Nautilus Build Guide by Kyranian

Crowd Quarantine Nautilus - Ultimate Jungle Control

Nautilus is a tanky support champion who excels at disrupting the enemy team with massive amounts of CC while dealing out slow consistent damage, and has a built in shield on dots for initiations on ganks and escaping ignites. Nautilus is a rounded champion which makes him an excellent jungle and ganker.



Nautilus, The Titan of the Depths

Pros:

* Insane at initiating team fights
* Four different crowd control effects
* Good at ganking
* Huge awesome model with a floating animation!

Cons:

* Slow initial jungle
* Vulnerable to jungle invasion
* Ganking some champions less effective from cc reduction and non-summoner flashes
* Slow animations, result in missed passive on auto-attack at times

General Strategy

Nautilus is one of the best crowd control champions in league of legends. He has four different CC effects with one stun built into his passive and this allows his naturally tanky builds to dominate in team fights and ganks. Because of his threat generated through damage and constant crowd control, he is a tank that often is focused in team fights. This build focuses on a quick early jungle clear and movement speed allowing quick ganks and better initiation/CC so he can start supporting his team.

If you are a fan of Udyr's bear stance stun to disrupt enemy teams as they are trying to initiate carries, or if you love Singed's ability to near constantly troll, you will love Nautilus. Not only can he just walk around stunning people right when they are about to initiate, but he also has a versatile skill-shot grapple, and massive area-of-effect disrupts with his E and R which can devastate groups positioned just right. When needed, Nautilus can completely disrupt 2-3 champions for a significant amount of time, preventing them from doing anything in a team battle, and with enough health completely separate their entire team from reaching each other upon initiation. Nautilus is the type of champion who can occasionally sacrifice himself causing massive cc in a team fight or baron initiation while making the team come out ahead because their entire team was unable to coordinate in between his numerous stuns, knock-ups, and slows.

Staggering Blow, Nautilus's passive, is quiet possibly one of his best abilities as it works in combination with each of his abilities. Nautilus’ first basic attack against a target deals bonus physical damage and immobilizes the opponent briefly. Staggering Blow cannot trigger on the same target more than once every 12 seconds. This guide makes the most of his passive by providing him with much needed speed early so he can focus on ganking and supporting team fights. An early Boots of Mobility will allow you to compensate for Nautilus' slow early auto-attack animations, which can be a pain to land sometimes if they run away from you before you can sink Staggering Blow, or if unit/terrain collision gets in the way.

Dredge Line is a skill-shot grapple which casts out an anchor and collides with the first thing it hits. Nautilus throws his anchor forward and if it hit's a minion or enemy champion, it will pull the enemy and Nautilus closer to each other. If it collides with terrain he is pulled to the terrain and the cooldown is reduced. If it hits a unit and kills it, this also pulls nautilus the full distance. This ability can be used skillfully in many ways. It doubles as a brief stun / interrupt, and immediately after a stun further CC can be used. If you purposely hit terrain near an enemy unit when you are cutting them off or chasing them, then using your passive and Riptide to CC them instead of relying on the hooks brief stun can yield another short cooldown on Dredge Line for a quick stun right after, since it hit terrain and still served it's purpose to pull you forward to cut off the enemy. Also the larger distance you are from an enemy the further you pull them when they are struck, this is useful if you want to pull an enemy further from a tower etc. If an enemy is being pulled the enemy is larger than the anchor collision so around corners sometimes they will not be pulled the full distance.

Titan's Wrath is an active shield buffer based on his maximum health which grants his attacks a short damage-over-time effect to units around him. This combined with Riptide serve as most of his reliable DPS output. Because the cooldown is so high this is best used right upon initiation. If you invest in cooldown reduction, later it can be used multiple times in a team fight for damage mitigation, and with bonus health this allows him to deal out more consistent DPS with his W.

Riptide is an area-of-effect crowd control spell which ripples out explosives in three rings around Nautilus, dealing damage and slowing enemies struck. This slow decays over time. Enemies struck with more than one charge can take more damage but it is reduced so like his ultimate positioning is key for maximizing the abilities potential. Targets that are running outwards from nautilus can be caused to hit multiple charges dealing more damage. Riptide is the most reliable ability for damage and CC that works in combination with his passive.

Depth Charge is Nautilus' Ultimate; a long range, homing, lock-on, knock-up, stun. This sends out a delayed charge that ticks down and follows the champion it is locked onto, speeding up and knocking up all champions on the way. When it reaches the target locked on he is stunned briefly and knocked up. Like riptide positioning allows for the most potential when using this skill. It is best used to target squishy carries in the back, and lined up so it knocks up the entire team along the way. Also can be used to initiate from long range in combination with Dredge Line, and alternatively it can also be used to juke if you are baiting and pretending to be chased, and then you turn around and knock up the team in a line. Very effective in team battles, esp in narrow jungles.

Nautilus is a fairly versatile champion, make the most out of his positioning for his abilities and disrupt enemy carries throughout team fights and you should come out ahead no matter what. This build is designed to get you through jungle quickly and set you up for the long haul, as well as providing stats needed early on.

Items

Starting with a Cloth Armor and five Health Potions is about standard for Nautilus jungle. Boots of Speed and three potions or Regrowth Pendant and one potion, are also viable if you can handle it.




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Next you can build an early Madred's Razors on first recall to improve jungle clear times along with Boots of Mobility on second recall which will improve not only jungle clear times significantly but allow you to initiate with your passive much easier and land crowd control effects. If it is late game or this is not an issue, you can build straight into Mercury's Treads and Philosopher's Stone/Heart of Gold.




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Next you want to work on your core items. Sunfire Cape is synergistic to his crowd control abilities and his damage-over-time effects applied on his W as well as providing him with much needed health and armor. Usually I get this first for this reason but sometimes its better going for Heart of Gold, then Warmog's Armor or Shurelya's Reverie depending on if more tank or support roles are needed, and a Force of Nature against fed AP champions and to provide more essential nautilus tankyness and speed.


Warmog's Armor health bonus also helps with his W shield and works well with cooldown reduction to buffer damage. Force of Nature gives him more much needed magic resist, speed and sustain; allowing him to heal while shielded rapidly and regain 10% of his life every 30 seconds to allow for constant ganks and tower pushes.


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Either way your core build should end up as Boots of Mobility/ Mercury's Treads, Sunfire Cape, Shurelya's Reverie, Warmog's Armor, and Force of Nature.

Late game or with enough gold I will move on to Randuin's Omen or Guardian Angel for more defense or magic resist.

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After I will buy whatever floats my boat. Abyssal Scepter for magic resist, bonus damage, and enemy MR reduction. Or Frozen Heart for cooldown reduction and more defense against AD heavy teams.



For a more AP intensive build, swap out Greater Mark of Desolation x4 and Greater Quintessence of Desolation x1 for Magic Penetration Runes. Then instead of working towards an early Sunfire Cape go for Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Rod of Ages, and then onto other core items like Warmog's Armor, Force of Nature, and Abyssal Scepter.

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Troll Items:

Usually building tanky is the way to go with Nautilus, however Phantom Dancer's speed boost combined with attack speed greatly increase the crowd control potential of your passive though is often not gold efficient to buy, it goes great for a troll build or if you are fed early. Trinity Force and Atma's Impaler if you have the spare money or your team is doing well aren't the most gold efficient choices for Nautilus but they can incredibly increase your damage and threat potential late game for kicks or if you are fed. Along with Phantom Dancer and Youmuu's Ghostblade all make excellent "troll" speed builds when combined with Force of Nature, Shurelya's Reverie, Boots of Mobility, etc.

Early Jungle

With a point in Titan's Wrath start at blue then move to wolves. If you can have teammates help get wolves after you aggro so you can last hit them before having mid leash blue at 1:55. After quickly move to wraiths > lizard buff > golems > and back to wraiths. This will bring you to level 4 giving you Dredge Line to initiate with decent DPS allowing you to gank an available lane. If needed you can gank after lizard buff and get a point in Dredge Line at level 3.

Obviously as with any jungle, look at which lanes are pushed, which will soon ganked, or if any allies are being hard countered. Nautilus is very vulnerable to early invasions due to his low base movement and attack speed, make sure your team protects your jungle well early on. If an early buff is stolen it is difficult to jungle without a blue or red buff in time, as his initial jungle can already be slow.

Runes

Most nautilus rune pages are mostly based on defense for good reason, he needs to tank to get his passive off more times, and the more tanky he gets the better his crowd control effects become.

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These runes are aimed at providing a slight bonus to attack speed and armor penetration to compliment his passive stun, while providing armor and magic resist to mitigate damage. Sometimes I may swap magic resist runes for cooldown reduction, this way you can get more cc with E, frequent dots and shields with W, and gank with his ultimate a bit more if you buy a Kindlegem/Reverie. Also try swapping gold per sec quintessences for movement speed.

Masteries

The 0/9/21 masteries listed provide slight defense for ganks and jungle sustain; along with utility, most notably cooldown reduction on abilities/summoner spells, bonus XP, bonus gold, and improved buff duration.

Defense for ganks and jungle sustain is almost a necessity. Lower ability cooldowns helps a lot in combination with Kindlegem/Reverie for more cc on E, frequent dots and shields with W, and frequent gank with his ultimate about every minute.

For more defense and a bit of speed instead of utility try:

Skill Sequence

Skill sequence isn't *** important to the build after early levels. Depending on which types of champions you will be ganking, Riptide may help more than Titan's Wrath, or vice versa, if the champion is vulnerable to damage-over-time effects or crowd control.

I like to generally start with Titan's Wrath and get three points in it before level 6, with one point in Riptide at level 2 and one in Dredge Line at 4 for ganks. Depth Charge Ultimate at level's 6-11-16 as always. Levels 7-10 I usually try to max Riptide first since it's useful against a variety of champions or Titan's Wrath depending on the enemy team. Then finish maxing either after the final point in Depth Charge followed last with maxing out Dredge Line.

Depending on the types of enemies you many only want to put 2 early points into Titan's Wrath before level 6 and max Riptide first.

Summoner Spells

Summoner spells Flash and Smite again practically a need. Ghost helps a lot to chase in range of ultimate sometimes but I think Flash is better for surprise ganks and general utility in escapes / initiation on Nautilus. If you are reading this guide for some reason and you like lane Nautilus, Flash/ Ghost does make a good combo for constant initiations and CC.