Nautilus Build Guide by Mavrick
| Health | 4326 |
| Health Regen | 89.35 |
| Mana | 1800 |
| Mana Regen | 39.05 |
| Armor | 325.19 |
| Magic Resist | 192.8 |
| Dodge | 0 |
| Tenacity | 0 |
| Movement Speed | 395 |
| Gold Bonus | 10 |
| Attack Damage | 111.4 |
| Attack Speed | 0.715 |
| Crit Chance | 0%S |
| Crit Damage | 0% |
| Ability Power | 0 |
| Life Steal | 0% |
| Spell Vamp | 0 |
| Armor Penetration | 0 |
| Magic Penetration | 7.83 |
| Cooldown Reduction | 40% |
Recommended Runes
Ability Sequence





Mastery Tree Is Outdated
WARNING: These masteries are still using the old tree and have not been updated to the new tree by the guide author. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.
Masteries
Welcome!
Introduction
Hello everyone, and welcome to my first ever guide of
In this guide I will cover (IMO) the two best ways to play
- Pure Tank build
- Jungling
Nautilus excels throughout the match, having strong harass and escape abilities with
| SPAaaaaaaaaaaaaCE |
Health: 432 (+86) Health regen.: 7.45 (+0.55) Mana: 200 (+50) Mana regen.: 7.45 (+0.7) Range: 175 |
SPAaaaCE |
Attack damage: 52 (+3.3) Attack speed: 0.613 (+0.98%) Armor: 12 (+3.25) Magic res.: 30 (+1.25) Mov. speed: 300 |
A big thanks and credit to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here. His guide and advice really helped me get started, as well as made this *hopefully* look AMAZING! :D
Why Am I making this guide?
I consider myself a pretty decent
The good, the bad, and the downright ugly...
| space |
Pros
+ Great CC abilities + Awesome initiation spells with + AoE slow with + Very tanky with + Great ganking potential with + Good escape/evasion moves + Easy last hitting minions |
space |
space |
Cons
- Slow early game - Not much damage output compared to your team, so you need to be aware of when to pull out of a fight - CD Dependent - Can be mana starved if you spam spells, especially early game - Skill shot oriented - Poor duelist (Needs team to fight well) |
Masteries
My masteries are a bit different than what you might find on a normal tank, simply because
As a tank, Nautilus's niche comes in the form of health, health regen, and damage mitigation.
- Tier 1 - I go for 3/3
Resistance
and 3/3
Hardiness
for early damage mitigation. - Tier 2 - 3/3 in
Vigor
and 4/4
Durability
is next, giving me more health and health regen, letting me stay in lane longer to farm and harass. - Tier 3 -
Veteran's Scars
for the extra 30 health, which really helps you early game, as well as gives you more damage absorption with
Titan's Wrath. I also get 2/2 in
Indomitable
mainly because I have extra points, although there has been plenty of times where I have survived by 10, 15, 20 health because of this. - Tier 4 - Since your naturally slow, I go with
Initiator
, mainly to start a team fight or gank, as the buff goes away once you drop below 70% health. I use to get
Enlightenment
for the CDR, but now, because I get
Shurelya's Reverie, I don't get this because then I would be over the CDR capped of 40%, a waste. I also take one point in
Siege Commander
for those pesky towers. - Tier 5 - Nothing needed. I'll explain in a moment.
- Tier 6 - What you have been building up for. Finish with one point in
Juggernaut
.
Answer: While 1.5% of ALL damage is nice and sounds good, practically it doesn't put out. Let me give you an example:
- 1.5% multiplied by an average early game starting damage of 70. That's 1.05 damage that we aren't taking. AWESOME! So instead of 70, we are actually taking 68.95!
- Now look at late game. 1.5% multiplied by 350 (an average number that I rounded/guesstimated. Not many people get past 350 unless you stack damage). That's a WHOPPING 5.25 damage mitigated! WOW!
I then go into the Offense Tree, making my harassing and damage much more ... intimidating.
- Tier 1 - Start off with
Brute Force
and
Butcher
. This helps with last hitting minions, and gives you a bit more damage towards harassing and fighting. - Teir 2 - 4/4 points in
Sorcery
will get you as close to the CDR cap as possible with your item build, without going over. - Tier 3 - I put my last point into
Arcane Knowledge
, which greatly helps my damage output through my spells, such as my DoT on
Titan's Wrath.
Jungling in itself is an artform. You can't just go out there and do it without having any idea how to proceed. Ask any jungler, or any player for that matter, and they will probably tell you it's one of the most difficult things to do in the game. Constant map awareness, a planned path, knowing how and when to gank, tried and true masteries, the right runes, and important item choices are all needed in order to successfully make a jungler. This mastery build focus's on the natural tankieness that
- Tier 1 - 2/3 in
Resistance
and 3/3 in
Hardiness
, as well as 2/2 in
Tough Skin
, provide nice early damage mitigation from players and jungle mobs. Get a point in
Summoner's Resolve
as well for the 10 gold per
Smite, as it really adds up. - Tier 2 - 3/3 in
Durability
gives us some extra health early game, and stacks very well mid to late game, helping us survive those nasty karthus ults with only 20 heath left. NOTE: While I use to spec into
Vigor
for the health regeneration, PsiGuard (Who was kind enough to review my guide) pointed out a few flaws in my idea, and so I experimented with it and found him to be correct! (Not surprisingly :p) Basically he pointed out that it would take longer for
Vigor
to regenerate the health of one point in
Veteran's Scars
than it would to clear your jungle. So, in retrospect,
Vigor
is not the greatest for jungling, especially if it is between that and
Durability
.
- Tier 3 - 2/2
Indomitable
and one point in
Bladed Armor
is necessary for early game jungling. Lower damage and return damage from minions both increase your jungle times. Also one point in
Veteran's Scars
helps a lot in the beginning phase of the jungling, when the minions seem to hit much harder. - Tier 4 - Same as tank build, with one in
Siege Commander
and 3/3 in
Initiator
. - Tier 5 - Do I really need to explain this again?
- Tier 6 - One point in
Juggernaut
.
Usually as a jungler you would go for the utility tree, so you could get the all powerful
- Tier 1 - Start off with
Brute Force
and
Butcher
. It helps take down those jungle mobs faster, so they will stop hurting you. Ouch! - Tier 2 - Going 4/4 in
Sorcery
lets us spam our spells faster to get rid of those mobs, so we can go gank, which is what you really need to be doing as
Nautilus. - Tier 3 -
Arcane Knowledge
is what we are going for, helping us all game with our damage from our spells. Not as good good as
Runic Affinity
, but then again you're a tank and so you don't get blue or red buffs, sad I know. :(
Runes
I go for runes that with help me with my survival as well as my sustain lanning, and also getting some marks to help me with my damage.
| Runes | |||||||||||||||
Greater Seal of Armor 9 |
Greater Quintessence of Health 3 |
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist 9 |
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9 |
||||||||||||
Greater Seal of Armor : 1.41 extra armor adds up with 9 of these, totaling an extra 12.69 base armor. This greatly helps early game when your harassing your opponent and your trying to prevent as much damage as possible. It also stays well up to late game, that 12 armor making a difference.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration : I get these for the added damage gained from the magic pen. from your spells, such as your DoT on
Titan's Wrath. With your
Arcane Knowledge
, you will be shredding through their MR.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist : MR that becomes greater with you as you level up into late game? Yes please!
Greater Quintessence of Health : I go for bonus health instead of other possibilities because early game 50 health could mean the difference between life and death. This along with my
Regrowth Pendant or
Doran's Shield (depending on if you're laning against one or two people) gives you crazy amount of health and health regen, enabling you to stay in lane longer and deny them money and experience.
greater mark of desolation greater mark of desolation : This is a close 2nd to
greater quintessence of vigor greater quintessence of vigor : Extra health regen. never hurts, letting you soak up more damage and get back health more quickly. This, stacked with
For
| Runes | |||||||||||||||
Greater Seal of Armor 9 |
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist 9 |
Greater Mark of Attack Speed 3 |
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 6 |
Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed 3 |
|||||||||||
Greater Mark of Attack Speed : I will explain below why I only get three.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration : The remaining six marks I get here for damage and jungle clearing.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist : For damage mitigation from those pesky AP champs who you just want to smash you're giant anchor in their faces.
Greater Seal of Armor : another necessity for jungling, as reduced damage from mobs gives you more health to gank with, as well as using fewer health pots.
Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed : You're job as a jungler is to gank, and gank as much as possible. But if you can't catch up to them, how can you kill them? This, combined with a faster jungling time, is why I choose them over other possible choices, like
Greater Quintessence of Health or greater quintessence of vigor. NOTE : This s my recommendation for EXPERIENCED PLAYERS IN JUNGLING. If you are just starting out jungling, I would try greater quintessence of vigor or
Greater Quintessence of Health instead, for more sustain in the jungle, at least until you get use to how
Nautilus does jungling.
Good question, and while I would like to explain it, I found on another guide an excellent answer to that very question, full of facts and figures and other cool stuff.
"As you know,
Nautilus Base Attack Speed: 0.721
Nautilus Attack Speed w/
Nautilus Attack Speed w/ 9x
Wit's End & 3x
Wit's End & 9x
Wit's End & 9x
As you can see from the above, running 3 red alacrity runes give you the "most" DOT damage from
This was acquired from another
greater mark of desolation greater mark of desolation : If you prefer hitting more with your auto attack, these are the runes to get; however, I do not recommend them to a jungler, as
greater quintessence of vigor greater quintessence of vigor : These are another good option, as the added health regen is nice starting off in the jungle. Better jungle sustain and less time recalling is why this is a viable option. However, I would go for
For laning here is a video that I have found on other guide that really helps with knowing where to be and what that means:
Summoner Spells

The above picture gives a great starting point for new players to go off of, and at the same time gives a reference to experienced players to see what goes well with what.
Skill Sequence
This is one of the best passives in the game, having both scaling damage AND a stun with EACH HIT! You can use this for initiating a fight, stopping CC abilities, protect your squishy's, or stopping escaping enemies from running away. In combination with your
This is your shinning spell. Ok, all of your spells are your shinning spells, but this one really has its uses. You can initiate fights, grab fleeing champions, and even get around with "wall hopping"! It has decent damage, and is a great setup for your
You should have a point in this early on, but extra levels is not needed till after you max out your
- Try not to initiate fights with this, as
Depth Charge is a better initiator, and you want to save this for fleeing champions, or for those targeting your carries. - This can save your life when being ganked, as it provides a great way to escape by latching yourself onto a wall and being pulled into it. You can even pull yourself into bushes and juke your opponents. However, remember that there is a sight delay between throwing it and being pulled to the wall where you stand there. This can lead to boredom, insanity, and sometimes death.
- Don't be afraid to use this as a damaging ability! It is great for its cc and escape purposes, but if you're just trying to lay the hurt on someone, spam it! Now, having said that, I wouldn't do that too much, as during team fights you should hold onto it till the other team is running, and drag someone back, preferably one of their carries, in for a kill.
- Something I just recently figured out is that this ability goes over LEDGES, NOT WALLS. Just wanted to clarify that. The picture above shows where I am talking about. So lets say your up on the ledge that's near dragon; you can use this spell to drag yourself OVER the ledge and get to an enemy. IMAGINE the possibilities! This works for all ledges. However, it doesn't work the other way around; you try and pull yourself up a ledge and you'll find yourself between a rock and a hard place (place meaning an enemy champions fist).
While the shield persists, Nautilus' basic attacks apply a damage over time to all units around his target. This effect deals 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+40% of ability power) magic damage over 2 seconds.
Wow. Ok, I so lied, THIS is your shinning spell. This basically gives you the ability to dominate lanes. It gives you a powerful shield that stacks off of your total health, which works perfectly for us as a tank! So while they are chipping away at your shield, you can be killing them outright with your DoT from THIS SAME SKILL. :O!
SIGN ME UP!
The DoT, while not your most powerful move outright, does FAR more damage than any of your other abilities. This is because while your other abilities give slightly more damage, this gives damage WITH your auto attack EVERY HIT TO EVERYONE AROUND YOUR TARGET. So besides you basically getting two auto attacks for the time of one, you're hitting everyone around you're enemy. Pretty cool huh?
All of the above are the reasons why I max out this first before
- As this is your main damage output, max it first unless hard cc is required, and you need to drop the cool down on those abilities.
- This ability resets your auto attack, so try and go into a fight, hit someone with your
Staggering Blow, then immediately hit
Titan's Wrath, and watch you double hit your opponent. This works great in the jungle for double hitting those mobs. - Remember, your DoT hits EVERYONE around your target, so don't be afraid to focus one target down, and let your DoT work on the other enemy.
- Also, your DoT is not a very long range (i'd guess a little more than your melee distance standing where your opponent is). However, you CAN pull some neat trick's with this range. Lets say you just were in a fight with two people, and they are both running close to each other back to their tower. The one farther away has only a sliver of health, and you can't reach him with your
Dredge Line because the other guy is in your way. NO PROBLEM! Just pop this bad boy, hit the target closer to you, and watch your DoT jump to him and get that kill. He will rage quit every time. - This stacks great with
Warmog's Armor, but I would only recommend that if your a big fan of
Warmog's Armor, you want more health, or you feel comfortable that your damage mitigation is good enough. The reason is is because by the end of my item build, you have over 3k health and tons of resist, plenty for your shield. NOTE: I do get
Warmog's Armor now, as you have enough resistances by level 18 and if you build
Nautilus right. So now you can focus on health! - For solo top, or even tank bot with carry, this is your harass spell. Use this when you go in to a fight, and hit them as much as possible to apply your DoT and send them cowering in fear.
This is by far one of the most powerful AoE CC's in the game, slowing escaping enemies by a whopping 50% WHILE damaging them for a significant amount. It has a wide range, forming a circle around
While a great damaging ability, it is a mana drainer if spammed, so we go for it only for the CC early on. Get a point in this by level 4, and max it out after you max out by level 13 after your
- Since this is a big mana drain if spammed, don't use this to harass, but only use it to do damage and/or slow an opponent during a fight. You'll find your self OOM (out of mana) if you misuse this spell.
- In conjunction with your
Dredge Line, it is a great way to start a team fight. Slowing and damaging your enemy champions will leave them like they are at a disadvantage before the fight ever begins, which is an advantage for you. Anytime you can psych the enemy out and make them make a mistake, do it. - This is also useful for an escape tool, slowing the enemy team down long enough for your carries, if not yourself, to get away. PROTECT THOSE CARRIES!!!
The shock wave explodes upon hitting its target, dealing 250 / 350 / 450 (+80% of ability power) magic damage, launching them into the air and stunning them for 1 / 1.5 / 2 seconds.
Besides
Of course get a point in this whenever you can, like any other champion and its ultimate.
- Always, always, ALWAYS initiate with this in a team fight, not with
Dredge Line. This is for both saving your
Dredge Line for later use on escaping players, and getting the max amount of knock ups with the cast. This ensures your team can have a jump start on the enemy team, and more than likely leading to a team fight victory. However, if you find yourself in a team fight that you didn't start, then you want to make sure that you focus this ult on the person who is most threatening on your team. If you're team is doing their job right, you and your allies should be focusing the main damage carriers (carries) down first; use it on them. - This will follow stealthed players as well, if you're lucky enough to catch them as they are stealthily. It won't reveal them out of stealth mode, however, so you would have to listen for where it hits and cast some AoE's in that area.
- Try and cast it on a champion in the back of the enemy team, hopefully a carry. This shuts down their carry for 1~2 seconds, and also hits everyone that is in between them and you.
- This spell originates where you are facing from your anchor. So if you are running away and the enemy champ is behind you and you cast this ult, it will start in front of you and work its way back to the target.
Items
Ah, the dreaded item build. Your items are what define you, what separate you and the lesser Nautilus' in the world. Here, I will explain why I choose what, what are some good situation items, and the general know-how of how to build a great
: This is generally what I start with when going solo top. The
: I sometimes get this if I am facing a 1v2 lane, and so I know I am going to need the extra health to survive their harassment. Otherwise, go with the
X3 : If you are facing a skill shot champion, or just like the extra boost of speed, get these. Pretty general, builds into your boots early on, and helps you get catch up to or get away from champions.
X3 : What I start with now. If you jungle correctly and get the right runes and masteries, you do not need the cloth armor usual set up. Plus boots let you increase your jungle speed and greatly helps with ganks.
X5 : The basic starter package for all junglers, the extra armor building into your If you have experimented with
Now that you have got some gold, either by destroying your opponents or last hitting jungle or minions, you should have enough to head back and buy your first couple of items.
: Finish out your philo stone, as the extra gps comes in handy to buy your more expensive items. Also builds into your
: Basic boots to help you with your slow base movement speed. Who would of ever thought that a giant deep sea diver would walk so slow?
: If you're doing well, get this before your
: Finish out your boots, whatever is needed to counter the team, before you build any big items. It helps with speed and gives you some nice bonuses for really cheap.
: Get this after your heart of gold or boots, or if the enemy ad carry is fed. This has nice CD reduction, as well as some armor and mana, both helping you last longer in fights. This builds into our
: After a little armor, we need some health to go along with it! This greatly increases your tankiness, and once you get this you can start to tank fights much more effectively, protecting those necessary carries.Jungling items are a bit different, but generally leaning the same direction. We aim for a lot of tankyness, while going for a sizable amount of damage.
: I get these right off the bat, as you should be ganking A LOT as a jungler, and one of your draw backs is speed. Helps you catch up to your slower enemies, and watch as you feed your carries.
: I get this before
: I now go for these, because as a junlger you want to be the fastest one out there, able to run through your jungle in seconds and get to lanes quickly. Other boots are nice, like
: Sustain and extra 5 gold per 10 sec are the reason why I make this small investment early on. That, and it builds into our future
: Some early armor not only helps with the jungle but ganks as well, not to mention the mana and CDR. This item is great on a jungle
: Another item that both stacks well with your
: I see a lot of Now is the point where you start defining who you are. Mid game is where most games finish up, as what has happened early game affect how you build and act mid game. Do well here, and you're looking at an early victory.
: This I get after
: While it might seem a support only item, it actually is a great item for
: I usually get this around this time, if not sooner to counter the AP carry. Very nice MR that you need, and builds into our
: After we have gotten most of our resistances, we need more health to stay ahead of the pack. This is the most health item in the game, and we make full use of it. With this, you become a fully fledged tank, able to sty in the fight and CC their team to hell.At this poing you are dealing a ton of damage, and hopefully helping your teammates out by feeding them. REMEMBER: That is your job as a jungler, feeding your carries. Now, if your experienced in jungling, you already know that and much more than I in jungling, but I just wanted to make sure that the people who are just starting out in jungling know that. Now we want to start focusing on our more tanky items, essentially becoming a half tank/half damage dealer mid to late game.
: Same reasons as the solo top build, this item is a great item for all
: Since we are a jungler, we are leaning more towards the damage side of things. We are already pretty tanky, and this DOES give us a nice bonus to our health. The reason I get this now, though, is that I am assuming that you have a tank or another offtank on the team that can soak up some damage as well. So why not dish out some yourself? This item gives us health, passive slow, and AP, which our abilities scale very well off of. However, if you are the only "tanky" person on the team, trade it out for a more tanky item, like
: Again, SEEMS more of a support item, but definitely works on
: I usually build this last because I usually have no problems with my resistances and I try and keep on my If you have made it this far, then more than likely most of the champions are either close to done or finished their build. One team fight could change the outcome of the game. It is no longer about who is more fed, so much as what items everyone has chosen, and the skill level of each player. I can fortunately help you with at least one of those areas.
: Finally we build our
: I choose this option over others because I feel like You don't like my items?! Well FINE then!
The same items won't be used in every match, all the time. That is not how League of Legends is played. You build to your strengths, but you also take into account the enemy team's composition. Plus, you might disagree with the item choices that i have, which is understandable, as no one can be as smart as me (:D), so here is a list of some items that you might want to look at for those I'm-going-to-spite-Mavrick moments.
: This items gives AP, heath, and mana, all good stats on
: An amazing counter to a heavy AD/MR team, shredding their MR while giving you a nice size of the same. The AP doesn't hurt as well ;).
: Want some more damage? This is the
: I don't usually worry about this as the support usually gets this, but this is a viable option on Jungling
Nautilus is a very slow jungle champion, but has amazing ganks. His early jungle game is weak, but as the game goes on, he becomes much stronger, able to take out the mobs within seconds. These videos explains that and a lot more, and I recommend watching them before attempting to jungle with
Nautilus. If you have to only watch one video, watch the first one, as it describes jungle
Nautilus in depth, where as the second video is only the jungle route.
This is a great
Another video by stonewall008. This gives you a rough jungle route to follow with
- Wolves
- Blue Golem
- Possible gank top
- Wraiths
- Possible gank mid
Here you can switch it up differently than the video, which applies to a more realistic situation:
- Red Lizard
- golems
- Possible gank bot
- Wraiths
- Repeat
That is what I use most of the time, a bit different for each game of course. The point is that you must be ganking A LOT as

The above picture is also the normal route for jungler's, in case you were wondering. XD
When counter jungling, FORCE TEAM FIGHTS. The first video does a great job of explaining that, and if you skipped the first video, go back and watch it! It is definitely worth the investment in time.
Summary
As you can see, I try and put a lot of thought in how I say to play
Nautilus because he is a great champion to play, but master him and you can be a bruiser, tank, and support all in one. Plenty of the pro's play him simply because of this! I hope you enjoyed the guide, and if you have a questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments post below! Thanks for your time, and good luck out their summoners!
Changes
6/13/12 - Changed
Frozen Mallet to
Sunfire Cape for reasons listed.
6/13/12 - Adding a jungle route and guide on how to Jungle with
Nautilus; coming soon
6/13/12 - Fixed some minor errors in what I said and how I said it; Added pictures!
6/19/12 - Added my own video to the guide of an epic escape from a 2v3 gank!
6/22/12 - Finished Creeping/Jungling guide, with videos!
6/22/12 - Added more situational items
6/22/12 - Changed jungle runes to get a better jungle time, as well as added more situational runes for jungling and reasons behind them.
6/22/12 - Changed the title of guide to show what builds are in this guide
7/8/12 - Started work on reviewing and editing the guide
7/25/12 - Back from trip, continued working on guide. Almost complete!
7/26/12 - DONE! The guide is updated, and much better for the current meta IMO. Check it out!
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