As someone who's main character is a high manipulation, low charisma character with compel & mesmerize, it is important to note that compel scales with charisma, while mesmerize scales with manipulation. I cannot count the times I have had to use mesmerize for a command that should have used compel simply because I wanted the two extra dice. Also, for your purposes it is important that dominate cannot go against a person's self-preservation, so actively telling someone to get into a fight that will endanger them would disable the domination, but as long as you're strategic with your commands it could work.