Nautilus Build Guide by Xaioli
This build has been archived and is for historical display only.
PLEASE NOTE: This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.
| Health | 2368 |
| Health Regen | 34.35 |
| Mana | 1100 |
| Mana Regen | 29.05 |
| Armor | 120.19 |
| Magic Resist | 111.8 |
| Dodge | 0 |
| Tenacity | 0 |
| Movement Speed | 391.875 |
| Gold Bonus | 10 |
| Attack Damage | 111.4 |
| Attack Speed | 16.015 |
| Crit Chance | 0%S |
| Crit Damage | 0% |
| Ability Power | 0 |
| Life Steal | 0% |
| Spell Vamp | 0 |
| Armor Penetration | 0 |
| Magic Penetration | 0 |
| Cooldown Reduction | 0% |
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Mastery Tree Is Outdated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
Nautilus, The Titan of the Depths - 1900 ELO Jungle Guide!
Hello reader, thanks for viewing and reading my fourth guide for Nautlius! Honestly, I used to hate jungling but Nautilus is very refreshing and brings a new take towards jungling. As the above says, I am a 1900 elo Nautilus jungler and he's extremely strong with ganks and fairly tanky mid to late game. I've played a lot of Nautilus in normals to practice and I have a fairly decent Nautilus record in ranked! I hope you're willing to read what I suggest to do as Nautilus so let's go!
Note: There are a few sections that I could add like "When to Baron/Dragon?" ,"Counterjunglers or Counters" or "How to Gank". Those sections can possibly be helpful but as a veteran Nautilus and overall LoL player, I want YOU to encounter them first hand. There is only so much a guide can tell you to do but encountering it yourself instead of following and listening to a guide that can often be flopped because of a situational occurrence can make you a better LoL player overall knowing how to react while dealing with mechanics and etc. If there is enough demand or frequent questions about it, I'll just reluctantly add in them! :p If you need any assistance, please add "Xaioli" on the NA servers!
Basics You Need to Know!
- Jungle Timers! If you don't know, I've prepared a section below, don't worry!
- Calm mind to know when to initiate and not to initiate.
- Knowing how to gank lanes.
- Ability to predict/get a rough guess where your enemy will move.
- Willingness to learn, even if you fail the first couple of times.
- To have fun!
Pro's / Con's
Pro's
Amazing CC (snare, slow, knockup, pseudo blitz hook)
Deals consistent damage even if you aren't building damage items
Very tanky at almost all points in the game
Has a large model so Nautilus is a great "frontline" champion
Con's
Easy to be counterjungled at levels 1-3
Even with proper masteries and runes in Move Speed, can be very slow
Early game jungle clearing is dependent on blue buff if you want to do it fast
Runes
As a Nautilus player, you have three main jungle rune set ups. They are known as jungling with attack speed, jungling with AD/ARP and the very critical runepage that revolves around maximizing Titan's Shield DoT potential. I call my Attack Speed jungle "Titan's Wrath" jungling because that's exactly what the runes benefit directly and my "AD/ArP" jungling is called "Smash the Jungle" and the Titan's Wrath DoT page "DoT Hits" so it's a bit easier to differentiate the small differences in runes that add up and can chance a defeat to a victory. Below, I explain the pages so read below!
Titan Wrath jungling is my respected and preferred rune page for all of my Nautilus games. This rune page clears the jungle at a respectable speed and ganks very well. The main feature of this rune set is for team fights where your auto attacks are very swift and you can easily switch between targets, snaring masses of enemies to protect your carries.
"Smash the Jungle" is a interesting rune set up because it provides heavy damage output and it clears the jungle a bit faster than the above rune set up. When ganking, the damage is quite notable. The only downside is that it's somewhat weaker than the above set up in team fights because of it's low attack speed. The damage this rune set up provides mid-late game is somewhat neglectable since you don't build a lot of damage so that's why I prefer the one above more than this set up but it still works well!
Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Mark of Desolation x6 : You want SIX of these for just enough Armor Penetration to ignore all of the jungle creeps' armor, dealing true straight damage to them. Although you lack the attack speed compared to the first build, your damage will be very noticable in the jungle and ganks.
Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Mark of Desolation x6 : You want SIX of these for just enough Armor Penetration to ignore all of the jungle creeps' armor, dealing true straight damage to them. Although you lack the attack speed compared to the first build, your damage will be very noticable in the jungle and ganks.
As you know,
Nautilus Base Attack Speed: 0.721
Nautilus Attack Speed w/
Nautilus Attack Speed w/ 9x
As you can see from the above, running 3 red alacrity runes give you the "most" DOT damage from Titan's Wrath when you have a Wit's End at Level 18 and in LoL, every tick of damage matters. The only questionable thing about this route is that your jungle clear might be compromised a bit because of the lack of attack speed. One of the big reason why I revolve Wit's End around this rune page set up is because of how strong Wit's End is for Nautilus with it's attack speed, minor on hit damage and magic resistance.
Abilities
Summoner Spells
Situational and Subpar Summoners
Know Your Jungle Camps!
Orange Circle: Small/Lesser Camps are indentified as the "Wraith Camp", "Wolf Camp" and "Double Golem Camp". The second you fully kill all the creatures in a camp, the next respawn of the camp will occur in 1 minute or 60 seconds. Example: If you clear a wolf camp at 6:30, the next camp will respawn at 7:30.
Red Circle: Intermediate Camps are identified as "blue (Ancient Golem Camp)" or "red (Ancient Lizard camp)" buff. When these monsters are killed, the grant a buff that lasts for a few minutes that can be extended by taking
Runic Affinity
in the Utility Tree. When you kill the red buff, you get
Blessing of the Lizard Elder
which applies a DOT (Damage over Time) and slow everytime you auto attack an enemy or hit a spell that applies debuffs. When you kill the blue buff, you get
Crest of the Ancient Golem
which grants increased mana regeneration and cooldown reduction. Early game, you want these buffs on you for maximum potential with ganking and jungling but as the game goes on, you want to pass blue buff to the AP carry that heavily relies on mana and cooldown reduction and the red buff to the AD carry or AD Bruiser who relies on auto attacks. When every creature is killed at the camp, the next spawn will come in the next 5 minutes. Example: If you cleared a blue buff camp at 2:10, the next camp will respawn at 7:10.
Yellow Circle: Difficult/Dangerous Camps are known as "Dragon" and "Baron Nashor". When these are killed, they grant global gold and Baron Nashor grants the buff
Exalted with Baron Nashor
to all alive members on the team that got the killing blow to Baron Nashor whether it was by Smite, auto attack or spells. These camps are highly treasured by both teams and giving these away for "free" is often rare. Be careful when attempting to do these camps because you will need a team with you and these are often warded so bring oracle's or pink wards! Dragon has a respawn timer of 6 minutes when killed and Baron has a respawn timer of 7 minutes or "3 minutes after the buff wears out". Example: If you killed Dragon at 11:30, the next dragon will respawn at 17:30. If you killed Baron at 25:00, the next Baron will spawn at 32:00.
Note: Dragon spawns at 2:30 and Baron spawns at 15:00.

Jungling Route
First, I want to say that Jungle Routes aren't to be followed to every point. Each game is unique and has it's situational feel to it. Please jungle and do what YOU think is right because ultimately, it is your playstyle. The following is just my suggestion on how to play Nautilus and how to act in most situations. Nautilus has two main jungle routes. You have his "Optimal and Standard Jungle Route" and his "Counter Jungled route". Below, I will show you a semi-detailed map with an explanation of how and why. Note: I'm not very good at MSPaint/Photoshop so I apologize for the poor quality maps. In case some are wondering, the blue lines show the pathing/movement you take while clearing your jungle.
Optimal and Standard Jungle Route
This route is Nautilus' most optimal jungle route. Starting at wolves, you venture to blue buff. After successfully beating blue buff, clear wraiths and red buff and head to gank. Standard route but very strong and fearsome.
1) Kill wolves that spawn at 1:40. Even without assistance from your team, you can easily clear these wolves and still clear blue at a fast time because Nautilus'
2) Kill blue buff that spawns at 1:55. If you don't get assistance from your team, blue will take some time but with a proper leash and damage splash from other lanes, you can kill blue relatively fast on your own. Usually, blue buff dies at 2:10~ so remember that in 5 minutes (7:10~), blue will be back up for your team! Note: Most junglers like you run this route. 7:10 is the "magic number" because that is almost always the guaranteed time when the enemy jungler's buff that they started will come back up.
3) Wraiths are easy to clear and yield fair amount of EXP. Wraiths, double golems and wolves are all on a 1 minute cooldown on Summoner's Rift and begin the timer when all creatures of the camp are cleared.
4) Rip open red buff and take it. At this point, you don't need a leash from anyone and can easily solo it. Smite should be coming back up and you want this powerful buff that provides a DOT (Damage over Time) and slow that is essential for ganks.
5) Gank other lanes! In the map below, you can see every lane labeled with "5" has a green ring except for bot lane. The explanation for that is because in the meta game, junglers ganking top and mid lane is a very important thing. Although bot lane is very tempting to gank, massive amounts of wards placed by supports make it difficult to assault so I suggest that you stay away from bot and keep your attention on top and mid lane unless a gank bot is absolutely necessary.
6) Golems yield a fair amount of EXP and gold but I usually leave these for my bot lane or top laner to take so they can get a small advantage. I honestly hardly ever take golems because of the above reason but if you have time to do golems and find the need to do it, go for it!

Being Counterjungled Route
Nautilus can easily be counterjungled at level one. Although I hardly ever get counter jungled at my ELO in Solo Queue, you must be prepared for it!
1) Start at wraiths and kill them when they spawn at 1:40. Like the above path, you can speed through these and kill red at a fine pace.
2) At 1:55, kill red buff! If you're being counter jungled, you should ask your team for as much assistance as possible and try to kill red without using Smite because when you march to steal their blue, you are going to want to steal blue buff using Smite and run out as fast as possible. Remember the "magic number", 7:10~ will be when red is going to be back up!
3) After killing red, march across the river and kill the enemies' blue buff with Smite. Remember, these buffs have a 5 minute cool down so time when you kill it so you can control that buff!
~~ After this, gank lanes and just trust your instincts as a jungler. Don't get greedy and be smart. ~~
Note: The blue line through the middle of the map shows the "respective halves" for each jungler when counter jungling occurs. Hardly ever will you meet each other in the jungle when this happens.
Note #2: If YOU are counter jungling, you want to steal their blue and not red. The route for this would be exactly like below except you swap the numbers (1 -> 2 -> 3) to (3 -> 2 -> 1)
Items
Notable Item Builds
Situational Item Start
* Cloth Armor is a very nice item that smoothly builds into Aegis of the Legion. Cloth Armor allows you to be very tanky in the jungle while also being able to eat autos when you gank. Potions are self-explanatory and provide nice sustain in the jungle and recovering HP after ganks.
*This start is very similar to the one above except there is less potions to rejuvenate HP off of. The main reason why I suggest this build at times is that the Sight Ward allows you to see enemies invading your jungle, especially with the sudden resurgence of strong early game invaders like
*This start is a very standard item build for all junglers giving decent sustain while being very mobile. As much as I love this start, Cloth Armor is just too safe of a pick. Boots start is definitely fine though
Winning the Game Hard?
When I say "winning the game hard", I mean that if you yourself have a few kills under your belt and your CS is absolutely crushing the enemy jungler. In this case, just skip an Aegis and go straight for a
Mini Dredge Line Tricks
Nautilus'
Dredge Line isn't supposed to be able to scale walls but there are some "bugged areas" where he can that has not been patched yet. Below are some screenshots that can save you because they've helped me!



Screenshots

1942 ELO game as Nautilus versus Saintvicious from Curse and CruzertheBruzer from Team Legion!

1940~ ELO game as Nautilus with imaqtpie from Dignitas!

1952~ ELO game as Nautilus with chu8's "smurf" apparently!

Ranked Stats for Nautilus as of 5/14/2012. Win Ratio isn't anything special but the KDA shows that even if I lost, most of the time, the games were close.
Note: Even though I only have 36 Naut in Ranked, I have A TON in Normals. :<
Replays from LoLReplay, Download and Watch! **LoL Recorder Broke** :(
Big thanks to LoL Replay for making this possible. To view my games, download LoL Replay HERE. Note: These replays are honestly some of my WORSE GAMES AS NAUTILUS in Solo Queue. You might ask why not post replays of me winning hard in the first 20 minutes or etc, I'm not here to stroke my epeen and to show you easy games. I want to show you games where I messed up so hard by failing but not losing my cool and to remain calm. By watching my mistakes in these "high elo" games, you can learn from my mistakes and it's a lot easier to watch and learn through a hard fought game than a stomp :).
Game Replay 1: http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/471870/
-1952 ELO Ranked Game as Nautilus. This game, I didn't really need Wit's End and wanted to prioritize tankiness since my team was pretty squishy. For the most part, I think my plays were pretty solid except for the moment when I abandoned my team to clear wraiths because I thought that waiting until baron is better than trying to outseige a Lux. Anyways, I hope you can learn one or two tricks from this replay!
Game Replay 2:
*** LoL Recorder Broke and I couldn't upload it. I'll try my best to fix this and get this section updated as possible! ***
Who is Xaioli?
Hello! I'm currently 1964 in Solo Queue with 290+ wins over losses in Normal Queue. Now, those stats aren't impressive, but I feel like it shows that I know a decent amount about the game. I also play somewhat competitively and participate in amateur tournaments. Did you know I won a Triumphant Ryze skin from a tournament? :D

Ending Chapter
To conclude, I'd like to thank YOU, the reader for reading or at least skimming through most of my guide. It's somewhat lengthy but I feel like there's enough information for a player to learn the basics of Nautilus. Like I stated earlier, there are sections I could include like "counter picks" and etc but I want the player to learn that themselves and to learn the basics of when to gear up for dragon, baron and etc for themselves. Letting someone learn on their own and describing what to do on paper or a screen in this case is two different things. Again, thanks for reading and feel free to add "Xaioli" on NA Server if you need any help/tips!
Note: If you want me to talk/make a guide for Top/AP Naut/Support Naut, please let me know in the comments or through messages and I will think about it!
Updates
5/14/2012 - [Nautilus] - Jungling Into the Depths
5/17/2012 - Minor additions and clarification on items like Philo and HoG.
5/27/2012 - Added a section to runes where you can maximize Titan's Wrath DoT @ L18 w/ Wit's End whiling sacrificing a bit in the Early Game.
5/29/2012 - Added a screenshot of 1952 game as Nautilus. First Replay added and it's a Solo Queue Game!
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