Table of Contents •Introduction •Pros / Cons •Summoner Spells •Runes •Abilities •Items •Warding •Jungle Pathing •Ganking •Gameplan •Conclusion

Hello everyone!
I am Silverman43 and I am a Maokai main. My main role is jungle and I play on EUW. This is my 3th guide on Mobafire, for one of my favourite champions, Nautilus. As someone who enjoys tanky champions with a lot of CC, Nautilus is a logical choice. However, he is rarely seen in the jungle, but he can be surprisingly strong when playing around his weaknesses. That's why I want to show you the power of Nautilus jungle.

Some abbreviations I use in this guide:
-AD=Attack Damage
-AP=Ability Power
-AS=Attack Speed
-MR=Magic Resist
-MS=Movement Speed
-HP=Health Points
-AoE=Area of Effect
-AA=Auto Attack
-CC=Crowd Control (Stuns, roots, slows, fears...)
-CDR=Cooldown Reduction

Pros + Very Tanky + Strong early ganks + Healthy Jungle clear + Loads of CC + Strong teamfighting + Surprisingly strong 1v1 potential + Heavy CC + Easy to pick up + Fun to play

Cons - Really slow, so can easily get kited - He really needs his team to deal damage later on - Extremely mana hungry - Relative slow jungle clearing - Predictable

Overall, Nautilus can be a decent jungler (Somewhat similar to Sejuani, but he certainly has some flaws, which we can partly avoid with our runes and items. If you like to play a ganking-oriented tanky jungler with loads of CC, than Nautilus is a great choice.

Flash: The best offensive and the best defensive spell in one. Get out of bad situations or catch a target with Flash + Dredge Line or Depth Charge.

Smite: Always take this when jungling. You need it to be able to buy jungle items and secure buffs or objectives.

Resolve is the logical choice for a tank. It has some amazing runes to help you get even tankier. If you prefer other rune setups, go ahead, especially now rune paths no longer determines stat bonusses, thanks to the preseason changes.

As Keystone, Aftershock is the best choice. It gives you extra armor and MR for 2,5s and deals damage after you immobilize an enemy. Nautilus' kit includes an incredible amount of CC. Even his AA's can activate Aftershock thanks to his passive. With this, dueling and teamfighting gets a bit safer with the extra resistances.

Preseason introduced a new rune in the Resolve tree and it is a great addition for champions like Shen, Malphite and of course Nautilus! While shielded, you gain more resistances AND every first AA against a champion when you have gained a new shield deals bonus damage. This synergizes very well with Titan's Wrath and AA's empowered by Staggering Blow.

Our next rune Conditioning doesn't look very spectacular, as it only gives flat armor and magic resist. But besides the 8 bonus armor and MR, it also increases our total armor and MR by 5%. You will almost always build full tank on Nautilus, so this helps a lot.

Revitalize boosts heals and shields with 5%, increasing with another 10% while below 40% HP, which affects Triumph's healing, Titan's Wrath's shield and so Shield Bash's damage. It's an allround good choice for extra sustain.

With my rune choices, I try to improve Nautilus' jungle clear as much as possible. The Precision tree helps me with this.

Takedowns, so both kills and assists, restore 12% of missing HP and grant some additional gold. This makes ganking early a little safer, while also restoring quite a lot of HP in teamfights. And the extra gold is always welcome.

This rune is the biggest reason I go Precision secondary. Nautilus benefits a lot of the extra AS to clear faster with his Titan's Wrath empowered AA's. It also allows for a faster root with Staggering Blow.

In terms of stat bonusses, The AS from the first row is necessary for jungle Nautilus. For the second row, take the armor vs heavy AD teams and the MR vs heavy AP teams. As my last stat bonus I usually take the bonus HP, but nothing wrong with the extra armor or MR if you prefer that.

Staggering Blow (Passive): Nautilus' basic attacks deal an additional 2 + (6 × level) physical damage and immobilize his target for 0.75/1/1.25/1.5 seconds (levels 1/6/11/16). This effect cannot trigger on the same target more than once every 6 seconds.

This passive is big part of why Nautilus is a CC monster. This makes early ganks pretty good with the root and the bonus damage on your first hit. It scales pretty well with levels, with a root duration of 1.5s at max level. This also makes it a solid tool to peel during teamfights. R.I.P. assassins!

• Make maximum use of it during jungle clearing for a faster clear.

Dredge Line (Q): Nautilus throws his anchor forward. If he hits an enemy, he'll drag himself to his target and his target to him dealing 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+90% of ability power). If he hits terrain, he'll drag himself to the terrain and, refunding half the cooldown and mana cost. Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10s Mana cost: 60

Nautilus' hook, which allows him to catch his targets. The only downside of this ability is that it's predictable. But when you land it, there is little chance of escaping. It's best to max it last, as it only decreases the cooldown a bit and increases the base damage. One point is enough to start ganking.

• Casting Chilling Smite on a target can make it way easier to land Dredge Line.
• Because of his ability to pull himself to terrain and the long range of the ability, Dredge Line can also be used to get out of bad situations.

Titan's Wrath (W): Nautilus surrounds himself with dark energies shielding himself from the next 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 + (9/10/11/12/13% of his maximum health) damage for up to 6 seconds. While the shield persists, Nautilus' basic attacks apply a damage over time effect to all units around his target. The effect deals 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 (+40% of ability power) magic damage over 2 seconds. Cooldown: 12s Mana cost: 80

An AA modifier, while Nautilus is shielded for a part of his max HP. A part of the bonus damage this ability does is on-hit, which is the reason I take the extra AS. The second part of the extra damage is done over time to all enemies around the target, which makes also makes it good vs crimson raptors and krugs. This ability is the reason Nautilus can clear his jungle while staying healthy.

• It is an AA reset, so activate it right after an AA to reset immediately and maximize your DPS.
• Always put a point in Titan's Wrath at level 1 for the best possible jungle clear.

Riptide (E): Nautilus slams the ground, causing the earth to explode around him in a set of three explosions. Each explosion deals 55 / 85 / 115 / 145 / 175 (+30% of ability power) magic damage to units in the area and slows them by 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% for 1.5 seconds. This slow diminishes over time. A unit can be hit by more than one explosion but they take 50% less damage from additional explosions, up to a maximum of 110 / 170 / 230 / 290 / 350 (+60% of ability power) magic damage. Cooldown: 7/6.5/6/5.5/5s Mana cost: 50/60/70/80/90

A spammable AoE ability with a slow which scales with levels. I max it first because of how good it is while clearing the jungle and the reduced cooldown. It also helps a lot with sticking to targets because of the slow, resulting in an easy AA with Staggering Blow.

• It's very strong in teamfights because of the large AoE, but spamming it can be dangerous as it has a high mana cost, so pay attention to your mana.

Depth Charge (R): Nautilus fires a shockwave that chases an enemy champion. This deals 125 / 175 / 225 (+40% of ability power) magic damage to enemies it passes through and 200 / 325 / 450 (+80% of ability power) magic damage to its target, knocking each enemy hit into the air for 1 second before stunning them for 1 / 1.5 / 2 seconds. Cooldown: 120/100/80s Mana cost: 100

This ultimate is single-target point and click, but enemies between you and the target get affected as well. All enemies hit take some damage, get knocked up and are stunned, with the targeted enemy taking the most damage. It's simply devastating in teamfights and easy to gank with. Obviously put a point in it whenever you can.

• In 5v5 teamfights, target someone in their back line for a multi-target knock up and stun!

Note that there isn't a general build. Each game is different, so adapt your build to your opponents. I will show you Nautilus' best items and when to buy them.

Nautilus really needs the mana this item provides and the burn damage on monsters gets activated a lot because of Nautilus' AoE damage in his kit.

3 Health Potion's are another possibility, especially in harder matchups, as it gives you more early sustain than Refillable Potion. I just prefer Refillable Potion as it's useful through the whole game.

The Standard enchantment on every tank who jungles. It's basically the same passive as Bami's Cinder, but it does 300% damage to monsters, making your clears much easier.

An item that grants about every stat Nautilus needs in the early game. The active really helps with engaging, chasing and sticking to targets.

Nautilus is very slow, so rushing boots is always a good idea to get around the map faster, so you won't miss out on opportunities. More about the boots upgrades a little further.

Frozen Heart is one of my favourite items, as the 100 bonus armor, 400 mana and the 20% CDR are good against AD champions. The passive isn't bad either, reducing the attack speed of nearby enemies. That's why it's a great item against AA based champions when they build on-hit, like Jax, Shyvana or Kog'Maw

This item is the offensive counterpart of Frozen Heart. It has the spellblade passive, making it quite useful as Nautilus auto attacks a lot between spell casts. Blue Buff + our spammable Riptide activates it often. A great item when ahead.

This is a more offensive tank item. I provides some flat armor and HP, but it also has a passive which generates stacks while moving. Those stacks grant you movement speed. At 100 stacks, your first auto attack deals bonus physical damage and gives a slow. It synergizes a bit with Staggering Blow. It helps to get around the map faster.

Another item against AD champions, this item reflects damage from auto attacks and inflicts grievous wounds on the attacker. Because of the grievous wounds, it is an item to counter self healers. Their healing will be reduced by Thornmail. Build it vs red Kayn, Maokai, Aatrox and Lifesteal building ADC's.

Randuin's Omen is a good anti-ADC item. It has a passive which slows attack speed, an active with a slow and a passive which reduces the damage you recieve from critical strikes. A must against Yasuo or fed Crit based ADC's! No way someone can escape you when you have this, Turbo Chemtank and Depth Charge.

A good item on Nautilus vs AP treats. I has a great passive besides the flat stats (MR, HP, CDR & mana). 15% of damage taken restores mana & 20% of mana spent restores health. AND it has an aura: nearby enemy champions take 15% more damage. Nautilus can deal a lot of magic damage with Riptide, Titan's Wrath and Depth Charge and you will always be in the middle of the fight, so you and your AP carries will deal more damage. It's also worth to mention that Bami's Cinder's passive deals more damage when combined with Abyssal Mask.

A decent item against some mages like Brand and Cassiopeia as the passive reduces subsequent magical damage from the same spell of effect. So basically it's good against DoT abilities or abilities on a very low cooldown. When getting crushed by a fed Teemo, this is your only hope... Other examples are: Heimerdinger's turrets, Anivia's ult and Taliyah's Q.

A relative cheap item, but really underrated. It grants AS and MR, with a passive effect that makes you deal extra damage on-hit, which synergizes with Titan's Wrath. AA also steal MR from the target for a few seconds, making it a great item vs AP when ahead.

Another MR item. It has the same stats as Adaptive Helm, with the only difference being 100 HP more on Spirit Visage. It's alright if you are facing a(n almost) full AP team. It's also worth to note that healing effects get boosted by 30% which also boosts your HP regen.

Warmog's Armor is pretty good if you are going full tank. You can just keep on healing after teamfights and the flat HP increases Titan's Wrath shield and Shield Bash' damage. It can also be used to counter champions with a lot of true damage, like Cho'Gath's or Fiora's ult.

This item is broken. It's super useful in teamfights because of both its passive and its active. With this, you can tank A LOT of damage. A must have vs teams that keep on grouping.

Rod of Ages is a good AP item on Nautilus. It becomes even better after 10 minutes when you have all of your stacks. Nautilus actually has some decent AP ratios on his abilities, which can surprise some opponents. I really like this item, but if you want to buy this, just do it early to benefit as much as possible from it.

Buy these boots when you are up against AD AA-based champions like Jax or Shyvana.

Buy these boots against AP champions or against heavy CC as it reduces the duration of CC with 30%.

You can also buy these boots if you prefer the extra mobility to gank more often over the resistances the other boots offer.

First of all, to those who are new to League, there are 3 types of wards, which are used to provide vision on the map.

Stealth Ward, the yellow trinket, is a stealthed ward that reveals the nearby area for 90-120s* and you gain 1 charge every 240-120s*. (*Depends average champion level.) It's available from the start of the game.

The red, visible wards can take 4 hits from enemy champions before they are destroyed. These wards cost 75 gold, but it can reveal other nearby wards and stealthed enemies or traps like Noxious Trap. You can only have 1 control ward placed on the map at a time, but you can carry up to 2 as long as you can buy them.

The last type of ward, Farsight Alteration, is a fragile ward which takes only 1 hit to destroy. It can only be bought from level 9 on and replaces Stealth Ward or Oracle Lens. These wards are visible, but they don't count towards a ward limit and they can last forever. The most interesting about this trinket is that you can place it from a distance. You can just stand near your blue or red buff and ward baron/dragon pit for example.

Oracle Lens isn't a ward, but it reveals the area around you, revealing stealthed enemies, wards and traps, like a Control Ward. It is free and available at level 1, but I don't recommend taking this at the start.

As jungler, you will almost always carry at least 1 Control Ward. It's recommend to place them into bushes, because the ward is visible. Stealth Wards can be placed anywhere, because they are invisible. If you need vision of something for a short period of time, before ganking for example, don't hesitate to place a yellow trinket.

Where you place a ward depeneds on the situation. When you are playing against Shyvana for example, you will try to ward near the dragon pit, as Shyvana gains armor and MR from slaying dragons. So if he slightly knows what he's doing, he will focus on dragons.

Another situation, when the enemy jungler is camping top, help him ward. When he can avoid/survive a gank in that way, the enemy jungler loses time in which he could have farmed in his jungle, so you will get ahead indirectly.

When you are getting counterjungled, ward your own jungle. When you want to counterjungle by yourself, ward the enemy jungle.

Also make sure to ward baron/ rift herald and dragon (like mentioned before). These objectives are worth more than a succesful gank.

These are all examples and the image above only shows some common warding locations. I don't mention Farsight Alteration here, because you should swap your yellow trinket for Oracle Lens at one point in the game, around the time people begin to roam and your support helps with warding. Then it's more important to remove enemy vision. But remember to keep carrying Control Wards. I know, it costs 75 gold, but trust me, it's worth the cost.

Jungle Pathing in this meta can be different from game to game. You will have to react and adapt to the situation quickly. Some starts will be hard, where the enemy cheeses you and steals buffs, or even worse, kills you. Again an example of how important wards are in this game. Let's say you are playing vs a champ like Shaco. That guy will 99% counterjungle you. So you and your team ward your jungle. You see Shaco at your own red, but instead of trying to stop him, you invade Shaco's jungle and you steal his red in return. Another thing are the rift scuttler's. They give a lot more EXP than they used to, so you want to take them asap before the enemy jungler takes them. If you know exactly where the enemy jungler started, you can probably take at least one crab without issues. But if you know it could be contested by someone with a good early game like Lee Sin or Elise, you can better just leave it. You won't lose a game by missing a crab. Nautilus can still be useful for a team even though he is behind in levels and gold. So now let's get over to the pathing itself. I prefer a short first clear, just enough to get level 3 and to start ganking asap. The most efficient way is to take both buffs, along with 2 smaller camps.


The most common route I use is to get to level 3. After that you can choose what you are doing next: gank top or mid or farm the remaining camps of your jungle. The easiest start is botlane so you can get a better leash than you would get from your toplaner. That means starting at red brambleback for blue side or blue sentinel for red side. Next come crimson raptor's and the murk wolf camp, with the order depending on what side you are on. The last camp is the remaining buff; the red brambleback or the blue sentinel. After these 4 camps you are level 3 and ready to gank. Also get a rift scuttler whenever it's uncontested.


This clear allows some early ganking, as you will get level 3 sooner than with the standard clear. However, doing this is risky as a smart enemy jungler has enough time to steal you blue sentinel.

You always start red brambleback, whatever side you're on, followed by ancient krug's and crimson raptor's.

So first of all: what is a gank? Most players know this already, so this is for the newer players.
When someone is laning, so 1v1 top/mid or 2v2 bot, and 1 or more others walk into the lane to create an advantage in numbers. This is called a gank. A jungler will be ganking his lanes frequently (unless you are playing a very farming oriented jungler) to get kills or pressure the opponent. Others can gank too, but it will probably be later in the game as they are bound to a lane. Not every gank will gain you a kill or a turret, but when they have to use a summoner spell like Flash to escape, it's good too. Keep track of those summoner spells. Let's say you gank an immobile champion like Vel'Koz. He escapes by using his Flash. If you gank him again before he regains his spell, you are almost guaranteed of a kill because he has no escape.

Sometimes it can be better to leave a kill for a teammate. Some champions, especially assasins, are very snowball oriented and need their kills to not fall off. Some think they NEED to get those kills and some will even flame you when you get the kill instead. But it doesn't matter that much. You won't lose a game from taking a kill instead of the midlaner or ADC. Remember that a kill grants gold to all team members involved in it.

Some lanes will be easier to gank than others. The easiest way to gank is when you are voice chatting with a friend and he can set up for you by starting a fight, or freezing his lane under his turret.
Most of the time top is the easiest lane to gank, because it's a long lane and toplaners tend to have at least some soft CC. Mid is a shorter lane with assasins being harder to gank as they have gapclosers. But some mages like Ryze and Orianna have some CC as well to set up ganks. Bot lane is the hardest lane to gank. It's a long lane, but it's 2v2. 3v2 is harder than 2v1 and most supports can peel for their carry. Some engage supports can make ganking easy. Think about Thresh and Blitzcrank with a succesful grab. When bot is an adc + mage sup like Lulu or Janna, you will have to engage yourself.

Be careful with ganking a lane that is behind. Some champions can 1v2 easily when ahead. (Those damn Darius and Illaoi...)

There are different types of ganks. The easiest way to gank is when the enemy is overextending and you walk down the river to catch them. That's an ideal scenario. You can also get behind the enemy by walking through the tribushes toplane when blue side or through the tribushes bot when red side. Most laners will especially ward river, so in some cases they won't see you coming. Another way is to ask your laner to engage a fight. The enemy will be disttacted and he won't see you as fast.
The hardest, most risky type of gank is a dive. A tower dive. You and your laner(s) surround the opponent while he is under turret. ONLY do this when your ally pushes the wave under the enemy turret. They will tank the turret until you position yourself well and you start to fight. Only try a towerdive against a low-health enemy. And make sure the enemy jungler isn't near. Otherwise it can be an easy cleanup for him. Another type of gank, which isn't common in low elo, is a lane gank. When your laner has pushed the minion wave to the enemy tower, the enemy won't have vision of all 3 bushes beside him. In that case, you can simply walk up the lane from base into the middle bush, without the enemy being able to see you. (Except when it is warded, but low chance for that.) When the enemy pushes a bit away from his turret, walk up to him and kill him. He will never expect that.

As Nautilus, ganking is easy with his CC. If possible, just walk up to your target and root them with a Staggering Blow empowered AA. When the root ends, use Riptide to slow him down. If you can't simply AA the target because it's an ADC or Mage with range, go for the Dredge Line catch. Or if you want to be 100% sure, use Depth Charge. The knock up and stun will result in an easy hook.
See the images above for the most common gank paths for both blue and red side of the map.

First of all, what is a Gameplan? A Gameplan is the plan a jungler has on how to play a game, what his win conditions are, which lanes get priority, how the matchups will go and such.

Let's start with Nautilus himself. His strengths are his early ganking and skirmishes. But later on, he can get kited easily, so late game, if you engage and your team fails to follow up, you're probably dead as Nautilus is incredible slow and has no real escapes. This means you want to have an impact as soon as possible and get the right teammate(s) ahead to help you carry later on. You will have to judge yourself who that can be.

Analyse your own team and the enemy team. Is your team Snowball oriented? Ganking ASAP and as much as possible will be the way to go. Is your team better in the late game, than it can be safer to farm a bit more and scale, while waiting for the moment some champions get a powerspike. Think of a Jax getting his Trinity Force.

If an ally is in a favorable matchup, like Darius vs Shen or Sion, it will be easier to get him and yourself ahead than for example Ornn vs Gnar. Of course how a matchup usually goes doesn't always mean it will be that way. I believe every matchup is winnable, as long as you play it correctly and you have some luck.
Sometimes, it will be pretty obvious what to do in order to win. If an ADC gets ahead early game, ganking botlane a few times will be easy AND the ADC will get ahead even further, which means you'll only have to take care of some enemy assassins and divers and peel for the ADC in order to win teamfights and eventually the game.

An other thing you should keep in mind is the enemy jungler and his strengths. Is it more of a ganking jungler, like Maokai or Amumu, warding their gank paths to be able to countergank them is a good idea. Control junglers like Nunu & Willump will be counterjungling you and will control the map, while they are able to get objectives very fast and safe with Consume. Warding will be very important in these situations. Finally there are the farming junglers like Master Yi and Udyr. Early game is okay, as they need their items and levels to be strong, giving you time to get your team as ahead as possible with ganks, but later on they may be able to 1v9 if fed enough. That's why you should look to end the game as fast as possible.

If you are really fed, counterjungling may be an option, but it stays risky as Nautilus has no escapes for when they collapse on you.
Taking Objectives solo with Nautilus is possible, but it is a slow process. The safer choice is to keep the objectives warded and get them with the help of teammates after a successful gank or teamfight.

The last thing I want to say is to keep calm, even though a game is going really bad. We all have bad games and make bad decisions, but it's just a game. It's meant to have fun. If someone flames you, just ignore him and mute him immediately. Those people just aren't worth the attention. If you want to, you can also just mute all at the start of the game if you feel better that way.

Nautilus is a fun and relative easy champion, with great ganks. I believe jungle Nautilus can be as strong as support Nautilus it's just underrated. I really recommend giving him a try in the jungle if you like tanky junglers.

Thanks for reading my Nautilus guide! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment! If you liked this guide, please upvote and eventually I'll make more guide! Also be sure to check out my other guides: