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Wait...why is Nautilus strong?

TehNACHO··1 votes·1,902 views

So Nautilus is both the highest win rate champ in top lane atm and the most popular contender.

However.

He has almost nothing else going for him.

He doesn't earn much gold or many kills so imagining him as a hard carry is...weird.

He also doesn't do much damage or even tank that much damage so in terms of battle stats he's kinda just...there.

And he's got a good thing going for him that he doesn't die much, but again he doesn't take that much damage so...

I honestly don't get it. The only redeeming factor he seems to have is his surplus in assists. However if this is the core factor carrying him above everything else, it's weird then that the top performers in top lane are not utility based tanks. The only other utility tank there is Sion and I guess technically Singed depending on your definition of a utility tank.

What is it then that leads him to have such a fantastic win rate and even leaves him as a general top performer in top lane?

3 Comments

RageRigger1 votes

Hi as a mid-silver sion main, I don't know if my input is quite meaningful but I went up against a few nautiluses... nautilusees? Nautilates? Nvm...

The thing about naut is that even though physical damage on magic damage based tanks isn't that great, he can land a bunch of those with his passive root and anchor. However what DOES make him really strong and deal tons of damage is the following: Naut has a sheild and when he puts it up, the smart thing to do is naut fight him right? Wrong. His shockwave-like ability (Is it called shockwave? idk) Deals a decent amount of base damage but the kicker is this. When he throws his sheild on, every other toplane tank know that the best option to avoid unnecessary trading is to turn around and move back and wait it out... however this is exactly what nautilus wants. That friggin spell will hit you twice if you're running away! might even hit you three times if you're stupid and you buy swifties like I did since they kill the slow and give you extra movespeed. This way, nautilus is able to do TONS of damage with an ability that has moderately low cooldown and ridiculusly low mana cost. So this slows you, he walks up to you, roots you, walks up a little, hits you again, anchors you, hits you again and then goes back to the wave to farm some more.

This makes him the Master of trading to everyone who doesn't know they have to hit S when he throws his shockwave down. It's counter-intuitive because nobody wants to get smacked by a nautilus and there's so many ways he can trick you into getting hit twice by that.

Thing is naut is one of those champs you just don't want to get anywhere close to and if you're a toplane tank you really don't ahve much choice. Naut isn't really that good, people just don't know how to play against him and despite the high-skill riven mains and clever fiora mains, naut is relatively low skill cap and still very useful in teamfights and late game seiging. He's op.

xl Kirito lx1 votes

Point + click ultimate. People are starting to realize in the "Kill the ADC meta", champions without counterplay are strong.

Real thou, he has good bases, and respectable burst. Constant DPS in fights due to his E, nice snares with his passive. Shield gives him tankiness, minor AOE. He's a strong champion, been for the ADC meta. I'm more surprised it's not taken to jungle yet. He has abusive early ganks, albeit lacks the ability to move.

Zodiac Sector 51 votes

Nautilus is beast when you play him ap top lane item 3027 item 3116 item 3151 item 3025 item 3157 item 3050 and the right masteries and runes I can go like how is shown in some of my match history in rank I went 12/0/? 15/1/? 21/4/? 13/2/? 23/7/? I play him very well I own all his skinz and have a mastery points up to 668.1k I love the guy I play him top, mid, support ,jung he's so balance it depends on your build and how you are going to fight how I like to fight is using his passive and also harass with Q and E warlords work well with him I like to use ignite with Nautilus to make use I keep the pressure and if all else fails Q and then E and then land a ignite and W and walk away?

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