@Riot Live Balance Team: How you SHOULD be fixing Nautilus

I main jungle. I don't specifically main Nautilus, but I know that he isn't in the best spot right now. There are currently changes on the PBE to his W, Titan's Wrath, and these changes will in fact be detrimental to him. Nautilus is at his weakest during his first couple clears, but these "Buffs" on the PBE will actually make him suffer even MORE.

On live, his W shields for: 100/150/200/250/300 (+15% BONUS HP) On the PBE, his W shields for: 60/65/70/75/80 (+7/9.5/12/14.5/17% MAX HP)

At level 18 this is a large buff for him, since it is equivalent to increasing the shield to 426 (+17% BONUS HP). However, Nautilus' first clears are what make him struggle most right now, and at level 1, it provides LESS SHIELD than live, especially if you have any bonus HP from runes or masteries. The PBE change is equivalent to 100.3 (+7% Bonus HP) at level 1, which is 8% Bonus HP LESS than live. This disparity increases if you level W first (Which most jungle Nautiluses do), and the new PBE scalings only catch up to the old scalings at level 11 and later! This applies for ALL values of bonus health that you attain. The ONLY point during the game where this helps is his late game, which is not where he needs help right now.

EDIT: For those of you interested, these are the values for each shield at each level with no bonus HP assuming that you rank up W first, which is standard for jungle Nautilus (Adding bonus HP makes the scaling of the new PBE shield even more extreme, starting out significantly weaker but scaling significantly harder): LVL | Live | PBE 1... | 100 | 100.3 2... | 100 | 104.66 3... | 100 | 109.21 4... | 150 | 138.245 5... | 200 | 171.04 6... | 200 | 179.92 7.... | 250 | 218.985 8... | 250 | 230.585 9... | 300 | 276.52 10. | 300 | 291.14 11. | 300 | 306.27 12. | 300 | 321.91 13. | 300 | 338.06 14. | 300 | 354.72 15. | 300 | 371.89 16. | 300 | 389.57 17.. | 300 | 407.76 18. | 300 | 426.46

As you can see, aside from levels 1-3 where you haven't put a second point into W yet, it is a considerable nerf to his early game, which is further accentuated by getting early health items, such as the juggernaut enchantment. These changes DO introduce a more gradual curve to his shield scaling though (which is a good thing), so my only proposed change to it is to make it scale with 9/11/13/15/17% Max HP up from 7/9.5/12/14.5/17% Max HP, because this will allow his early game to be at least comparable to what it is now.

Now that that is out of the way, the few other changes that need to be made to make Nautilus ok in the current jungle are as follows:

• His base attack speed is increased to 0.625 from 0.613, and his AS per level is increased to 1.3% up from 1 percent (This changes his attack speed at 18 from 0.717 to 0.763).

• His passive's Base damage and damage per level are increased from 2 (+6xlvl) to 8 (+7xlvl) (an increase of 24 damage at level 18).

• His Dredge Line's base Damage is increased to 80/125/170/215/260 from 60/105/150/195/240, and it's AP ratio is reduced to 70% from 75%.

• Titan's Wrath's DoT on-hit is reduced by 50% when the shield breaks, instead of stopping entirely (reduced value after shield breaks would be 20/27.5/35/42.5/50 (+20% AP) over 2 seconds).

• Riptide's damage reduction for hitting multiple waves on the same target is only 25% against monsters instead of 50%, meaning that the max damage to monsters is 150/250/350/450/550 (+125% AP) up from 120/200/280/360/440 (+100% AP), While the max damage to minions and champions is unchanged.

The reason why these changes are what he needs: Nautilus is a tank jungler, and relies on his utility for potent ganks that lock down targets for long amounts of time. However, his early game is crap, and if he falls behind (failed gank, got invaded, got killed) he struggles more than most to farm the new jungle, and if he is behind in levels, his ganks have limited power and he falls further and further behind. The changes I have put forward do a few things:

1. They improve his clearing power. Nautilus relies on his passive to gain extra damage when clearing camps. Later in the game as the internal cool down decreases and the damage scales up, it is quite useful, but at level one when it deals a minuscule amount of damage and only activates once every 9 seconds, his clear speed suffers. the increase to Riptide's damage to monsters helps him clear better as well, without making him any stronger in 1v1, which would be overkill.

2. It keeps counter play while still providing buffs. His W is his main source of damage, and when jungle mobs break its shield in a matter of two hits, it really slows his clear. My solution of simply reducing the DoT effect instead of ending it keeps the counter play of "break his shield to kill his damage" without being as hurtful to the Nautilus in question. Dredge Lines base damage increase and ratio decrease help him out in full tank builds. Nautilus almost never builds AP, so most of the scalings are false power. 240 (+75% AP) is a really good scaling... for a mage who could use it. slightly increasing the base damage while nerfing the ratio removes excess "potential power" which allows him to not be as weak when played full tank.

3. It improves the "feel" of playing Nautilus. When you play a giant diving suit tank with an anchor, he should feel impactful. Having his passive hit harder makes it feel more like your actually ramming them into the ground with 500 pounds of iron (which is approximately how much his anchor would weigh). Having that little bit more base attack speed makes you feel less like you are standing there getting smacked around waiting for a cool down, but is still slow enough that it doesn't mess with his AA rhythm. Not entirely losing out on your W's DoT makes you feel more like it isn't a wasted spell that got used and has 15 more seconds left until you can reuse it (that is possibly the worst feeling from Nautilus, having your shield get popped in jungle after only two AAs, instead of more like 6 or 7).

I hope you appreciate these changes and hopefully implement them into the game, Live Balance Team.