Nautilus is not for the offense minded. Nautilus is for the defense minded.

Dredge Line, the skill in Nautilus's Q slot, is a utility skill I choose to max last.

I use this mainly to pull chasing enemies off of my falling team mates. I pull them to me, use Riptide, and auto attack them once. The distance between my ally and the enemy grows, the chase breaks, and now they have ME to deal with. I activate Titan's Wrath for more sustain, and run for the nearest tower.

Sort of a "swoop in and save the day" maneuver. Also, if you can manage it, right after you hook them, you may want to hold shift and press 2. You have now just successfully told the enemy "You're in the deep end NOW." Thus further confirming that they're screwed.

Other uses for this skill would be to escape a losing fight that you yourself may be in. Turn and auto attack the enemy who is chasing you to stun them. Use Riptide to slow their approach, and use Dredge Line to hook to terrain and get some distance away from them. Use Flash to create even more distance, and if you have it, send a depth charge back their way to make DAMN sure you escape.

You might also use this to pull a tower hugger off of their tower. it is for this reason that I believe Nautilus plays well with Alistar, Singed, Vayne, Blitzcank, or Volibear in the bottom lane, if you're going to put him anywhere but top lane. Yeah, the current meta warrants ranged characters in the bottom lane, but ranged characters are squishy and now you have position control. If you get them on the wrong side of you and you're blocking their escape, ranged characters are just target practice for a duo-positioning-specialist team comp in the bottom lane. Let the raging begin.

The main use I see for it, which I use the least, is to close distance with an enemy you're planning on initiating and attacking. It doesn't do much damage, the position change isn't all that significant since you move as well and might very well put yourself in range of the tower, and it's better saved for AFTER you've thrown your burst and the enemy is starting to get AWAY from you. Because while you're closing distance on the enemy by initiating with this, you're also pulling yourself away from your team and closer to harm's way.

Titan's Wrath, the skill in Nautilus's W slot, is a shield skill I choose to max first.

I use Titan's Wrath when I'm fleeing a battle, not to initiate it. If you go into a battle with Titan's Wrath activated, you gain a shield to block a large amount of damage, so I understand using this to initiate, but I simply think there are better uses for it. If you're initiating a team fight, you must be planning to take some damage anyway, and hopefully you have an exit strategy to compensate for when things go south.

If you run in with no shield and tank some hits, you stir up enemy interest, and they think they've got you killed. They watch your health plummet, and they want to chase you. They think they have it in the bag. You begin running away towards your team, but they think they can kill you before you make it. Suddenly, you pop your shield, you have a whole lot more life now. You smack them with your auto attack, they're stunned, you hook out to some safe terrain. You send a depth charge back their way and start walking back towards them. You use riptide and they're slowed. Guess what? Your team, if you have good communication with them, should be heading in to clean up. You just successfully baited and worked over a straggler. A straggler YOU led out of the pack.

Nautilus is a master baiter. They can come after you, if they think that's a good idea, but they aren't going home afterwards.

I also use his Titan's Wrath to farm. I swing at one minion, then swing at another. I never use successive hits against a minion because the first hit I land on any target does bonus damage. And also, with Titan's Wrath active, each minion I hit is dealing damage to every single minion around it. So if you hit each of them, every minion in that pack is dealing damage to every other minion in that pack. You're maximizing your damage and efficiency by switching targets this way.

Also, obviously, if I'm about to die for ANY reason, I use my shield. Derp.

Riptide, the skill in Nautilus's E slot, is an AOE slow skill which I choose to max second.

I use this to... uhm... slow?

Something to keep in mind is that this skill is blatantly designed to harm retreating enemies. It will hit three times rather than once if the enemy is running away. I use it to farm as well, to reach minions which it may be threatening for me to target because it would put me in a harmful range of my enemy. It's also a great fear factor harass. You don't even have to HIT the enemy with it, just send it flying their way as you walk towards the back of the minion clash and watch the enemy back off of the wave. I mean, hit them with it if you can... but you don't have to. Scaring them off of the pack is just as effective. I literally spam this skill while farming and harassing.

Philosopher's Stone
Easy. You need extra gold since you won't be getting many kills, and both offer sustain and become more useful items.


For support, both a part speedup and an enemy slow, also a good chunk of life, defense, regen, and some cooldown reduction.


Boost the entirety of your regen by 15%, which allows you to heal at a wolverine-like rate, adds a little chunk of MR, and boosts your health. This is the only item in the build I'd probably never ever swap out. This item is amazing for health tanks.


More life, a built in slow on your auto attacks for when your stun is on cooldown, a spell shield, magic resist. Awwww yeah.


Does anyone ever put any other boots on a tank?

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Basically, you need CDR, health, regen, and mitigation. There aren't a whole lot of better ways to accomplish all of that besides this build. I think I formulated it together pretty darn effectively.

This is where I become a liar.

I actually run flash/ignite. But in terms of viability, Teleport is a much better option. When you're roaming, you need to be able to get back to your lane, or swoop in for a rescue elsewhere more effectively.

I run ignite... because people walking away from me with 20 life is a ******* pet peeve of mine. If I worked you down that badly, show some common decency and just DIE already. I totally know I should be running teleport, and do sometimes. But I carry ignite like a side-arm on almost all of my characters, because every time someone escape from me with enough life that a stiff breeze would kill them, I want to slaughter entire adoption centers worth of baby animals.


I run this because it's one of the most trusty escapes in the game, and has saved my neck incessantly.




I run this (shh) because you need to be where you're needed, as obvious as that sounds. If you pushed the top lane hard, and you roamed off to counter jungle or you roamed off to gank the middle, and suddenly 3 guys show up at the top tower... do you really want to hike back?

Still haven't got it down to a science yet, but I'll update this section when I do, or if someone else cares to submit an entry/pictures/routes/info for this section. I, as I've admitted many times before, am an embarrassing jungler. I'd be bold enough to claim that I am the worst jungler in all of the League of Legends player base.

Get your team out alive.

I mentioned this before, but I'll highlight it here.

"W", Swing, re-target, swing.

Activate Titan's Wrath, swing at a minion, target another, swing at that one, target another, swing at that one, rinse, repeat. You can wipe out an entire wave in seconds by doing this.

By doing this, you activate Staggering Blow on every minion, maximizing your damage output. Titan's Wrath causes the minion your struck to deal damage over time to every minion around it, so you want that activated on as many targets as possible to create a net of constant damage. In seconds, the whole wave collapses. Also, if any enemy stands close, they'll be taking the DOT from Titan's Wrath several times over. It's a bad place to be standing.