (although I haven't played tons of Dominion)

Gangplank:

Great sustain with W (oranges)
Team speed buff on short cooldown
Global ult that is useful in many situations
- Stop the enemy from capping
- Initiate a teamfight on hotspot like Windmill
- Finish off kills
- Escape / defense
Q is good for poking and sniping high movespeed enemies

Wukong:

Got buffed with Shyvana patch
Was already a good pick
Great gap closer, good damage with Q
Fairly tanky, can take some hits
His ult is awesome for teamfights around pivotal capture points

Udyr

Crazy sustain
Very hard to kill while still doing great damage
Bear sprint gives him mobility on short CD and stun
Can also push lanes well

Jarvan IV

Often overlooked, after numerous nerfs
Can hold a tower pretty well
Has strong ganks, landing E -> Q -> W does nice damage and R seals the deal
Can poke with spear, push waves, and is kind of hard to kill

As you can see, I prefer tanky melee, but you obviously don't want to just roll with 5 tanky melee. Other known strong picks are Akali, Vayne, and Rammus.

I think just about anything can work in Dominion. I've even seen a few very annoying Evelynns and Poppys. I'm interested to try Tryndamere.