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In-Depth Matchup Guide for Nautilus
Build Guide By Mickeystick
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10,472
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Nautilus Build Guide By Mickeystick
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Runes: Standard
1
2
3
Resolve
Domination
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
+6 Armor
Spells:
Most Games
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![LoL Summoner Spell: Flash]()
![LoL Summoner Spell: Ignite]()
Flash
Ignite
Items
Frequent Purchases
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Complete Build #1: Standard
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Complete Build #2: Vayne
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Complete Build #3: Carry?
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Ability Order Ability Order
Staggering Blow (PASSIVE)
Nautilus Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Threats
Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
Show All
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Nautilus
Why are you playing blind pick?
Swain
Holy muffins Swain is such a powerful bot lane carry right now.
Synergies
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Swain
Holy muffins Swain is such a powerful bot lane carry right now.
Champion Build Guide
Nautilus Play-Style Summary
Why might you want to play Nautilus? Is it because he's an extremely powerful pick in the current meta? Is it because he looks cool? Is the because you keep losing to him?
All of the above are valid reasons to play him, but you have to understand why excels in the current meta if you want to survive with him. If you're here because you keep losing to him, then hopefully I can shed some light on why.
Nautilus is one of the most powerful early-game support tanks in the game, but he stays strong through the entire game. Unlike other tanks, he doesn't feel bad to play even when you're behind because of his extreme team fight pressure and the power of Gargoyle Stoneplate. In Lane, you want to stay back until level 2 when you can put a point in your W and go for really strong trades. You just hook right in, activate the shield, land an auto attack, and run away. The only exceptions to this are when you get a level 2 gank from your jungler, or when you have a Swain bot lane carry that can pull the enemy into your hook.
In the mid to late game, you want to be focusing on getting a lot of vision and setting up for objectives. It's very hard for the enemy to pounce on you and get a kill, making him a stronger support for macro compared to enchanters like Nami. You want to always be the first one on your team to go in because of your tankiness, and your ult should always go to the weakest person on the enemy team. If the weakest person on the enemy team however is the Warwick you just hooked, then instead look for an ult onto the backline. This means you get to knock-up that Warwick while still disabling the Caitlyn from sniping at the back.
All of the above are valid reasons to play him, but you have to understand why excels in the current meta if you want to survive with him. If you're here because you keep losing to him, then hopefully I can shed some light on why.
Nautilus is one of the most powerful early-game support tanks in the game, but he stays strong through the entire game. Unlike other tanks, he doesn't feel bad to play even when you're behind because of his extreme team fight pressure and the power of Gargoyle Stoneplate. In Lane, you want to stay back until level 2 when you can put a point in your W and go for really strong trades. You just hook right in, activate the shield, land an auto attack, and run away. The only exceptions to this are when you get a level 2 gank from your jungler, or when you have a Swain bot lane carry that can pull the enemy into your hook.
In the mid to late game, you want to be focusing on getting a lot of vision and setting up for objectives. It's very hard for the enemy to pounce on you and get a kill, making him a stronger support for macro compared to enchanters like Nami. You want to always be the first one on your team to go in because of your tankiness, and your ult should always go to the weakest person on the enemy team. If the weakest person on the enemy team however is the Warwick you just hooked, then instead look for an ult onto the backline. This means you get to knock-up that Warwick while still disabling the Caitlyn from sniping at the back.
How to Combo
If you've been looking at the matchup part of the guide, you will have noticed that I call Nautilus a very bursty high damage support. This is because you want to use everything as soon as you go in. While you can technically space out your abilities and chain the crowd control longer on Nautilus by hooking, waiting a few seconds, then auto attacking, it's actually far more optimal to use everything at once. By hesitating, you lose a chance at actually getting the kill, since Nautilus struggles to engage twice in a single fight. This is due to the fact that none of his early game items provide cooldown reduction, meaning his hook is on a 10-14 second cooldown. This burst combo should look like a well placed Q first, activate W, auto attack, E, R, ignite. This combo differs from other hook champions like Thresh and Blitzcrank in that those champs would like to hit their E first to guarantee the Q. Nautilus doesn't need to do this however, because the hitbox on his Q is massive.
Late Game
Nautilus is a very easy champion to learn, and somewhat difficult to master. This easy play style means that you can learn your macro and improve on it more, compared to harder supports. In the mid game, you generally want to get as much dragon pressure as possible. To do this, you need to push mid and bot so that you can get the first turret in both lanes, then push the wave into their turrets. If you can't fully shove the waves, you will want to slow push one wave and fast push the other wave. Right before you go for dragon, make sure you have vision of the enemy jungle on the side of the dragon, then go for it. In dragon and Baron fights, you always want to be hitting the objective and not trying to pick up kills. If the enemy tries to come in, you can ult either the enemy jungler or any squishy carries that are nearby. At this point, you either try to go for a full teamfight, or finish dragon and then team fight. Most of the time you want to finish dragon first, because otherwise your team will be taking dragon damage throughout the fight. In teamfights outside of objectives, you always want to ult the weakest people on the enemy team (the ones you can kill the fastest). You did this instead of ulting the 5/0 Nasus for instance, because it means you'll be fighting a 4v5 or a 3v5, which is far more advantageous in numbers. The rare case you do use your ult on the top laner is if it's a Garen or Darius that will kill your high damage carries before they get to be effective.
Heavy Poke Lanes
Heavy poke lanes are lanes with bot lane carries like Jhin, Caitlyn, Varus, Senna, and supports like Lux, Brand, Vel'Koz, Xerath, Senna, Lulu, or Soraka. The goal of these lanes is to get a gold advantage over your lane by shoving the wave into your tower and poking you heavily while you try to farm. The way to play in these lanes is to help you adc shove the first two or three waves of minions in lane, then camping a side brush with the threat of a hook. In other words, you need to hit the caster minions once each and kill 2 soldier winions out of the first 3 waves, 1 cannon minion (third wave). The threat of a hook means that you have a point in Q but you don't use it, meaning the enemy never knows when you're going to use it. Lux can't hit her stuff at long range because of how slow it is, so dodging it in lane isn't usually a problem. The reason being shoved under tower is a problem, is because the turret takes up a huge part of the lane, so you have a lot less space to dodge spells.
Tank Support
Nautilus is one of the best tanks supports, as he has a very strong shield in his kit and respectable base damages. This means that he wins most of the time, and it's fairly safe to engage. The exceptions to this are Taric and Leona. Taric has a strong disengage which allows most bot lane carries to return fire as you walk away, making his trades much stronger. Leona is situational, since it depends on your bot lane carry. If you have a tanky carry or highly mobility carry, such as Lucian or Swain, then Leona is a free win easy matchup. When you have a squishy carry, you should be careful since she can burst them down by herself. This is why you want to save your Q for peeling Leona. Finally, Thresh. Thresh goes even with Nautilus if both are the same skill level. It is 100% a skill based matchup. He has very strong counter-engage, and decent return fire, making it hard to trade effectively against a good Thresh.
Kill Lanes
This is defined as a high damage lane where you can die even after you complete your Deadman's Plate. These lanes include: Pyke/Draven, Pyke/Kai'Sa, Pantheon/Kai'Sa, Lucian/Yuumi, Lucian/Nami. In these lanes you want to play safe until the mid-game, where you out team fight any of these duos. Trust me, even Nautilus will die to any of these duos.
Mickeystick
Nautilus Guide
In-Depth Matchup Guide for Nautilus
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