In-Game Nautilus and Lore Nautilus Seem Completely Different
A quick refresher on Naut's lore in case anyone isn't familiar with it:
Back in the good old days Nautilus was just another sailor guy who was hired to go sailing with a bunch of other normal sailor guys to investigate this weird black gooey stuff at the bottom of the sea. While investigating the stuff in a bulky diving suit, the goo starts sucking Nautilus in. Presumably because he's just that attractive. The other sailor guys feel the boat getting sucked into the goo too and start cutting any lines which are dragging them down, like the anchor line and Nautilus' air hose and other such unnecessary stuff. Nautilus decides to conserve air by going unconscious. He's clever like that.
Nautilus regains consciousness and discovers he's now fused to his diving suit. He also remembers he was left to die by the other sailor guys. Since he doesn't have anything better to do, he starts walking around looking for revenge. And a bottle of Goo Gone.
Fast forward a bit and Naut has been walking around for a long time and ends up in the League. He fights in the League because lore.
Some notable things about Nautilus' lore:
- Even pre-gooification Naut isn't afraid to take one for the team and be the first to look at the goo.
- Naut's revenge-powered angermobile isn't the explosive kind like Diana, who goes around dropping moons everywhere. Naut's is the slow burning kind.
- Nautilus doesn't want the fast sort of revenge that only kills people. He wants the gradual "the bottom of the ocean is this tedious" kind of revenge.
That's great then, right? Lore Nautilus sounds like a slow-moving tank who can wade through anything to slowly drag down his targets, right? I bet his kit emphasizes survivability and taking people down with you at the cost of moving at the speed of rocks, right?
Well, not quite. Nautilus' kit in a nutshell is:
- Passive: Your AAs can root targets and deal extra damage every few seconds.
- Q: Throw out an anchor that either pulls you toward terrain or stops a target while bringing you both into melee range.
- W: Get a shield that lets you deal AoE magic damage as long as it holds up.
- E: Slow people around you. People running away are slowed even more.
- R: Knock up and stun a guy and maybe some other people too.
On paper it looks fine. His passive makes AAing feel good even if you're only landing one AA a year, his Q gets him into range or out of a fight he doesn't want to be in, his W makes him tanky and gives him damage, his E makes people stay near him, and his R makes sure they can't get away. Simple enough.
Only that's not the way the kit plays.
His Q can't be used for escaping because anyone who's played against Naut knows to keep running forward when Naut stops to throw his anchor and it can't be used for engaging because using it to get into range means burning a valuable displacement. When the laning phase is over and Naut isn't ganking so often, Q just feels clunky and lackluster. Not to mention it was intended as a moment of agility for a champion with a major theme of moving slowly. I will admit it feels good while ganking as a post-flash "get back here" ability, but lategame when the squishies have a front line, it isn't used much aside from getting out of your base faster.
His W can't decide if it's his main source of durability or his main source of damage. Some people say the conscious decision to use his W for damage or to tank a shot is part of the fun, but I've never seen any Nautiluses wait before popping the shield to maximize damage because of the absolutely pitiful damage it does. Unless your target has no MR and just sits there without breaking your shield, you're barely adding to your damage.
His ult actually has a pretty long range. 825 units is longer than even Tristana's maximum AA range. The range is so long you can forget all about being slow because whoever you want to ult is probably in range anyway. Not exactly a good thing in my opinion. I'll concede that if the range were shorter it would be harder to knock people up with the secondary explosions, but currently the range feels unfittingly long compared to the rest of his melee-ranged kit.
Honestly, I'm not really sure what I'm asking for for Nautilus' kit. I know it would be nice if he played more like a tanky CC-focused sustained damage dealer instead of a "blow everything in the first five seconds and then just chill because you have no damage" kind of guy, but I'm afraid that giving any champion Naut-levels of CC and decent damage - even damage over time - would be difficult to balance. The only counterplay would be to avoid the slower-than-frozen-molasses Naut, which isn't very fun. Anyway, I've said my piece, so if anyone has anything to add, feel free to share.
