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@Riot, can we give my ol' pal Naut some love?

Malicious Metal··73 votes·3,247 views

https://78.media.tumblr.com/8f8f2113be89d0a8bcca7380263020c8/tumblr_n94qbj3l4C1snbskwo1_500.gif

Ah, Nautilus, the Oceanman, the Holy Diver, he's fallen somewhat out of flavor recently and for good reason. He has lost his former crown as the Undisputed King of Crowd control as other tanks slowly caught up with him in terms of raw CC and damage.

What remains is a sad ol' Tank who struggles to find his own unique niche in the League of Legends Ecosystem.

So, what is Nautilus supposed to be? Well, he should feel HEAVY!

He's supposed this marching Colossus of the Depths that'll drag you down and drown you. Make you choke on the brine as you take the CC railways, riding the dredge line.

But how would you achieve giving Nautilus a real niche? Well, by reworking some of his spells of course, similarly to what you did with Xin and Shyvana.

#So, what would I change in a Nautilus GU? -Reduce the spamminess of his kit, less uptime, stronger effects -Retool him to work better in the Jungle -Overall lower the amount of CC in favor of more interesting ways of playing him

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/c/c4/Staggering_Blow.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929123118 Staggering Blows Nautilus current passive is just a boring hard cc on a basic attack. It doesn't provide him with anything intuitive and just feels tacked on most of the time but it's really strong nonetheless. It could be tuned to be more interesting.

So here's my suggestion:

New: Staggering Blows grounds for 2-5 seconds based on level whenever Nautilus autoattacks an already movement impaired unit, this attack scales off a percentage of Naut's maximum hp and cannot occur more than once on the same champion unit for 15-5 seconds.

This would make Staggering blows more of a combo tool to pair with allied cc or his own, giving him ways of applying nasty cc Chains that can't just get broken by hyper mobile champions. Because there's no escaping the grasp of the depths.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/3/3b/Titan%27s_Wrath.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929123118 Titan's wrath This had a lot of its power siphoned into his E, the change that made Naut oppressive top and support but somewhat ruined his jungle clear. I'd bring back more power in form of Jungle sustain and clearing potential, making it once again one of Naut's bread and butter abilities

New: Titan's Wrath now lowers monster's Attack Speed and Movement Speed, thus giving him the ability to use Staggering Blows in his jungle clear.

This change would not only speed up his clear but make it healthier due to the crippling effect it has on monsters while not changing its performance in a PvP scenario

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/f/f6/Riptide.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929123116 Riptide Ahh, ritpide, screw you for how you impacted Nautilus' top lane performance, and while it's amusing how it gave the Diver WAVE clear, it really needs to become a tool that's used fewer times throughout a fight but has more impact.

Passive: Nautilus' abilities, and empowered AA's apply stacks of "Keelhaul" to enemy champions. Active; Nautlus' stomps the ground, dealing AoE magic damage in three waves that emit from his current position, each wave deals reduced damage, but refreshes its slow. If it strikes an enemy with maxed out "Keelhaul", Riptide additionally knocks the afflicted enemy champions up for 0.25-0.75 seconds.

Increasing its Cooldown for a more impactful effect would make this ability cooler to play around for the Nautilus player as well as his enemies, with them knowing that they'll face some harsh tidal waves if they stick around him for too long. This would make Nautilus better at drawn out team fights where he can make use of its enhanced effect.

Those are just some of my suggestions for Nautilus, I just think he needs SOMETHING to be different from other Tanks in his category and by lowering his CC in favor of stronger, more impactful effects he could benefit greatly from it!

32 Comments

Teridax6815 votes

I like a lot of this, and I think pushing Nautilus to be a particularly strong counter to hypermobile, peel-heavy back lines could certainly be the way to go. His ult is already designed to fish out back liners, and I think the rest of his kit should enable that further. Thoughts on the proposed changes:

  • Staggering Blows: I like the ground effect, and I feel you could even replace his current root with just an always on knockdown/ground effect, so that he may disable mobility from up close. While I'm generally in favor of giving tanks weak HP/resist ratios to their damage, in exchange for lower bases, I feel here it might be better to not give Naut extra single-target damage, but to make his attacks AoE instead: this would correspond better to the heft of swinging around an anchor, and could allow him to clear the jungle more consistently as well, while carrying over to mass disabling against champions.
  • Titan's Wrath: The slow against monsters looks like a fairly simple way to improve his jungle clear in synergy with the passive change you proposed. At the risk of angering Ornn players, I'd also personally like it if Naut was unstoppable while the shield held (so he'd get to plow into the back line and encourage the enemy team to focus him), while removing his AoE DoT, though that might entail some more balance changes beyond that.
  • Riptide: I like the idea of Naut using his E to knock enemies up, though I feel the stack mechanic may not be entirely necessary on an ability that already has three parts: for example, if the waves emanated from Naut, rather than a static location, dealt less individual damage, and knocked up/stunned/rooted enemies hit by all three waves, it could encourage him to move around while the ability's in use, rather than fire it and forget. It would also make him punish enemies harder for trying to run away from him, which would fall in line with the general idea here of having him be especially strong against mobile enemies.
jocomotion2 votes

The changes you’ve purposed may get him closer to Juggernaut territory, which isn’t a bad thing but they’d have to cut something down in Nauts kit to give him unstoppable and a ability with no cast time.

Teridax682 votes

This is true, and personally I'd be in favor of toning down Naut's damage across the board, and perhaps also his mobility, if he gets unstoppability on his W. I think Naut's always had a Juggernaut-like profile, in that he's intentionally very slow in exchange for outputting a lot of power, so making him less mobile overall in exchange for being less difficult to peel away might be a fair tradeoff.

SpaghettiVase2 votes

There's nothing wrong with pushing him into being a unique tank. Obviously you don't want to make him being the best of both worlds and having him be pick/ban material but right now he's mediocre in every position he's in even the one he was made for.

Malicious Metal6 votes

Ah yes, I do like your idea of a changed Riptide better, I myself struggled coming up with something that felt more intuitive and a stacking mechanic just seemed like a bandaid here. All in all, anything that differentiates Naut from the current Tank lineup's a big plus in my books.

Teridax681 votes

I think in general, proposing something entirely new is always the more difficult part, because you have a potential infinity of options to pick from, so going for something tried and tested like a stacking mechanic makes sense. After something's been proposed, giving criticism and suggestions around it, e.g. by suggesting a switch to landing Riptide's three waves, is a much easier thing to do in comparison, which is also why you see many more people on the Boards give criticisms than they do solutions or entirely new concepts.

Mig891 votes

What if instead of rooting someone it applid an IBG type zone with no root but it was a grounded field. Same CD and duration but instead of the root it adds a small grounded zone. It could be half the size of Singed's and still heavily impact a teamfight. Imagine him landing it on a Katarina, Ekko, Lee sin, etc while peeling during a fight.

rtbf2256182414 votes

Staggering Blows Nautilus current passive is just a boring hard cc on a basic attack. It doesn't provide him with anything intuitive and just feels tacked on most of the time but it's really strong nonetheless. It could be tuned to be more interesting.

Honestly, thats the only thing that to me has a heavy feel to it. It's slow as shit and it gives you that idea that his anchor is heavy enough to literally stun anyone with a single blow.

Duke Dryfocker4 votes

I actually love the current Naut as a straight tank. I have a very good win % with him, just by buffing the shield. is CC doesn't hurt either, especially the stun in his passive. He's not a KDA monster, but his utility can lead to a win more often than not if played unselfishly.

DeusVult3 votes

As much as I would love to see Naut become viable in the jungle again, as I used to play him there a ton, he really isnt hurting at all in the top lane. He has good early-to-mid-game damage, nearly unparalleled CC and can become very tanky.

He doesnt need changes and there are dozens of other champs who need gameplay updates before looking at Naut

Primaquarius3 votes

TFW Naultilus is stronger in cinematics than in game

munguskiller2 votes

I think he is good already. Last time i played as Draven lvl 7 and i had a supp lvl 7 leona and nautilus just ulted me every time and i kept dying. Also his q is way stronger to adc than u imagine. GL with ur request to riot.

SpecterVonBaren2 votes

That passive change is terrible. It would be the most situational passive in the game.

Ixoziel1 votes

I still love laning with Nautilus and I definitely support buffing him. He's my favorite supp to lane with as Vayne despite their awful avg winrate together (it's like 43%).

SweedishGunner1 votes

I think he's fine as a laner, he needs help jungling though.

GorillaBearz1 votes

I love this so much. I got Mastery 7 on Naut a long time ago, and love the champion, but haven’t played him at all in a while because of the shitty state he’s been in. Would really love to see Riot implement some small changes like this as he doesn’t need a total VGU, just a few tweaks such as the ones you have proposed. +1

130x1 votes

Naut can still one combo any squishy. So no buffs.

Malicious Metal1 votes

Beware the Full AP Nautilus.

YOUGOTKILLEDBRO1 votes

I really like your ideas here, Naut jungle was really fun when it was meta, and it would be pretty damn fun to see it again, great thread upvoted on all my accounts :P

Ifneth1 votes

I like your ideas. Here’s one of my own.

Passive: Nautlius’s basic attacks stun their targets for 1 second and apply a mark for 20 seconds. Stuns, roots, displacements, and suppression from Nautilus or his allies remove this mark.

This change alone would make Nautilus viable again. The stun would let him chain crowd control with his allies after initiating, reduce damage from the Wolf, Krug, and Raptor jungle camps, and have two stuns for botlane. It would also improve his solo laning and dueling by letting him refresh the stun with Dredge Line, his ultimate, and hard crowd control from a gank.

We could also introduce level-based scaling on the mark time to help his late-game or let cooldown reduction affect it to help him snowball.

AS I LAY FEEDING1 votes

Should add %dmg so he can beat every toplaner and build tanky at the same time.

MorgManBasher1 votes

Currently Naut is a terrible top laner (loses pretty much all matchups against decent players), a terrible jungle (super bad clear) and a somewhat decent support but they are just better options.

Personally would like to see his support buffed with a little help to top/jungle, but with more so support in mind.

Galiö1 votes

Lol your passive suggestion is disgusting. Get frozen mallet then stack health and he is broken as hell.

ZaneShadow1 votes

I’d love to see some Naut changes, and I love this thought out post. the huge one I’d like is for Tiptide to be more and feel more like what’s in the cinematic. I’m just picking this one ability since these changes could go a long ways with the feel of the champ.

Riptide feel: have what it does in game feel/look like what it does in the cinematic. this would mean a big, long wind up, followed by a larger AoE with a harsh slow attached to it. The ability should also come out faster and more violently like in the cinematic. By increasing the cooldown significantly to be less spammy, there could even be a brief stun attached to the ability or simply up the damage some so he doesn’t loose waveclear and the ability to farm.

Something I’d compare it to would be Sion’s Q if the wind up couldn’t be cut short, had 360 degree radius, and a slightly larger range. Instead of a nock up there could be a brief nearsighted for those hit (dust flung in the air and settling down idea) with a longer slow.

A possible addition would be during the channel/animation of the ability, there would be a window of vulnerability followed by a window of CC immunity, so that the long wind up doesn’t grow to be such a burden that the move is unusable.

Sir Rethor1 votes

As a very devoted Nautilus main any changes to my main man are welcome as long as they don’t change his overall gameplay too much. I like the way he plays right now, however weak he may be

Rude Name1 votes

Always love your posts, you have a diverse range of support for characters, and always put thought and detail into each suggestion for all of them.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Ok sure but why1 votes

I'd say his Riptide should be changed into a super duper powerful ultimate, but as an M7 main, his current ultimate is just sorta needed in this meta. Oh well.

KillerCryptid1 votes

I play him toplane sometimes and it usually goes really well, I'm definitely in favor of some buffs but not complete overhaul of abilities since they do seem fine as it is

maybe some visual update, not a complete VGU but like better textures or smth, and a new skin would be ncie

º Kindred º1 votes

Ocean man, take me by your hand and show me your land

ShadowtehGreat1 votes

I also like a lot of the ideas here and I would even go as far as to say that the e cooldown should be doubled in favor of it being given a larger radius (around 5 waves) with the knock up mentioned.

Edit: On second thought maybe that would be too high of a cooldown while in combat so adding e cdr on passive proc could serve well.

Mountain Warden1 votes

I think people expect too much from Nautilus. In champion design, you have durability, utility (crowd control, heals, shields and various other buffs) and offensive potential (mobility and damage). You gotta pick 2 out of the three and sounds like Riot wants nautilus to be tanky and have good cc. Buffing his damage would make him overpowered as hell. If he's struggling in top lane, seems that more due to the general damage creep we've seen in the game and the fact that popular top lane juggernauts have too much power and need some nerfs. Buffing nautilus' damage to make him balanced in top lane would be the bad way to go for the overall health of the game.

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