Hey Riot can we get some insight on the Nautilus changes that have posted on the PBE

vfactor95·Feb 27, 2015·16 votes·2,242 views

I'm not sure what to think of them on paper. I like how Riptide is gonna be up more often in fights, it better solidifies his niche as a CC monster and so the accompanied Slow percentage and damage nerf are understandable.

But why the damage nerf on Titan's Wrath?

Seems a bit unnecessary given Naut's W is about 90% of his clearing power and you already compensated for the E cooldown reduction. Whether I'm underestimating the extra power of the E reduced cooldown or whatever it'd be nice to get some input on why these changes were decided on.

38 Comments

aaronconlinFeb 28, 20156 votes

I think they reduced the damage on Titan's Wrath due to the Cinderhulk enchantment and Gromp buff, but honestly I don't think the nerf was needed. Nautilus was far from a top-tier jungler

vfactor95Feb 28, 20153 votes

That's what I thought too at first but then I realized you won't get cinderhulk until your 3rd or 4th back unless you secured a bunch of kills early. It really hurts his early kill since he's losing some 25 damage starting at rank 1.

xLordZantxFeb 28, 20152 votes

My question is why don't they straight up buff Nautilus with E buffs only wait a while and see if he is too overbearing and just tone him down? One other thing at level 1 do you still consider starting with W or with E if these changes come through?

Duke AnaxFeb 28, 20151 votes

I think it was always weird that Naut relied on W for both Protection and damage. This way ithey made it less about the damage, the damage is just a nice bonus on that abbility. Instead they put the damage where it belongs on a Tank, in the AoE.

SirsirFeb 28, 20151 votes

Well you do get Bami's Cinder for 1k gold, you don't need the whole enchant to get the clear speed.

futuresight23Feb 28, 20156 votes

Looks like some of Nautilus's ability to clear camps was transitioned into his Riptide from his Titan's Wrath which isn't the worst thing considering the damage from his W is completely dependent on his shield not getting broken.

Honestly, between the notes on these changes and the new/old jungle item, I'm not sure what it means for Nautilus's power level.

vfactor95Feb 28, 20152 votes

Sure but maxing shield gives you a bigger shield which gives damage mitigation, and clearing the jungle with riptide is gonna cost a lot more mana so i would actually say not it's not as good for him.

SquarefighterFeb 28, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Sure but maxing shield gives you a bigger shield which gives damage mitigation, and clearing the jungle with riptide is gonna cost a lot more mana so i would actually say not it's not as good for him.

With the way the shield scaling was changed it's now totally viable to max E first and build HP :)

vfactor95Feb 28, 20152 votes

But the shield scaling itself scales with levels, at only 7% max hp at level 1 it's not that significant until you get it to rank 5.

Duke AnaxFeb 28, 20151 votes

My guess here is because he clears faster now, you won't need as much early shielding.

junglerboy16Feb 28, 20151 votes

It actually doesn't give you much more shield at all since they changed the scaling on it a couple patches ago. It is in fact very weak to max it first either way, and only catches up after level 11 at the earliest, but then scales very hard into late game.

The fact that his clear is stronger and faster now means he won't need his shield as much early, which is very good for nautilus.

Angry MonsterFeb 28, 20152 votes

its just more proof balance team does not have a clue.

junglerboy16Feb 28, 20151 votes

And that you obviously either haven't read or cannot read the actual changes which are an enormous buff. E will be up over twice as frequently and has skyrocketed his early clear speed.

Angry MonsterMar 1, 20151 votes

lol sure it will.

Sire HippingtonFeb 28, 20152 votes

Well, it's less than half the cd on E, which has a high basedamage if it fully hits, so dps wise he will probably still gain more than he looses. However, his already high manacosts willskyrocket with that E-spam, and it kinda costs mobillity as E forcrs him to stop moveing. I also don't like that his As scaleing gets lowered due to the W nerf, wit's and devourer were suprisingly powerfull on him. And most of all i don't get why they still don't buff him on what holds him back the most(besides beeing kinda forced into maxing W): Why does he still loose his W dps if the shield is down? He looses so much damage in teamfights or if behind cause of the fast dropping shield, it's just sad.

Yves KleinFeb 28, 20152 votes

Very sad. They really need to give nautilus more attack speed or split the damage from the shield aspect now. I never understood why is he got stuck with the 3rd lowest attack speed (he's melee). Ranged champions have higher attack speed, champions with more damage have more attack speed, champions with damage and cc have more attack speed (you get the point).

On another note. Q, really needs a better motivation to use on terrain W, don't nerf it E, now no cast time

vfactor95Feb 28, 20157 votes

Although league doesn't really cater to logic much, it does make thematic sense that some guy in a giant suit of armor wielding a giant anchor wouldn't be able to attack all that fast.

I think it's fine for him to be weak in that area so long as he makes up for it in other ways (like making his auto attacks hurt srs rito heimers damn wrenches do more damage than naut's anchor wtf is with that)

junglerboy16Feb 28, 20153 votes

Well, wrenches kind of hurt a lot when you get hit by them, and an anchor moving that slow has very little impact force (force=mass x acceleration, high mass with low acceleration is still only moderate force for an anchor, vs moderate mass with high acceleration for high force with a wrench).

vfactor95Feb 28, 20153 votes

So you're telling me if you had to decide getting hit by an anchor or a wrench in real life you would pick the anchor? Sure if shot the wrench with a railgun or something it would have a lot of force behind but thrown by a diminutive brainiac scientist? An anchor is so much more massive than a wrench that literally just resting one on top of a person would probably kill them or do some serious damage.

Not to be rude but I don't think you know what you're talking about

junglerboy16Feb 28, 20152 votes

Some people just can't see sarcasm when it slaps them in the face...

NarasimhaFeb 28, 20151 votes

The donger has a rocket in his hair.

Who knows what he's REALLY throwing the wrenches with?

BastionKrossFeb 28, 20151 votes

By that logic, a Naut with a high attack speed (and no bonus AD) should be devastating due to his anchor animation speeding up.

BastionKrossFeb 28, 20152 votes

Basically they're balancing his kit around the new jungle item and jungle buffs like Gromp. This has two effects that worry me:

It cuts down playing Naut in any position other than jungle. Support/Top Naut is going to take a hit here with the shield change, and so is AP mid-lane assassin Naut with that significant ratio deduction on E.
Since Naut is balanced around jungle items and buffs, what are we supposed to do in game modes that don't have those two things? had the same thing happen to him; he was balanced around the assumption he'd be building a certain jungle item, and sometimes you can't. What then?

KaisadiIIaFeb 28, 20151 votes

It cuts down playing Naut in any position other than jungle. Support/Top Naut is going to take a hit here with the shield change, and so is AP mid-lane assassin Naut with that significant ratio deduction on E.

E CD down to 4 from 10. It compensates by far the damage lost on his W (and that shield is weak early game regardless of you maxing it or not since it scales off maximum health, so the enemy will pop it out in ~1/2 seconds and you will deal not as much damage as it may seem).

Lovely PantsFeb 28, 20152 votes

I might be out of my league with this comment, but I always felt like Nautilus' early game impact was really damn strong compared to the entire jungler cast, even many of the top tier junglers. The issue always seemed to be that he incurred a much greater deal of risk if he had an unsuccessful start, and generally his presence becomes less meaningful later in the game as his damage was unreliable and more mobility options are available to downplay his crowd control.

The added risk to his early game performance, kind of a clear weakness he already had, may be to balance out with his better scaling into the late game. We'll have to see, I guess.

HolyWarsPunishFeb 28, 20151 votes

RIP naut now...

qetzelFeb 28, 20155 votes

RIPtide? I'm sorry.

KingsgraveFeb 28, 20151 votes

I'm surprised he didn't get 5/10/15/20/25 passive magic damage per auto on his W considering that's the exact amount that was removed

Silents429Feb 28, 20151 votes

Eh. I too was wondering this, Stonewall008 tested he said he got 2 levels into W and maxed E and got insane clear speeds.

HandheldBrandonFeb 28, 20152 votes

Do you have a link i enjoy stonewalls analysis.

Jungle Lux GodFeb 28, 20151 votes

I have a feeling that the E cooldown reduction is so great that it won't matter how low the damage on W deals.

In the early game, it is really a toss-up. I have no idea if, in practice, this will be an early game buff/nerf/neutral change, as the cooldown reduction on Riptide might allow you to clear faster, or the cooldown reduction might not be strong enough to offset the power that got reduced from Titan's Wrath.

In the late game, it is a straight up buff because at this stage, you don't care about the damage on his abilities or about the mana costs, and the CC that is provided on E will be straight up insane at this point. This isn't even including how insane Cinderhulk is on him (or I personally think that Cinderhulk is good in general, not specifically on Nautilus).

Spacesuit SpiffFeb 28, 20151 votes

It's an alright change for the jungle, this might even buff him.

RIP naut support though http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/2bzPrIxa-so-the-nautilus-changes

YorukinFeb 28, 20151 votes

Keep in mind that the base damage on Riptide isn't being touched, just the AP ratio. The average Nautilus build never has more than a Rod of Ages for AP, and that's mostly a laning pickup. As such, the majority of Nautilus's damage comes from his okay base damage and Sunfire Cape; or, after 5.5, Cinderhulk. Since Riptide's gonna be up a hell of a lot more frequently, this is actually an overall buff to his damage output as long as he does what he's supposed to: wade around in the middle of the fight and unload CC. Another nice thing when clearing camps is that his E isn't dependent on his shield at all. Assuming you get a Trailblazer and a blue buff or two, running out of mana shouldn't be too big of an issue.

Now, I haven't played him on the PBE yet, but I am very much looking forward to these changes. Tanks in general have needed some love, and this is a HUGE step in the right direction.

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 28, 20151 votes

The nerf on later rank is understandable, but I'm not sure about the early game value (his W). I'm gonna try it on pbe right now.

HandheldBrandonFeb 28, 20151 votes

Im pretty sure they nerfed his W because hes going to be doing more overall damage with his E. With the cooldown now so low on it and the possibility of it having a 2.4 second cooldown at 40 percent CDR (2.8 with 30 percent which is more reasonable) he will be doing far more overall AOE damage and consistent CC.

junglerboy16Feb 28, 20151 votes

The whole point of these changes are to make it so that W is not his must level spell anymore. They want to keep the core idea of "break the shield to cut his damage" without being so cripplingly overloaded into whether the shield is indestructible or super flimsy. The whole point is that now, while he still has the same general soft taunt of "focus me to break my shield" he is not so heavily punished for it while still giving enemies a reason to ever focus the tank.

TL;DR: Riot's goal is to give him improved clear by extricating his strength from being purely in his shield, which allows for his shield to be strong, but not overbearing, and also allows him to clear much better early game when the shield is fragile.

KaisadiIIaFeb 28, 20151 votes

Seems a bit unnecessary given Naut's W is about 90% of his clearing power and you already compensated for the E cooldown reduction.

Naut shield does not really scale well by rank, it will be weak early game and strong late game no matter if you max it or not. Why do you max it? To get damage to clear. The point on this changes is that he max first E to get better clear, so he doesn't have to waste early ranks on a shield that doesn't really scale in order to clear properly (and, while he has sustain to jungle, he's extremely slow clearing it, so it's fine for me if they buff his clearing speed).

Whether I'm underestimating the extra power of the E reduced cooldown

You are: consider he's getting a CD reduction from 10 to 4 (which is pretty huge). Mathematically speaking, he will be dealing 150/250/350/450/550 +0.75 AP^ every 10 seconds (right now he deals 60/100/140/180/220 +0.5 AP every 10 seconds). So imagine clearing with 350 damage on his E every 10 seconds at level 5. Seems like a huge buff to his clearing speed. ^Cooldown at earlier ranks it's 6/5.5/5/4.5/4, so he'll be dealing a bit less damage than I said early game, but it's still more than the current damage.

Btw, Meddler mentioned "Yeah, to be clear - we want this to be a buff to nautilus. We're watching the W changes heavily." so if these changes end up being a nerf (and I really think it will be a huge buff), they'll undo it or modify it to be a buff. This time RIOT did it well.