nautilus's identity as THE CC monster got stolen from him

Mens Hair Club·Sep 3, 2017·54 votes·3,784 views

back in the day nobody could pump out as much CC as naut could -- not as often and not as reliably.

these days (before gutted) out-CC him like it was nothing. not only that but unlike naut's pussy slow spam these guys are packing oodles of hard CC and displacements on negligible cooldowns

BEFORE we buff Nautilus, realize that he has now lost his identity and has sunk into the depths of "will only be playable if his CC is more broken than the other CC bot tanks" like these sad sacks did with their reworks. it's sad to say that he will probably need to be changed on a bigger scale if you want him to stand on his own unique strengths again

88 Comments

Cloud273Sep 3, 201736 votes

CC is not the only reason why Nautilus is a strong champ. There actually are several things that make him unique from other tanks. Nautilus can shield himself whenever he wants (without using items), and the shield actually scales with a stat that he purchases regularly (health). Additionally, Nautilus can get the shield the instant he wants it, unlike someone like Poppy, who needs to pick up an item before she gets her shield. Furthermore, Nautilus ult cannot be dodged and has the potential to knock up numerous enemies. Finally, Nautilus doesn't need to walk into the backline in order to cc someone. Someone like Zac or Galio has to literally jump into the enemy's backline in order to cc anyone, which obviously leaves them open to retaliation from the enemy.

Asayake 5150glowSep 3, 201723 votes

{quoted}

CC is not the only reason why Nautilus is a strong champ. There actually are several things that make him unique from other tanks. Nautilus can shield himself whenever he wants (without using items), and the shield actually scales with a stat that he purchases regularly (health). Additionally, Nautilus can get the shield the instant he wants it, unlike someone like Poppy, who needs to pick up an item before she gets her shield. Furthermore, Nautilus ult cannot be dodged and has the potential to knock up numerous enemies. Finally, Nautilus doesn't need to walk into the backline in order to cc someone. Someone like Zac or Galio has to literally jump into the enemy's backline in order to cc anyone, which obviously leaves them open to retaliation from the enemy.

^this, also Naut's shield is fucking insane. It lasts for a really long time, too.

LordGeovanniSep 4, 20173 votes

it last for a long time but its not large enough that its cant be destroyed and it has a long downtime i could build 1 ap item when it had an ap scaling and get just as good a shield with ROA

SnowplosionSep 4, 20173 votes

On the flip side him not actually going into the back line was one of his weakness. In meta's where front to back team fighting is best he can't really get back the other tanks and he is forced to peel rather than threaten carries.

OyddAWqJ5rSep 4, 20173 votes

I think the idea that Nautilus was the premier CC tank is a bit of a fallacy. Yes he has alot of CC but the real thing keeping enemies locked down was how tanky he was, not how much CC he was putting out.

His kit is designed to be a warden, basically a stand still and tell everyone to f off kind of kit. When he was excessively tanky this was much more pronounced as he can wall off enemies with his mere presence as opposed to his bountiful CC.

So when Nautilus stopped being the unkillable monster that he was due to shield nerfs, his identity as the impassable wall disappeared. And as a side effect his ability to wall off enemies was diminished.

Since then he has actually gotten buffs to his CC tools in exchange for his survivability. But his identity as a human wall went away.

Basically, he was never the premier CC tank. He was the premier Warden due to his tankiness combined with his CC. He can definitely still lockdown a single target--he just doesn't live as long in a 5 man crowd when doing it.

OyddAWqJ5rSep 4, 20175 votes

This is also why Sejauni, Maokai, Zac and Galio are seen as the premier CC tanks now. The "CC" part isn't what's making them so strong at locking people down--it's the fact that they are so tanky and you can't just walk past them and killing them takes decades.

Ofcourse their CC plays a large part, but it's the unkillable factor that allows CC tanks to remain constant CC threats throughout a fight since they never have to back off and have no problem literally body blocking enemies off from a fight--things that the aforementioned have in excess.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 4, 20174 votes

You know why they are so good? Because of their stupid and overloaded dmg.

Iota ThetaSep 4, 20172 votes

You mean the damage that is tied to unreliable mechanics (Maokai relying on you walking into a bush for the most damage and Sej needing to hit you four times before her damage spike)?

ganggoinkSep 4, 20174 votes

I love how boards manage to make sejuani look weak

InstaPoppySep 4, 20173 votes

{quoted}

CC is not the only reason why Nautilus is a strong champ. There actually are several things that make him unique from other tanks. Nautilus can shield himself whenever he wants (without using items), and the shield actually scales with a stat that he purchases regularly (health). Additionally, Nautilus can get the shield the instant he wants it, unlike someone like Poppy, who needs to pick up an item before she gets her shield. Furthermore, Nautilus ult cannot be dodged and has the potential to knock up numerous enemies. Finally, Nautilus doesn't need to walk into the backline in order to cc someone. Someone like Zac or Galio has to literally jump into the enemy's backline in order to cc anyone, which obviously leaves them open to retaliation from the enemy.

yea i agree, and people like to forget that the last time naut was meta this was a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbRiYV5SBAI

Bob the ToastrSep 5, 20174 votes

I think it's funny how you see that video as "Nautilus is the problem" rather than "Turrets are very weak late game". Most tanks could do that well. A Mundo, Maokai, Sejuani, or Zac could probably last that long as well.

Seriously though, turrets are basically paper late game and usually mid game as well.

kasfasSep 4, 20173 votes

He WAS however the champ who had the most hard cc in his kit, and the most OVERALL cc in his kit up until the tank screw up. Now he lacks that part of his identity, and no one will pick him for cc unless it just so happens to be stronger than everyone else's cc.

jwebb0113Sep 3, 201721 votes

the cc monster is Maokai

LOL

Mens Hair ClubSep 3, 20179 votes

rip naut

InstaPoppySep 3, 20177 votes

I know naut is shit right now but those tanks don't have a point and click aoe cc spell, you actually can dodge most of their spells.

5000000000000000Sep 4, 20173 votes

If you're talking about his ult, technically it's only point and click CC for a single target.

Doctor FillgoodSep 4, 20173 votes

{quoted}

I know naut is shit right now but those tanks don't have a point and click aoe cc spell, you actually can dodge most of their spells.

Sej does. Also, Galio just has to be near you. Also DIAF Zac is satan's boogers.

SOURCE: Enjoys Glaio and Sej.

Tanks need stupid ass amounts of CC because we're completely melted by any damage with the metric fuck ton of MR/AR ignore/Lethality/%Health damage AND the fact we need to give people a reason to focus us as opposed to walking past us, our lack of damage, and ripping our damage dealers apart then us.

Though...could probably be handled in a better way...like Galio/Shen/Rammus Taunt....ish.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 4, 20172 votes

"Lack of dmg" on sej and galio? Are you for real? Seju dmg is absolutely broken right now same as maokai. Galio still hurts like a mofucker.

SalsonSep 3, 20175 votes

Well that means he just needs more CC.

Joke's aside, yeah the CC creep is real, Rito tried to avoid damage creep so creeped something else.

Which leads me to asume there are lost of creeps in Rito.

DragonSheaSep 3, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Well that means he just needs more CC.

Joke's aside, yeah the CC creep is real, Rito tried to avoid damage creep so creeped something else.

Which leads me to asume there are lost of creeps in Rito.

Well at least they are not those kind of creeps.

creeps ain't really good because it unbalance the game.

Hexs FortuneSep 3, 20174 votes

They are giving pure tanks more hard cc, naut will get some work done eventually

Mens Hair ClubSep 3, 20176 votes

this is the opposite of what this game needs though

The Yetii RiderSep 4, 20172 votes

The game needs less CC on tanks? ...What else would a tank do?

The perfect tank, in my mind, is a champion that deals absolutely zero damage and has enough hard crowd control to make up for that.

Unfortunately, Riot can't do something like that because they've got this stupid farming system that requires every champion have at least one skill that lets them wave clear or take monsters quickly in the jungle.

That's one of the many reasons that tanks and supports have always had terrible balance. Not every champion in the game wants to do damage or kill minions, but every champion in the game is totally balanced around having gold.

NeameanSep 4, 20172 votes

They need the wave clear to lane or jungle if they don't they would be push in to support. For Alistar Leona has great cc but no damage or wave clear to farm nor retaliate.

Mens Hair ClubSep 4, 20177 votes

then there's no point in having more than 2 tanks, since you think homogeneity is good for the game keep 2 tanks and rework the rest of them into bruisers so they can actually have some diversity (like they did before the tank update)

What else would a tank do?

i don't know. amp ally magic damage? Amumu scale their damage with armor? Malphite Rammus block auto damage? Shen Braum offer map coverage to allies? TahmKench

do damage? Shen Amumu Sejuani Sion Rammus Malphite

wow, all the different things tank can do.. almost like they're more than their CC

not everybody wants to play Leona and be a useless CC bot who can't threaten a minion wave by themselves

5000000000000000Sep 4, 20172 votes

I think the point is more so how would the tanks differ from fighters. When they have high enough base damage, tanks often become fighters with better CC and durability.

Also, even if all the tanks have like 3 hard CC abilities (including passive), they can be differentiated. Here's a list of tanks with 3 hard CC. Alistar Galio Leona Maokai Ornn Poppy Sejuani Zac Poppy and Ornn are a bit of a stretch (Poppy W knockdown, Ornn W passive knockback). These 9 champions are substantially different from each other despite having a ton of CC. Alistar has a targeted AoE knockup, Galio has ranged waveclear and roaming power, Leona offers more damage, Maokai has sapling zoning, Nautilus has AoE damage and pick, Ornn has his ultimate and brittle effect, Poppy has the longest displacement ability in the game, Sejuani has melee synergy, and Zac has long range ganking.

LankPantsSep 4, 20173 votes

Sejuani has melee synergy

That's the best you can do? Shows just how bland, vanilla and generally shitty Sejuani's kit is. It was better before Riot ~~made it garbage~~ reworked it.

5000000000000000Sep 4, 20171 votes

I don't play her enough to know exactly what she offers in comparison to other tanks. If you can think of other unique strengths that Sejuani offers, my point still stands.

LankPantsSep 4, 20174 votes

If you can think of other unique strengths that Sejuani offers, my point still stands.

I can't. I think Sejuani offers the most generic strengths of any tank in the game. She's a champ who'll always either be better than the curve and pretty much a must pick as she is now or just garbage since if she's not doing what she does better than other tanks she can't do anything else.

Before her rework she was a better character with more unique strengths, people generally didn't mind playing against her (which is no longer true) and she was more balanced and balancable. I see no reason to keep the Sejuani rework TBH, it should just be reverted.

LordGeovanniSep 4, 20172 votes

Thing is tanks are supposed to have the option to opt into more damage if they want to but. the reworks destroy that by putting a delay on everything a tank does and at the same time not letting them have any good base damage or scaling damage and tank items being so shit that you NEED all of your slots into tank items or you will pop faster than an adc. without doing anything because you dont have range to leverage.

BlakiepugSep 3, 20173 votes

I would argue even Thresh is vying with Nautilus for this title at the moment.

The Yetii RiderSep 4, 20173 votes

You would lose that argument. Thresh has three forms of CC, one of which is just a slow and the other two can be dodged.

Nautilus has four forms of CC, including two point and click abilities and a faster hook (both hooks have a range of 1100, but Nautilus's speed is 2000 while Thresh's is 1900).

BlakiepugSep 4, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=nqJ8zwbE,comment-id=00080000,timestamp=2017-09-04T00:15:41.260+0000)

You would lose that argument. Thresh has three forms of CC, one of which is just a slow and the other two can be dodged.

Nautilus has four forms of CC, including two point and click abilities and a faster hook (both hooks have a range of 1100, but Nautilus's speed is 2000 while Thresh's is 1900).

Thresh: Hook with a long stun and cd reset so that he can keep you stunned frequently. Flay displacement/drag back. Ult provides a strong slow.

Nautilus: Hook with a short stun. Root on auto attack. E has a light slow. Ult is a knock-up with a stun on anyone hit along the way.

You can't say that CC is negligible just because it can be dodged. Thresh's hook is more rewarding and reliable in terms of the CC it provides which is why it is "harder" to land. You mention that Nautilus has two point and click abilities (by which I assume you mean his ult and auto attack) but you must keep in mind that one of them, his auto, is a lot harder to access given its short range, Naut's speed, and that it is single target. Not saying it's not an incredibly important piece of Naut's kit, but it does have significantly less range than what people are used to when they say point and click.

Baka RedSep 6, 20172 votes

Just a small clarification/fix: Nautilus passive/auto attack has Root, not Stun. There is a big meaningful difference. You aren't the only person I see calling Root effects Stuns, but you guys should get your terminology right. Those kinds of mistakes may make you look incompetent. Similarly Nautilus ult knocks people up Airborne who are hit by the depth charge while it tracks the primary target. Airborne isn't technically a stun but something slightly stronger.

LankPantsSep 4, 20173 votes

The tank rework was an absolute joke. Riot took 3 champs with fairly strong identities and completely homogenised them into the exact same thing, which just so happened to be Naut's niche beforehand.

it's sad to say that he will probably need to be changed on a bigger scale if you want him to stand on his own unique strengths again

I don't think he does, I think Sej, Maokai, Zac and Galio do.

Sej and Zac should just be reverted, Maokai should have his R reverted and his W looked at for a complete rework. As for Galio they should probably consider some moderate scope reworks to his R because that spell's just far too good.

NineTailedMysticSep 4, 20172 votes

Zac can be reverted if he loses a lot of his ambient damage. Same with Sej, but either her R or her ambient damage needs to change.

LankPantsSep 4, 20173 votes

I don't view Sej's or Zac's AoE damage as particularly problematic. With their old kits they actually made appropriate tradeoffs for that damage.

Sej was glass relative to other tanks and her CC was generally far less reliable and she generally just had less of it.

Zac didn't actually have that much damage, I'd say his damage is only slightly lower than prerework, Unstable Matter still does the same damage and his Q's damage is quite a bit higher assuming Zac has more than 1800 HP. Even his R does more damage until 2 bounces. I wonder why giving a champ an extra CC without really removing anything from their kit would be problematic?

Overall though I fail to see how these two champs were at all problems before. They both had above average pickrates for jungle tanks (who were pretty garbage sans Gragas) and even when they were strong but not broken they were rarely banned. People actually enjoyed playing the champs and they weren't utter cancer to play against. Sej and Zac for reworks was just an utterly baffling choice and the outcome of the reworks reflects that lack of anything resembling insight on Riot's part.

NineTailedMysticSep 4, 20172 votes

Zac had a lot of burst damage for a Tank that was complimented with sustained damage with his R pre rework. I remember taking 60+% of my HP as a squishy from a Zac basic rotation. He bought an Abyssal (pre Mask) and would have one rotationed me with his R if my Support didn't save me. New Zac's damage is a lot more avoidable and delayed, but not enough to warrant still being so high.

Sej was only picked if you liked her or if you wanted her R. By lowering her damage or changing her R they could have put more power into her kit without a rather poor Update like now.

The Yetii RiderSep 4, 20171 votes

Zac and Galio aside, it's ridiculous that you are bringing Sejuani into this. Sejuani's E and her ult share a cooldown, you have to wait for a certain amount of time before stunning someone twice even with two different abilities. Sejuani has a lot of CC, sure, but she can't chain lockdown someone like Nautilus can.

Nagoh ShanSep 4, 20173 votes

Only if you chain it wrong. You can get the Double CC if you proc her E, then ult afterward, as her ult doesn't respect the cooldown.

Mens Hair ClubSep 4, 20174 votes

you don't even know about sejuani, why you talking about her?

sej's R doesn't care if her E put the stun on cooldown. E->R is 4 seconds of chain stunning. R->E does not work

My Waifu VanillaSep 4, 20171 votes

I mean if you are in a position where you get hit by Sej's E and THEN her R you deserve to die because that means Sejuani (or another melee) got in range of you to auto attack you 4 times BEFORE Sej used her ult. AKA you are hella out of position.

Mens Hair ClubSep 4, 20174 votes

way out of position as a melee fighter trying to teamfight

should've stayed in my side lane, you're right

LankPantsSep 4, 20172 votes

Should just stay in your base and never step anywhere near Sej or her melee allies. "Counterplay" and such.

My Waifu VanillaSep 4, 20172 votes

If Sej wants to use her entire kit on you as a melee fighter you should be winning the fight then because she blew the only thing that makes her useful in teamfights (her ult) on a melee while your ADC now has basically free reign to auto attack for 4+ seconds while they keep attacking YOU. Welcome to being melee in an ADC centric meta. You are nothing more than a distraction made to let your ADC have reign to do whatever they want with their Ardent Censer buffs.

LankPantsSep 4, 20172 votes

Her E has a 1.5 sec CD, her W has a 5 second CD, Sej is great at shutting down melee's because they have to move within her range to have any effect and once they're in her range she doesn't have to blow any significant CDs to CC them for a fairly significant length of time.

She almost never has to blow her entire kit to stop a fighter, even if she does she'll still get her spammable W and E back anyway and be able to do things again damn near instantly.

LankPantsSep 4, 20173 votes

Sejuani's rework made her the most cancer tank other than maybe Zac after his garbage rework.

Sejuani has a lot of CC, sure, but she can't chain lockdown someone like Nautilus can.

Q chains into W slow which chains into E which chains into R. Sejuani has better chain CC than Naut.

pro rusher 2Sep 4, 20171 votes

Natulus has more cc that you just cant miss

LankPantsSep 4, 20172 votes

In what way?

Sejuani has a longer raw CC duration when counting only hard CCs and equal when soft CCs are factored, her max single target hard CC duration is 4.5 seconds and +soft it's around 5.5 since she can lead with W and get it off CD before the CC chain ends. Naut caps out at about 4 seconds of hard CC, maybe a tiny bit longer since Dredge Line is an odd spell, with soft CC this goes up to 5.5 seconds.

Sejuani also wins out on severity in general, their Qs are both displaces with Naut's generally being marginally better and Naut's ult is slightly more severe being a knockup over a stun, Sej wins however because of how much more severe a stun is to a root.

You can look at pretty much any metric to do with CC and Sej wins out. There really isn't way too look at Naut and Sej and say Naut has more CC.

My Waifu VanillaSep 4, 20172 votes

Naut will almost always have much more CC applied though. Sej ult CAN and generally WILL miss since the rework made the stun zone incredibly unreliable whereas Naut Ult WILL knock someone up for 2 (?) seconds at level 16 and also snag someone else along the way. Sej HAS to hit ult to chain CC whereas Nautilus doesn't have to hit a single ability in his entire kit to get the CC train rolling. Also in terms of AoE CC Nautilus also wins out since it is much more likely that Naut slows multiple people with his E (as opposed to Sej W which may not slow at all since it is yet again another ability that CAN MISS as opposed to point blank Naut E) and Nautilus ult has the CHANCE to stun multiple people while Sej ult will ONLY stun the first person hit.