Welcome to my guide Nautilus: Tankers Gonna Tank. DO NOT FOLLOW A GUIDE WITHOUT THOUGHT EVER!!! That being said, I think that it is important to mention that making guides that already exist is sort of pointless, so I will not make guides for all the other tanks or add a part about Smite or other summoner spells, but I want to make sure that the top guide for Nautilus is not an AP or AP Tank guide. A Tank should be a Tank. Yes, damage is nice… if you are a carry. Tanks don’t do damage, they wreck the other teams damage. If you can prevent the other team from attacking your team, then your team can kill everyone. All you need to do is survive long enough for your team to kill the enemy AD and AP assuming that they are not completely terrible i.e. 0-4 Sivir without any good damage. If you want to be the one getting the kills then why are you playing a tank? This leads to my next section TANKING.

When you tank, your goal is to not die. Yes, you dying IS better than your carry dying, but if you die, your team will die. THAT IS A FACT. Without a good tank your team cannot initiate a team fight or will be picked off with no way to escape. Your goal is to run in, hit them with everything you can so that they cannot do anything but die, including FOCUSING THE ENEMY CARRY, then making sure that you are alive for the next team fight. I often bandage toss with Amumu then ult and tantrum then run towards the jungle while they focus me and my team runs in killing their AD and AP. If Brand is carrying and Caitlyn sucks, FOCUS BRAND NOT CAITLYN. If Caitlyn rocks and Brand rocks, then focus whoever does more damage (usually Caitlyn since AD is more likely squishier than AP), but your goal is for your team to kill them. If they die, clean up the rest of the team easily and win, if they don’t die, then make sure your team gets out alive. If your team is running, RUN. If your team is dying, retreat ping, retreat ping, ult, retreat ping, run if your team will probably escape using e to slow enemies nearby first then use q to quickly get away and continue using q and e until safe. IF YOU DIE YOUR TEAM WILL PROBABLY LOSE!!! I’ve won games where the tank is out of position and we kill him and we win a game that we should lose and I’ve lost games where I die to save my entire team, but they all die. I was Volibear in a game where my team was about to get killed in the middle of the map, I rushed over, flung, slowed and attacked like crazy with my ult up. This caused the other team to switch between focusing me or running and my team was able to come back and clean up because of this. In this case, I was lucky that they came back to kill, because if they didn’t then I would have died and we would have lost right then. Since the other teams core damage was gone, my team was able to take down several towers. I also played a game against a Shen who was fed like crazy. When he died, we pushed really well and the other team could do nothing about it, but when he was alive he was the scariest person, not because of his damage, but because he is a tank.

Tanks are scary with all the CC that they have. If you’ve never gone against a good tank, then you have no idea what this means, but if you have gone against a good tank, you know how much they can destroy a team with their CC. I usually try to keep my deaths below 4 about at 2 and this way, I am not feeding and do not need to worry. Do I still sacrifice myself for the good of the team? Yes. Do I do stupid turret dives that kill me and cause my team to lose? Usually no. KD DOES NOT MATTER, KDA DOES. You should look at your KDA when early game is over and ask yourself if you fed the enemy. If you are below 2 in KDA, you screwed up and you should fix your early game. If you are above 2 but you have more than 4 deaths, there is a problem since you should not be dying so often. You should learn how to be safe early game or you will cause your team to lose. Especially since a jungle that does poorly will end up not being able to fight other lanes and will end up dying more often since they are underleveled.

Pros
Good amount of CC
Godly shield
Q gives good mobility on a fairly short cooldown when hitting terrain

Cons
Slow
Weaker early jungle
Ganks can be difficult without boots and missing a Q and not even hitting terrain is really bad
Simple counter (hide behind minions so he cannot Q you)

Goals
Health – 10% of bonus health is a shield
CDR – with 40% you can almost always have your shield up as long as you don’t lose it, and if you lose it, then you obviously took more than 10% of your life in damage and probably saved yourself.
Tankiness – AD-Randuin’s, AP-Banshee’s Veil and CDR mastery in Defense tree. You want your health and shield to actually last rather than disappear instantly and against a more AD team, Randuin’s is useful while against an AP team, a Banshee’s Veil plus the CDR mastery is better.

Attack speed would probably be the best for jungling, but your marks are your personal preference. Armor seals and Magic Resist Glyphs are standard, but you CAN replace Armor with Health/lvl. Move Speed Quints are a must, especially if you decide not to start with boots.

Passive: Staggering Blow – 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 ability is what helps him to be able to CC any opponent he attacks. Also, because autoattacking all the time will not happen in team fights, the first time on-hit will substantially increase your damage in case you are worried about that. Also on that note, increasing your attack speed WILL NOT increase the rate your passive hits, its still going to be 12 seconds, so building attack speed is not useful.

Q: Dredge Line - Nautilus throws his anchor forward. If he hits an enemy, he'll drag himself to his target and his target to him. If he hits terrain, he'll drag himself to the terrain and the cooldown is reduced.

This is what you can use to get ganks. You need to aim it so it will hit the enemy or that it will hit terrain. Wasting it on minions is not something that you want to do. Missing this will ruin your ability to kill on a gank, but it IS worth it if they blow their flash to dodge it.

W: Titan's Wrath - Nautilus places a shield on himself that absorbs additional damage based on his maximum health. While the shield is active, Nautilus' attacks deal damage over time to units around him.

This is very helpful in surviving, keeping it up at all times will help to stop damage towards yourself. This is the main reason we want the 40% CDR. The extra damage does not stack, it only refreshes which means that if you are worried that your DoT wont last, then you still have 2 seconds to attack again.

ISSUES: Only gave 10% based on 3 flat HP quints and Veteran's Scars Mastery i.e. shield bonus of 10.80. Was not effected by Durability and Juggernaut Mastery.

E: Riptide - Nautilus slams the ground, causing the earth to ripple out in waves. Each wave deals damage and slows the targets hit. This slow decays over time. Multiple waves that hit the same target deal reduced damage.

Make sure that you hit it from in front of a running champ so that they run into this multiple times and slow down. Because of the way that it goes from inside to out it is easy to miss if you arent careful.

R: Depth Charge – Nautilus launches a depth charge towards a target that picks up speed as it travels. This charge knocks up all enemies it encounters while traveling and explodes on impact, stunning the target and launching them into the air.

This will help to secure ganks if done well and can be useful in team fights when your opponents are all together.


Skill Order is a simple R>W>E>Q since multiple in Q are not needed and W benefits too much to not increase it early.

Jungle
-Start with either Boots for easier ganks or Cloth Armor for more survivability/anti-counter jungling.
-Shield for AoE damage against wolves and Blue. If possible go wolves then Blue and get a small leash on both IF THEY KNOW HOW, otherwise just go blue. Attack then immediately use W to reset the attack timer to optimize your damage.
-After you got Blue and wolves, you’ll kill Wraiths, Wolves or Golem, then Red to go for a gank.
-If you think that there is no possible way to gank, then go ahead and keep on jungling and skip red, just make sure the enemy jungle doesn’t try to steal it.
-When you are going for a gank, your goal is NOT to get a kill or an assist, your goal is to put your team at an advantage, whether it is gold, experience, cs, kills, assists, eliminating enemy summoner spells like flash or just making sure that the enemy is afraid to overextend giving your team free reign in the lane.

Your main goal is CDR and Health. This is accomplished by this item guide. Following a guide blindly is stupid as soon as you’ve tried out the character and are used to him/her. It is possible to be AP Tank Nautilus, but in the end, you will hinder your team. You do not need the extra damage, you need the extra tankiness to kill your enemies. If that confused you, then you don’t understand the purpose of tanks and should look at my tanking section.

CORE ITEMS
Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Mercury's Treads, Frozen Heart.

The core four items focus on being a tank and gaining a lot of CDR. The 2 GP10 items will allow you to keep up in gold earned since you mostly get assists.

Normal-Randuins, Shurelyas, Warmogs, Force of Nature, Guardian Angel.
AD-Randuin’s Shurelya’s, Warmog’s, Guardian Angel, Thornmail
AP-Banshee’s Veil, Warmogs, Force of Nature, Guardian Angel, Shurelya’s, Spirit Visage

The fifth item is your optional item. Guardian Angel is a good item because of its stats, a great item because of its passive. It will lengthen the time of your initiation since they will try to focus on killing you. Spirit Visage will give you extra Magic Resist which is good while it gives CDR, so if you want to replace your Shurelya’s, then you can, although the passive on Spirit Visage is not useful on Nautilus like it is on Volibear.

I just do not like my Magic Resist being so low. I want to improve it, but I cannot without adding in a Banshee's Veil, Quicksilver Sash, or Guardian Angel and that would take away from another item. I personally do not like Shurelya's Battlesong in the fact that it does not give the same sort of defensive stats like other items, but that 15% CDR is important. Even if you do switch it out with Spirit Visage, you will not have the full 40% which will mean you need to have Enlightenment mastery. You can also replace Warmog's Armor with Guardian Angel to gain more armor and magic resist, but then you lose A LOT of Health. There is also the choice of switching Randuin's Omen with Guardian Angel which will give you plenty of armor and magic resist, but then you would still need the Enlightenment mastery and you lose the large benefit that Randuin's passive and active have. If you really need extra magic resist then you could make both the replacements and have Spirit Visage and Guardian Angel instead of Randuin's Omen and Shurelya's Battlesong, but then your GP10 items will be sold instead of used, which isnt necessarily a problem and you'll only have 38% CDR which again is not really a problem. All the choices are yours though.

This is all YOUR choice to figure out, I'm just giving you the template and ideas of how to fix possible problems.

You've reached the end of the guide. If it helped you at all, then please comment on it. If you agree with my idea that Nautilus SHOULD BUILD LIKE A TANK, the please up vote this guide. I would like it if this guide could be at the top rather than let an AP or AP Tank guide be at the top. It would truly be a disgrace to tanks if a tank didnt build like a tank. People that are nit picky because they dont like an item or a rune and down vote because of that are clearly trolling, please comment on what you think is wrong before down voting to troll.

If you want to know why not take more damage with AP items then READ THIS. Yes I just sent you up to my rant. That's why. You know what they say, tankers gonna tank :)

Thank you to jhoijhoi for her guide on making a guide.