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Let's Talk about Nautilus

Fulminous Edge·3/5/2014, 5:17:58 PM·4 votes·1,123 views

I've always enjoyed Nautilus as a jungler. He's by no means top tier but he's far from unviable. However, for a number of reasons, he seams to be slowly falling under the radar as a result of indirect nerfs and shifts in the meta.

There are a few things to point out about Nautilus:

-He is the CC King, with a root, hook, slow and knock-up all in one kit.

-He is very tanky with decent base stats as well as a powerfull shield.

-He is a strong ganker with all his CC, terrifying at level 6 with ult > hook > root > Slow.

-He works well in team fights as an initiator, counter initiator, peeler and all around disruption.

These strengths come at the cost of:

-Slow Clear speed and poor objective control

-VERY slow (325 base moves peed makes you a snail of a jungler)

-Weak duelest and vulnerable to counter jungle

-Horrid damage scaling, moderate early damage to negligable late game damage, deals 0 damage when shield is broken.

Now, we have a set of strengths countered by a set of weaknesses, there are situations where you are strong and situations where you are vulnerable. In season 3 I was even able to build up nautilus in a way to counter some of his weaknesses so I could better take advantage of his strengths.

-Movespeed Quints + mobility boots compensated for his low mobility and uped his map presence/ ability to gank

-9 Points in Offence gave 8% spell pen which helped his high base damage but low scaling carry over into the late game.

-Attack speed marks have synergy with his W for clear speed.

Needless to say a few things have changed since season 3;

-The base damage on Nautilus' W was reduced by 30 at rank 5

-Magic pen mastery moved out of reach for players who build defence

-Ancient Golem (core item) health reduced by 150

-Mobility boots (core item) nerfed to 25 based movespeed from 45

All of these changes hurt Nautlius and the recent Moby boot nerfs felt like the fianl nail in the coffin. At the very least Riot has mentioned that they will look into changes if needed as a result of the moby boot nerf. This is proven true with the recent Nautilus buffs on the PBE.

-Health scaling on shield up to 15% from 10%

-Shield CD now 18 at all ranks from 22/21/20/19/18

When I first saw the buffs on the PBE I thought: "neat!" but then I thought: "Eh...". Both buffs are pretty big, A full tank Naut will get anywhere between 75 and 90 Hp on his shield later in the game with a full build and an extra 17-20 HP when you finish Golem going into mid game. The CDR for earlier levels will help his early clear and sustain a fair bit.

However; neither of these changes compensate for his lack of damage and lack of mobility.

I would like to propose the following changes in addition to the 2 currently on the PBE

-Base Movement Speed increased to 335 from 325

-Titan's Wrath (W) now passively causes Nautilus' basic attacks to do an additional 5% of his bonus health in bonus magic damage while the shield is down.

-Titan's Wrath (W) Damage changed to 35/45/55/65/75 + 10% of bonus Health from 40/55/70/85/100

What are your thoughts on Nautlius?

TL/DR: Indirect nerfs from Core item Changes (Golem health nerf and moby boot nerfs)as well as Mastery changes putting spell pen out of reach hurt Nautilus. PBE buffs are nice but if he wants to be a stronger, more viable pick he needs a little more mobility and better damage scaling (I suggested bonus health scaling on W).

7 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum3/5/2014, 5:27:29 PM4 votes

Personally I don't agree with the ms increase or the W 'while shield is down'.

As you said Naut is the king of cc and the only real way to fight against that before BV is to out-position and ms increase more than exponentially increases his cc potential. His ult, snare and gap closer is plenty of movement based power imho.

As for the W, I do agree having the damage buff tied in with the shield is a bit annoying, as doing your job (tank) actively denies you damage, as such I think a good compromise would be to separate the damage buff and the shield, as in when W is popped the damage buff is on a timer, so if the shield goes down before that time it wouldn't take the damage away. But I don't believe a constant passive on his W is the way to go, although I'm open to debate on that.

Sire Hippington3/5/2014, 8:38:35 PM3 votes

I think the pbe buffs are not that great. The cd buff is nice and needed, but more scaling will just increase the feast or famine nature of his W.

If he's ahead and can afford some nice health, his shield will be huge and with the shield up his dmg is quite high, but if he's behind he will still get his shield popped very fast and with that loose ~50% of his total dmg.

They real have to seperate the dmg and shield part of his W, so his bonus dmg stays a set time and doesn't vanish if the shield gets broken, this would be the most important change for Nauti, else he would always be a feast or femin champ.

I think he needs a bit more base AS for better early clear (all cc-tanks need a buff to their early clear actually)

His ms is fine for his kit, but they could indirectly buff it if his Q would refound 50% mana if u use it at an wall. Currently, i rarly find it usefull to use the wall-hooks, as i will be oom in no time.

I think rather than giving him offensive scalings from defensive stats, rather give him a bit better ap-scalings for more lategame dmg, as offensive scalings from defensive stats tend to be extremely snowbally, just like defensive scalings from ofensive stats(riven, diana...)

RiotTheRealCarlSagan3/5/2014, 5:37:32 PM2 votes

Nautilus that is all

Tulare3/5/2014, 6:48:43 PM1 votes

I can't dispute your position with numbers but my experience with Nautilus causes me to disagree with your conclusions, specifically that he needs/deserves buffs to MS and damage.

Regarding mobility, I think he's slow by deliberate decision. Forcing him to decide between using his Q to dash to terrain or to catch enemies is interesting. It's a skill-testing choice. If he were fast enough that it were never a good idea to hook terrain, that unique aspect of his kit would be meaningless.

Regarding damage, I think there are plenty of alternatives. I think his itemization is more flexible than you're making it out to be. If you want a little more damage, build Rod of the Ages, Spirit of the Elder Lizard, or Liandry's Torment. If you want a lot more damage, build Lich Bane, Nashor's Tooth, or Deathfire Grasp. It he less durable that way? Of course. But it's possible that launching yourself like a cannonball into the midst of the enemy will create a big enough initial splash that your team can capitalize on your risk.

NovaSpectre3/5/2014, 10:07:49 PM1 votes

Little known fact about Nautilus's Q: The CD is halved if it collides with terrain. Provided you have some mana sustain (Blue buff, itemization), and CDR (same), Nautilus is actually one of the more mobile champions in the game. At max rank, a terrain-hook has a CD of ~3.5s after CDR.