Domination is a Game Mode in Diep.io. It is very similar to 2 Teams, as youāre part of a team in both. But this game has a win condition: Capture all four Dominators. XP gain is also doubled compared to FFA, 2 Teams and 4 Teams.
Gameplay
A Neutral Dominator getting attacked by the Blue team.
This game mode is basically a Point Capture type game mode, where two opposing teams must capture four huge Dominators. Teams must defend the Dominators they currently have, while attempting to attack the other teamās Dominators. If a team captures all four Dominators on the map, they win, and a win notice appears at the top of the screen. If Dominators become contested or captured AFTER the Arena has closed, it will not affect the winning team.
Strategy
This claims to be a safe mode and easy to level up quickly, thanks to the EXP multiplier. It is best to look for a game that just started to have time to get to level 45 and become a Tier 4 Tank before one of the teams win the game and the Arena Closers spawn to kill the players. It is extremely safe as the enemy team usually focuses more on winning the game than killing players. However, deaths occur while attacking a Dominator as there will be guards and enemy players. The enemies will try to kill the guards to make it easier to capture the Dominator, while the guards defend it.
As a Stalker, Ranger or Predator, the player could snipe the Dominator and use high Bullet Damage and Reload to take loads of health away from it without even worrying about it targeting back since the player have a higher FoV than the Dominator. This could be a dangerous strategy, however, since body damage classes could come out of nowhere and quickly ram the player.
Ram Boosters and Fighters are good tanks as well. The player could ram powerful enemies, paving the way for teammates to attack the enemy Dominator. Obviously, as a rammer, the player shouldn't be dumb enough to ram the Dominator. Tanks in the Smasher branch are useful for this strategy as well.
High DPS such as Sprayers, Triplets, and Penta Shots still work in this gamemode. The Penta Shot and Spread Shot could take out multiple enemies at once, proving useful for both offense and defense. Concentrated DPS tanks like the Triplet and the Streamliner deal damage fast against Dominators.
Destroyer classes are very strong and can capture the Dominator fast, but can't go alone; if the enemy team attacks the Destroyer, the player will have to focus on both the Dominator and the enemy tanks. Other teammates have to guard the Destroyer in case of any enemy defenders.
Trapper classes are amazing in Domination. If they use a Trapper class, the player has two choices. One of them is to stay back and defend their Dominator(s) from attacks by laying down a trap wall around it (though, if it is a Trapper Dominator, it might not really be useful since there already is a wall). The other choice is to support the player's teammates that are currently assaulting the enemy Dominators. In the second choice, the traps will protect teammates from enemy guards, but won't do well against the Dominators. The Destroyer Dominator destroys the traps with ease. The Gunner Dominator destroys the traps slower than the Destroyer variant, but its tiny bullets can fly through the gaps between the traps.
Dominators
Blue teamās Dominator
- Main article: Dominator
A Dominator is a huge, stationary tank (about 4x level 1 tank widths) that has a non-rotating Smasher-like hexagon base, and it is in the center of a small square-shaped field (at one of the four corners of the Pentagon Nest) that is colored respective to the dominator's color. The dominator can be equipped with one of three types of weapons.
- The Destroyer Dominator has a ranger-like cannon with the longer cannon shorter. It shoots Hybrid-sized Bullets that can one-shot pretty much anything that has less health than an Alpha Pentagon. Because it is so overpowered, its Reload is very slow.
- The Gunner Dominator is a dominator with the same inverted trapezoid base for a cannon, but it has 3 gunner barrels in a Triplet formation. This dominator shoots Gunner-sized bullets as fast as a minigun.
- The last current Dominator type is the Trapper Dominator. It has eight Launchers that are arranged like an Octo Tank's barrels. This Dominator is very useful for defending tanks that can be low on health and not be near their base.
Before the August 25, 2016 update (see the Changelog), only the first variation (Hybrid Bullets) was available in the Domination gamemode.
All four Dominators start off neutral. This means that they will attack any tank regardless of which team they are in. Neutral Dominators are yellow.
If Dominators are destroyed while neutral, they will become the team of the tank that dealt the final blow, and get a full refill on health. Then, the first player to press "h" who is on the dominator's side gets to pilot the Dominator, relinquishing control of their old tank. Spamming H does not work as when you control the Dominator, pressing H will kill you and reverts the Dominator back to AI control, where it can be used by another tank.
If a red or blue Dominator is defeated by the enemy team, they will become neutral (announced as the Dominator being contested), revert back to yellow, and get a full refill on health again, essentially meaning the enemy team must kill the Dominator twice to capture it. The team that lost the Dominator can still regain control of it again after it becomes neutral.
Remember, only the last hit depends, so if the enemy team is almost done capturing a Dominator, and it is at a tiny amount of health, you can dash in as a Spike and take it. Do this ONLY when the Dominator is at very low health though, as they have a ton of health and can still kill you with their body damage if their health is not low enough.
A Domination game counts on players, so when you spawn, first get some points in Bullet Damage and Bullet Penetration, then go to the Pentagon Nest, which is in the center of the map as usual as fast as you can. Once you get there, you can farm until you reach Level 45. As usual, beware of Crashers. Get 4-6 teammates to come with you to fend off enemies and make sure the Nest doesn't get overcrowded. Now you can start taking control of Dominators. Many players are required to take down a Dominator, as they have a lot of health. Keep any enemies away. Once the Dominator is captured, you will have more Level 45 tanks and can capture Dominators relatively easily.
End Game
Once a team captures all the Dominators, Arena Closers will spawn and kill everything, specifically targeting normal players before focusing attack on the Dominators. Dominators can still be killed by Arena Closers by body damage, missed shots, or targeted players being too close to the Dominator.
Map
The Minimap of Domination, minus the locator.
As of July 20th, the spawnpoint for the blue team is in one of the left corners and the red team spawnpoint is in one of the right corners. These corners are randomly chosen. When a bullet touches the opposite teamās border, the border destroys it like in 2 Teams and 4 Teams. There are 12 Protectors in each Base protecting its team's border. On the minimap, Bases are shown as large blue and red squares.
The Pentagon Nest is located in the middle of the map, as usual. The Pentagons, Alpha Pentagons, and Crashers spawn in the Pentagon Nest before the game starts, so if you are the first tank to the Pentagon Nest, you will be immediately swarmed by dozens of Crashers.
At each corner of the Pentagon Nest there is a Dominator. On the minimap they are represented by 4 small squares:
- If a Dominator is captured by any of the two teams, the squares on the minimap will turn into the teamās colour. For example, if Team Red captures a Dominator, it will turn Red.
- If a Dominator is neutral, or being contested, the square on the minimap will be Yellow.
Trivia
- Domination was added June 2nd, 2016.
- At the release of Domination, Neutral Dominators used to be gray.
- In the July 9th, 2016 update, Neutral Dominators were changed to yellow.
- This is the first added game mode that has win conditions.
- Destroying things gives you double the normal amount of EXP, since the game ends after a certain point.
- This is the only game mode without a scoreboard.
- As of August 25th, 2016, players are now able to take control of Dominators on their team by pressing H.
- However, there must not already be a player controlling the Dominator.
- If a player takes control of a Dominator, they leave their tank behind, which will slowly lose health until it dies.
- Two other variations of Dominator attacks were also added in this update, a Gunner variant and a Trapper variant.
- There also was a Dominator in the middle of the Pentagon Nest in Tag, but this was removed as it confused players about how to win.
- If a team does not control at least 1 Dominator after 5 minutes, the arena is closed with no winner, also if a Dominator gets captured after the arena has closed without a winner, it will not stop the arena from closing.
- The Dominator AI was updated at August 22, 2016. Dominators were given the ability to predict movements of players and attack accordingly, making it much harder to dodge their attacks.
- This tends to be the easiest Game Mode in terms of survival, due to the fact that players on the enemy team could be distracted by Dominators and are more focused on winning than killing players, as well as the presence of Bases.
| Game Modes |
|---|
    
|
| Rotating Game Modes |
  
|
| Removed Game Modes |
 
|