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Proposed Nautilus changes that would help him do what he's supposed to do

20022012·3/20/2019, 9:31:22 PM·7 votes·6,943 views

So I've seen Nautilus has some changes on the PBE in hope of making him a viable pick. Now, I don't play Nautilus a lot by any means but I have played him a few times support this season just for funzies. Perhaps I don't have enough experience, but from what I've seen, Nautilus currently does what he's supposed to do.

His hooks, cooldowns, tankiness - all of those feel OK, and actually, as a Pyke player (or virtually any hooking support), I was actually surprised how good his Q is. I mean, yeah, it has that cancerous hitbox, but it's not gimped in any way, and as a support or a jungler, it's very much an enjoyable bread and butter ability.

I've seen that Riot is trying to bring him back by buffing his passive. But when you think about it, what does it accomplish? In a fast trade, it's not going to matter. It's going to trigger twice in a gank top. But the thing is, Nautilus top is gated by mana costs and low damage. This in turn means that jungle Nautilus just sucks because he can neither clear multicreep camps, nor can he clear single creep camps.

So here is my proposed change, because I feel jungle is where Nautilus should belong in order to be the most enjoyable for the player playing him and the enemy team:

Make his E echo of a wall once. Basically what I mean by this is that you should make it so when Nautilus' E hits terrain, it echoes once. Practically this would mean that in a narrow passage with a large enough unit, he could hit it 4 times instead of the maximum 3 (3 original + 1 off the wall or 2 original + 1 from a wall from each side). This would make it possible to apply another damage instance to creeps, which could likely never be abused in lane, the same way Graves' Q burst can't really be abused in lane the way it can be used in the jungle. Additionally, his base AD could use some buffs - he has fairly low AS, and if you look at other bruisers and tanks, they generally have better AD and AS. Currently, Nautilus has 61 base AD with 0.612 AS. While his AS doesn't need buffs, you could increasehis AD to something like 65 AD. I know that he has somewhat lower AD because of his passive, but lets face it - how does he actually abuse it? If he's triggering his passive on other champions he's already in melee range, and he's not someone who will just solo kill a target. In the jungle, the 8 damage on a 6 second cooldown level one is simply not worth for a measly 61 AD. But when you look at what the AD change would do in his problematic positions (top sleeper tank), it wouldn't really give him that much trading power, nor would AD give him significantly more waveclear.

Overall, I believe Nautilus is actually fine as a niche pick and that he delivers all of the stunning and tanking pretty well. What he lacks is power to back it up. While Leona does most of the things he does better than him as well as provide greater damage, Leona was always pushed into the support role and away from jungle, so as a result she doesn't have clear. Nautilus, however, he became a support for a short time because of how good of a CC tank he was, and because his numbers were a bit high. So why not push him back into the role he was intended to be in without buffing the things that made him deviate from what he was intended to be? If anything, it would perhaps be the first fix attempt of the feast or famine meta we have since he is a defensive champion in a good spot that just needs a small push to be viable.

13 Comments

Sirsir3/20/2019, 10:29:45 PM6 votes

Or simply give him bonus %hp damage against monsters on W or E. His clear speed is literally his only problem. Besides being in an entire class Riot dislikes...

TheSingularity3/20/2019, 10:23:59 PM3 votes

I feel there're simpler ways to help him than changing his E (have a post on here mapping his past changes)

In the past, nautilus utilised 3 main tools, movement speed runes, attack speed runes and his W. His W lost damage in a power adjustment years ago, his E, where the power went into was then nerfed as it made him a balance problem ut he never got the damage back. He lost 15 ms at level 1 (even more with boots, especially out of combat) which smashed his clear speed after the removal of old runes/masteries.

His attack speed is lower than every other tank in the game, despite many of them having better AA synergies than him. A buff to 0.625 (the most common tank attack speed value) could potentially do him wonders in bringing him up to par. I'd personally take the attack speed over AD because it helps his passive application, and synergises with his W. The AD would be a fine change, however it'd narrow the possibility of future buffs and wouldn't be as strong as an AS buff In addition, a small movement speed buff of 5-10 to take him out of the unconditionally slowest MS category to compensate for the loss in runes would likely help him more. And of course, reverting the damage change. So: Damage reverted to 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 Essentially, I'm giving nautilus power that was taken away and never given back. These buffs wouldn't make him any stronger than he was in season 3, they actually wouldn't match it.

Feels lovely to see another naut jungle fela on here, we're few and far between

SpecterVonBaren3/21/2019, 1:59:13 AM2 votes

Just make his W have more damage. If they don't want him bursting squishes then maybe make it so it's something like 10% of their current HP so that it lets him do some good damage when he engages but becomes less and less effective as a fight goes on so he needs allies to finish people off.

That's just an idea, don't know if it's good. I just know that his W damage doesn't do much even in an extended fight.

Sand Ähläm3/20/2019, 11:48:28 PM1 votes

I think his passive buffs were meant for Jungling. It gives him a bit better clear speed as the passive also deals damage, even if it seems like it doesn't do much. The damage on his passive ain't bad at all, as it grows per level.

I can't say much about it yet as the patch was just released and I haven't had enough time to try stuff properly. I do think however that this buff is fine as Nautilus jungle wasn't bad before the patch either. A bit weak, yes, but not outright terrible.

If Nautilus were to recieve an additional buff though, I'd hope it only affects his Jungling. Giving him too much damage against champions kind of destroys the point of what he is supposed to be. Giving him more tank will be a problem later on, after the one shot meta passes and tanks come back. Remember Nautilus back in the tank meta?

Popperofski3/21/2019, 1:57:00 AM1 votes

Nautilus is fine. Giving him too strong of a kit will gut him like before when he was an S tier top laner, support, and even got mid lane play.