Dominator

Template:Tank The Dominator, Domination Turret, or simply called Turret, is a large tank in the Domination game mode. In Domination, if your team captures all of the Dominators, your team wins. Since the 25th of August update, the Dominator is a playable entity; if your team captures a Dominator, be the fastest to press the H key once without spamming to take control of the Dominator. The Dominators are also playable in the Sandbox game mode. There, the player is able to play as the smaller versions of the 3 types of Dominators. The Dominators are among the largest entities in the game besides the Arena Closers, the defunct level 140 Mothership and the bosses.

Dominator Variants

As of the August 26th update, 2 new types of Dominators were added, bringing the total up to 3. See them below.

Dominator-0 — What playing as a Dominator looks like

Design

Universal

All Dominators feature a circle as their bodies and a hexagonal base. Their colors are dependent on which team captures it and the base is always jet black.

Destroyer Dominator

The Destroyer Dominator is equipped with a short, wide cannon in front that has a small trapezoidal base, similar to the Ranger.

Gunner Dominator

The Gunner Dominator has three cannons in front. The cannon in the middle is longer and wider than the other cannons but shoots the same bullets, similar to the Triplet.

Trapper Dominator

The Trapper Dominator is surrounded by eight equal-sized launchers. Each launcher faces a different direction, but they are evenly spaced. Its circle of Traps defends it from all sides but such protection has a very limited range and is weaker against tanks with a focused bullet fire. It is also called the Octo Dominator.

A Level 1 dominator

Technical

Stats

All Dominators

Dominators can’t move (except for the slight movement of the Trapper Dominator and the Sandbox Versions) and have 6148 (6000-6088 in Sandbox) health points (per Dominator) with weak healing factors. Note that the health increases by 2 every level (including level 1), like other tanks, it does not have upgrades, and has a base health of 5998. The regeneration rate is the same for all Dominators. Their field of vision is at least a bit larger than the Sniper. All Dominators, including the Sandbox versions, suffer no recoil.

Trapper Dominator

This Dominator’s FoV(Field of Vision) is about the same as the Hunter’s. It is surrounded by eight Launchers. It's trap speed is higher than a maxed Tri-Trapper’s, while its trap health and damage is about the same as a maxed Trapper. Also, its reload is lower and Auto-fire is always on, no exceptions.

Gunner Dominator

This Dominator’s FoV is about the same as the Hunter and its upgrades (not including the zoom out on the Predator). It has three cannons in front. Its reload is high and the bullet speed is normal. However, it has low bullet penetration and damage.

Destroyer Dominator

This Dominator’s field of vision is slightly greater than a Sniper’s. It has one Cannon in front and very high Bullet Damage and Penetration, being about 5 times greater than a Mega Trap’s. It has the bullet size of a Hybrid. Also, its bullets can be knocked by enemy bullets or drones. However, its Reload and Bullet Speed are lower than a Hybrid or Destroyer.

Behavior

The Dominator, when AI controlled, targets the closest enemy. Even if an another player comes closer or the player himself or herself gets away, the Dominator will continue to target the player until the player goes out of its field of view. However, when a Dominator gets contested or changes team, it will ignore its current target and attack the closest person to the Dominator. Dominators’ AI were updated on August 22nd which enabled them to predict movements of players and shoot ahead, making it harder to dodge their attacks.

Dominators can harm shapes, but they cannot when neutral. They will also not target players out of their field of view unless provoked, interestingly, they will not target back if you harm one when using a tank that has a higher range than the Assassin.

Dominators prioritize players but if there are no players, they will target Polygons, Bosses or Arena Closers.

If the game is over and you manage to decrease its health to 0, it will be contested. However, it won’t change the winner.

Gameplay

In Domination, these tanks are used as control points. They start off neutral, but any team can capture it by lowering its health to 0 and being the last team to shoot it. Once the Dominator is under that team’s control, it can no longer damage that team. The team can shoot through the Dominator, but the enemy still can’t.

In order to capture a Dominator from the enemy team, you need to drop its health to 0 twice. When you do it for the first time, the Dominator will turn back to neutral mode. When you do that for the second time, the Dominator will be owned by your team. Whichever team lands the last blow on a contested Dominator will capture it.

As of August 25th update, if you press H before other players do, you will take control of a randomly selected (and uncontrolled) Dominator on your team, at the cost of losing the control of your tank, which will be destroyed slowly. A recent update added a Dominator in the center of the Tag Mode map, but capturing it was not essential to win. However, it was removed soon after.

Strategy

All Dominators

Strong against: Low DPS (Damage Per Second), melee builds
Weak against: High DPS

Destroyer Dominator

Strong against: Slow tanks
Weak against: Fast tanks, long range classes

Gunner Dominator

Strong against: Low rate of fire
Weak against: High penetration, high rate of fire

Trapper Dominator

Strong against: Low rate of fire
Weak against: Long range, high rate of fire, tanks with strong penetration, such as Destroyer, Annihilator or Hybrid, basically any tank because it can’t harm you initiatively.

Against the Dominator

The best strategy is to swarm the Dominators. Your team should attack with all single-point troops (such as the Triplet or the Destroyer) and guard with crowd control troops (such as the Octo Tank or the Spread Shot). The “point troops” will cause massive damage to the Dominator while the crowd controls will prevent the opposing team from recapturing it.

Also, try to avoid the Bullets from the Dominators, as they will do grievous damage to you, if not kill you outright. Assuming that the player has put some points into Movement Speed, they can simply distract the Dominator by avoiding the projectiles, as the projectiles fired are very slow (This does not work on a Trapper Dominator because the traps are omnidirectional). Try to not do this in front of teammates, as the projectile can accidentally hit them, most likely destroying them.

If you want to attack Dominators without risking yourself from being near to them, a Ranger with few points on Bullet Speed is a good choice. You can simply attack the Dominator without having to go near it, thanks to high FoV of your tank and decent Bullet Speed, although it would take time to do this by solo, especially against Tapper Dominators, as you have to change positions sometimes.

The Mega Trapper is very effective against a Trapper Dominator. This is because the Mega Trapper’s Traps are stronger than that of the Trapper Dominator.

As and/or defending a Dominator

As an Octo Tank, an effective tactic is to stay in the middle of a Dominator and shoot enemies. Another strategy is to use Max HP, Health Regen, Reload and Bullet Damage. Get to the opposing side’s Dominator and use one side for the Dominator and the other for the other tanks.

Two tanks with high Reload and Penetration could move a Dominator’s Bullets and not get hit like Triplet and Gunner or any high Reload classes.

If you like to stay hidden, use the Manager or the Stalker. Just camp out at your base and protect a Dominator. A great tip for using the Manager is that you get a glass build (max Drone Speed, Penetration, and Damage) and hide your Drones in the middle of the Dominator, thus making the Dominator appear alone if no players are roaming around. However, enemy Dominators can see hidden tanks, so don’t think you can get away with it. Be extremely cautious when you’re camping near your own Dominators, as most tanks that capture Dominators are usually Penta Shots, Sprayers or other spray-and-pray tanks. The large amount of Bullets fired from these tanks can unintentionally hit you, forcing you to relocate your camping zone, otherwise you will be destroyed.

If you are a Dominator, keep your mouse close to the center. That way you can rotate faster.

History

In very old versions of Domination, there could be a rare message which says “The (Location) Dominator is now controlled by a mysterious group.” The notification would be gray. This still occurs when a Boss Tank or Polygon kills a Dominator.
As of the 22nd of August update, the Dominator’s AI still prioritize players, but if there are none in range, they can target the Polygons, Bosses, or even Arena Closers.
As of the August 25th update, players can control a taken Dominator of their team as if it was a controlled tank, but still can’t move.
When the Arena Closers have finished killing regular tanks, they will start to target Dominator(s) with a player controlling it. That Dominator then becomes contested.
As of the August 26th update, a Dominator was added to the center of the Tag Mode map. It has now been removed. The update also added the new Dominator types explained above.
If a Dominator’s health reaches 0 when the arena is closed, it will disappear^[1]. But the arena’s and Minimap’s tile color of the Dominator stays the same. In the 25th August, it was updated. It now gets contested instead.
From August 26th to August 27th, a Dominator was present in the exact center of Tag Mode servers, and could be captured by either of the four teams. It has since been removed.

Trivia

If you use a Smasher, you can, with some difficulty, hide under a Dominator.
A Dominator’s death screen is special. When they die, the death screen doesn’t show how long they were alive, how much score they have, and etc.
Dominator bases, Traps, and the Smasher branch (including the defunct Mega Smasher) are the only hexagons (Polygons made up of 6 straight lines) in the game.
The bullet of the Destroyer Dominator has the second highest Penetration of all bullets in the game, after the Arena Closer’s, yet strangely, it has the highest Damage of any bullet.
The Dominators are the second most resistant entities of the game.
Along with bosses, Arena Closers and Base Protectors Dominators (when neutral or Al-Controlled), are the only things in Diep.io that can detect invisible tanks.
According to the size of the tank, it’s level is 120, not 75.
Back then, Dominators would turn to the enemy team's color when they are killed once. Currently, they become contested when the enemy team kills it, giving a chance for the other team to recapture it.
Dominators used to have a different design, although the only difference was that there was no trapezium on the front gun.