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Recommended Items
Spells:
Smite
Flash
Ability Order
Staggering Blow (PASSIVE)
Nautilus Passive Ability
Nautilus, The Titan of the Depths - 1900 ELO Jungle Guide!
Note: There are a few sections that I could add like "When to Baron/Dragon?" ,"Counterjunglers or Counters" or "How to Gank". Those sections can possibly be helpful but as a veteran Nautilus and overall LoL player, I want YOU to encounter them first hand. There is only so much a guide can tell you to do but encountering it yourself instead of following and listening to a guide that can often be flopped because of a situational occurrence can make you a better LoL player overall knowing how to react while dealing with mechanics and etc. If there is enough demand or frequent questions about it, I'll just reluctantly add in them! :p If you need any assistance, please add "Xaioli" on the NA servers!
- Calm mind to know when to initiate and not to initiate.
- Knowing how to gank lanes.
- Ability to predict/get a rough guess where your enemy will move.
- Willingness to learn, even if you fail the first couple of times.
- To have fun!
Amazing CC (snare, slow, knockup, pseudo blitz hook)
Deals consistent damage even if you aren't building damage items
Very tanky at almost all points in the game
Has a large model so Nautilus is a great "frontline" champion
Con's
Easy to be counterjungled at levels 1-3
Even with proper masteries and runes in Move Speed, can be very slow
Early game jungle clearing is dependent on blue buff if you want to do it fast
As a Nautilus player, you have three main jungle rune set ups. They are known as jungling with attack speed, jungling with AD/ARP and the very critical runepage that revolves around maximizing Titan's Shield DoT potential. I call my Attack Speed jungle "Titan's Wrath" jungling because that's exactly what the runes benefit directly and my "AD/ArP" jungling is called "Smash the Jungle" and the Titan's Wrath DoT page "DoT Hits" so it's a bit easier to differentiate the small differences in runes that add up and can chance a defeat to a victory. Below, I explain the pages so read below!
Titan Wrath jungling is my respected and preferred rune page for all of my Nautilus games. This rune page clears the jungle at a respectable speed and ganks very well. The main feature of this rune set is for team fights where your auto attacks are very swift and you can easily switch between targets, snaring masses of enemies to protect your carries.
Greater Mark of Alacrity : The attack speed clears well but really shines in team fights, allowing you to alternate between targets in fights and snaring as many enemies as possible to protect your carries. With a faster attack speed, your applications and splash damage of Titan Wrath is high in quantity.
Greater Seal of Resilience : The armor these seals grant is essential for every jungler since it allows you to take a lot less damage from creeps in the jungle and any AD attacks you suffer from ganking. While ganking AD lanes, they will have a very rough time trying to kill you because of Armor so you are a huge threat to them. As a tanky bruiser, you want to get in people's faces and this is perfect.
Greater Seal of Shielding : MR/level is beneficial and necessary on Nautilus because he needs to be a very tanky figure in team fights and on the front line for his team, protecting his carries. While ganking enemy AP lanes, those AP carries can't damage you as much because of your scaling MR so you have a extra threat factor. Your main goal is to get in people's face and these definitely help.
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness : Move speed quints are vital on Nautilus because he's a very slow champion. When you combine Swiftness quints with proper move speed steroids in the defensive and utility trees, he is still not the fastest champion in the game but his move speed allows him to keep up with most enemy champions and can efficiently gank and be a huge presence in games.
"Smash the Jungle" is a interesting rune set up because it provides heavy damage output and it clears the jungle a bit faster than the above rune set up. When ganking, the damage is quite notable. The only downside is that it's somewhat weaker than the above set up in team fights because of it's low attack speed. The damage this rune set up provides mid-late game is somewhat neglectable since you don't build a lot of damage so that's why I prefer the one above more than this set up but it still works well!
Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Mark of Desolation x6 : You want SIX of these for just enough Armor Penetration to ignore all of the jungle creeps' armor, dealing true straight damage to them. Although you lack the attack speed compared to the first build, your damage will be very noticable in the jungle and ganks.
Greater Mark of Strength x3: You want THREE of these because the more damage is better! You have enough Armor Penetration to the point where you're doing true damage so more Armor Penetration would be overkill. Get more damage and clear the jungle faster while doing a bit more damage in ganks!
Greater Seal of Resilience : The armor these seals grant is essential for every jungler since it allows you to take a lot less damage from creeps in the jungle and any AD attacks you suffer from ganking. While ganking AD lanes, they will have a very rough time trying to kill you because of Armor so you are a huge threat to them. As a tanky bruiser, you want to get in people's faces and this is perfect.
Greater Seal of Shielding : MR/level is beneficial and necessary on Nautilus because he needs to be a very tanky figure in team fights and on the front line for his team, protecting his carries. While ganking enemy AP lanes, those AP carries can't damage you as much because of your scaling MR so you have a extra threat factor. Your main goal is to get in people's face and these definitely help.
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness : Move speed quints are vital on Nautilus because he's a very slow champion. When you combine Swiftness quints with proper move speed steroids in the defensive and utility trees, he is still not the fastest champion in the game but his move speed allows him to keep up with most enemy champions and can efficiently gank and be a huge presence in games.
Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Mark of Desolation x6 : You want SIX of these for just enough Armor Penetration to ignore all of the jungle creeps' armor, dealing true straight damage to them. Although you lack the attack speed compared to the first build, your damage will be very noticable in the jungle and ganks.
Greater Mark of Alacrityx3: You want THREE of these because according to the number crunching below, this will maximize the DOT ticks on Titan's Wrath when you build a Wit's End. This helps a bit in the jungle when clearing but not as much as 9 Alacrity marks or if you were using "Smash the Jungle".
Greater Seal of Resilience : The armor these seals grant is essential for every jungler since it allows you to take a lot less damage from creeps in the jungle and any AD attacks you suffer from ganking. While ganking AD lanes, they will have a very rough time trying to kill you because of Armor so you are a huge threat to them. As a tanky bruiser, you want to get in people's faces and this is perfect.
Greater Seal of Shielding : MR/level is beneficial and necessary on Nautilus because he needs to be a very tanky figure in team fights and on the front line for his team, protecting his carries. While ganking enemy AP lanes, those AP carries can't damage you as much because of your scaling MR so you have a extra threat factor. Your main goal is to get in people's face and these definitely help.
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness : Move speed quints are vital on Nautilus because he's a very slow champion. When you combine Swiftness quints with proper move speed steroids in the defensive and utility trees, he is still not the fastest champion in the game but his move speed allows him to keep up with most enemy champions and can efficiently gank and be a huge presence in games.
As you know, Titan's Wrath is Nautilus' "W" ability that has a shield that scales off health and applies a DOT to targets nearby the target he's auto attacking. In League of Legends, the first tick for DOT's apply instantly so in Nautilus' case where it ticks twice, it's technically only proccing for one second. Ideally if you want to maximize your damage, you want to stay under 1.0 Attack Speed so you can auto attack efficiently while having your DOT procs do the most efficient damage possible. Below, I'll show you some results after number crunching while experimenting with Nautilus' attack speed.
Nautilus Base Attack Speed: 0.721
Nautilus Attack Speed w/ Wit's End at L18: 0.966
Nautilus Attack Speed w/ 9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed at L18: .814
Wit's End & 3x Greater Mark of Attack Speed at L18: .998
Wit's End & 9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed at L7: .994
Wit's End & 9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed at L18: 1.06
As you can see from the above, running 3 red alacrity runes give you the "most" DOT damage from Titan's Wrath when you have a Wit's End at Level 18 and in LoL, every tick of damage matters. The only questionable thing about this route is that your jungle clear might be compromised a bit because of the lack of attack speed. One of the big reason why I revolve Wit's End around this rune page set up is because of how strong Wit's End is for Nautilus with it's attack speed, minor on hit damage and magic resistance.
Staggering Blow is Nautilus' innate. This is honestly one of the most broken innate's in the game because it provides a crowd control while doing heavy damage. For every basic auto attack, you will deal 2 + (6 x level) physical damage. At level 18, Nautilus will deal 110 bonus physical attack damage from every auto attack. That damage bonus is INSANE. Not only does his innate does a ton of damage, every target you hit will be immobilized for .5 seconds and scales by levels up to a whole one second. An innate with absurd damage and cc? Nautilus please! One thing I do want to add is his CC is so strong, you can tag at least two to three enemies with your snare as a team fight occurs, allowing you to protect your carries a bit right off the bat when a team fight occurs while annoying/terrifying the enemies' backline.
Dredge Line is Nautilus' Q ability. This ability is a pseudo Blitzcrank hook and pulls a target towards Nautilus where they meet each other halfway. Although Dredge Line's range is not as large as Blitzcrank's, it's a great spell to use to move around the map because whenever it hits terrain, it's cooldown is cut in half! At rank 5, the cooldown when cut in half is very minimal so the wall climbing Nautilus charging at you is a terrifying sight for the enemy team.
Titan's Wrath is Nautilus' W ability. This ability is maxed first because it provides Nautilus a shield that absorbs quite a bit of damage at all stages of the game. If that wasn't good enough for you, while his shield is active, it's a mini-Tiamat that distributes a notable DOT(damage over time) on targets near his auto attack target for the next two seconds! My goodness, that's a bit overpowered!
Riptide is Nautilus' E ability. This ability is maxed second because of it's jungle clear and slow necessary for ganking. This ability sends three riptides from Nautilus, hitting targets for a very notable amount of damage. Although targets take 50% less damage from consecutive Riptides from the same cast, the damage still packs a punch. On top of the very heavy damage output from Riptide, it applies a diminishing slow to all targets caught in the radius! Mass AOE slows in team fights are amazing.
Depth Charge is undoubtedly one of the most broken spells in the game. This spell has a relatively low cooldown, packs quite a punch as magic damage and provides a knock up. Now, this knock up isn't just a knock up. It's a HOMING KNOCK UP THAT FOLLOWS it's target, while knocking up targets targets it goes through. The potential to knock up 3+ people per team fight is very high and that can easily win your team the game.
Smite is a standard summoner spell for all junglers because of the massive true damage it deals to creeps in the jungle. Smite is almost necessary all the time as a jungler because securing your team huge objectives like Baron, Dragon and Buffs are essential. Take Smite!
Flash is a very safe and standard summoner spell for junglers. With Flash on Nautilus, you can easily catch people with combos such as Flash + Depth Charge or Flash + Dredge Line. As much as I suggest Flash on Nautilus, you can swap it out for a summoner below.
Situational and Subpar Summoners
Exhaust is a summoner that almost guarantees a kill everytime you gank or completely takes out an enemy when used in a team fight because of the reduced move speed, and whether you're AP or AD, you will be heavily affected by Exhaust. Although Exhaust is strong, it does not provide as much mobility as Ghost or Flash.
Ghost is hardly ever used but it has it's moments. Ghost is a great summoner to chase enemies but Flash honestly does so much more with it's element of surprise it provides by using sudden Dredge Lines or Depth Charges.
Red Circle: Intermediate Camps are identified as "blue (Ancient Golem Camp)" or "red (Ancient Lizard camp)" buff. When these monsters are killed, the grant a buff that lasts for a few minutes that can be extended by taking Runic Affinity in the Utility Tree. When you kill the red buff, you get Blessing of the Lizard Elder which applies a DOT (Damage over Time) and slow everytime you auto attack an enemy or hit a spell that applies debuffs. When you kill the blue buff, you get Crest of the Ancient Golem which grants increased mana regeneration and cooldown reduction. Early game, you want these buffs on you for maximum potential with ganking and jungling but as the game goes on, you want to pass blue buff to the AP carry that heavily relies on mana and cooldown reduction and the red buff to the AD carry or AD Bruiser who relies on auto attacks. When every creature is killed at the camp, the next spawn will come in the next 5 minutes. Example: If you cleared a blue buff camp at 2:10, the next camp will respawn at 7:10.
Yellow Circle: Difficult/Dangerous Camps are known as "Dragon" and "Baron Nashor". When these are killed, they grant global gold and Baron Nashor grants the buff Exalted with Baron Nashor to all alive members on the team that got the killing blow to Baron Nashor whether it was by Smite, auto attack or spells. These camps are highly treasured by both teams and giving these away for "free" is often rare. Be careful when attempting to do these camps because you will need a team with you and these are often warded so bring oracle's or pink wards! Dragon has a respawn timer of 6 minutes when killed and Baron has a respawn timer of 7 minutes or "3 minutes after the buff wears out". Example: If you killed Dragon at 11:30, the next dragon will respawn at 17:30. If you killed Baron at 25:00, the next Baron will spawn at 32:00.
Note: Dragon spawns at 2:30 and Baron spawns at 15:00.
Optimal and Standard Jungle Route
This route is Nautilus' most optimal jungle route. Starting at wolves, you venture to blue buff. After successfully beating blue buff, clear wraiths and red buff and head to gank. Standard route but very strong and fearsome.
1) Kill wolves that spawn at 1:40. Even without assistance from your team, you can easily clear these wolves and still clear blue at a fast time because Nautilus' Titan's Wrath is very strong! Note: Popping Titan's Wrath at 1:34~ is the most effective way to start because the shield lasts for ten seconds and immediately goes on it's fair cooldown the second it's popped. The shield is popped after a few seconds when wolves spawn so if you're nitpicky about your time, pop it soon to minimize time in the jungle.
2) Kill blue buff that spawns at 1:55. If you don't get assistance from your team, blue will take some time but with a proper leash and damage splash from other lanes, you can kill blue relatively fast on your own. Usually, blue buff dies at 2:10~ so remember that in 5 minutes (7:10~), blue will be back up for your team! Note: Most junglers like you run this route. 7:10 is the "magic number" because that is almost always the guaranteed time when the enemy jungler's buff that they started will come back up.
3) Wraiths are easy to clear and yield fair amount of EXP. Wraiths, double golems and wolves are all on a 1 minute cooldown on Summoner's Rift and begin the timer when all creatures of the camp are cleared.
4) Rip open red buff and take it. At this point, you don't need a leash from anyone and can easily solo it. Smite should be coming back up and you want this powerful buff that provides a DOT (Damage over Time) and slow that is essential for ganks.
5) Gank other lanes! In the map below, you can see every lane labeled with "5" has a green ring except for bot lane. The explanation for that is because in the meta game, junglers ganking top and mid lane is a very important thing. Although bot lane is very tempting to gank, massive amounts of wards placed by supports make it difficult to assault so I suggest that you stay away from bot and keep your attention on top and mid lane unless a gank bot is absolutely necessary.
6) Golems yield a fair amount of EXP and gold but I usually leave these for my bot lane or top laner to take so they can get a small advantage. I honestly hardly ever take golems because of the above reason but if you have time to do golems and find the need to do it, go for it!
Being Counterjungled Route
Nautilus can easily be counterjungled at level one. Although I hardly ever get counter jungled at my ELO in Solo Queue, you must be prepared for it!
1) Start at wraiths and kill them when they spawn at 1:40. Like the above path, you can speed through these and kill red at a fine pace.
2) At 1:55, kill red buff! If you're being counter jungled, you should ask your team for as much assistance as possible and try to kill red without using Smite because when you march to steal their blue, you are going to want to steal blue buff using Smite and run out as fast as possible. Remember the "magic number", 7:10~ will be when red is going to be back up!
3) After killing red, march across the river and kill the enemies' blue buff with Smite. Remember, these buffs have a 5 minute cool down so time when you kill it so you can control that buff!
~~ After this, gank lanes and just trust your instincts as a jungler. Don't get greedy and be smart. ~~
Note: The blue line through the middle of the map shows the "respective halves" for each jungler when counter jungling occurs. Hardly ever will you meet each other in the jungle when this happens.
Note #2: If YOU are counter jungling, you want to steal their blue and not red. The route for this would be exactly like below except you swap the numbers (1 -> 2 -> 3) to (3 -> 2 -> 1)
Philosopher's Stone is a essential gold per 10 item that gives Nautilus a well rounded early/mid game while also building into a useful item ( Shurelya's Battlesong). As this is one of my early game suggested items, this item can be grabbed before or after Heart of Gold depending on how the game is going. If you need to camp a lane and want to rely on the sustain, grab this before Heart of Gold.
Heart of Gold is very similar to Philosopher's Stone, giving Nautilus early tankiness and a steady income. Heart of Gold (HoG) builds smoothly into a Randuin's Omen that is very nice for Nautilus. As this is one of my early game suggested items, this item can be grabbed before or after Heart of Gold depending on how the game is going. If you just want to gank well and want to maximize the potential of early game Titan's Wrath, take this since your shield scales well with Health. People argue about the sustain Philo Stone gives but with recent buffs to the jungle, health and mana are easy to rejuvenate from camps.
Oracle's Elixir is a very important item as a jungler. It gives early control over baron by clearing wards while also allowing Nautilus to gank efficiently and instill paranoia into the enemy everytime their ward is killed. Also this is somewhat expensive early game and is a huge loss if you die, with smart play, Oracle's pays off a lot.
Mobility Boots is a situational item on Nautilus that is sold off later in the game but is amazing early game for the mobility it provides Nautilus. As a very bulky champion, Naut wants to move swiftly while being a terrorized ganker. You usually sell these off late into the game for Mercury's Treads.
Aegis of the Legion is a very standard item for most junglers. This item allows you and your team to be relatively tanky while giving a minor damage increase for your team.
Frozen Heart is a core item on Nautilus because it provides tankiness against AD champions and minions while providing cooldown reduction to have more hooks, shields, slows and knockups with an AOE attack speed slow to enemies around the wearer of Frozen Heart!
Randuin's Omen is also a core item on Nautilus that builds straight from Heart of Gold. This item provides a fair amount of Armor; Health, Health Regeneration, Cooldown Reduction and a 35% chance to make the attacker have a slow towards their move speed and attack speed. The Activation of Randuin's Omen slows the attack and move speed of all enemies in a radius by 35% for 2 seconds and is increased per 100 Armor and MR you have.
Guardian Angel is a item most champions aim to get later in the game. Comparing this item to others, it is definitely one you want and shouldn't be super high in priority but it's just amazing overall because it brings you back to life if you somehow die and provides Armor and Magic Resist.
Ninja Tabi is a fine alternative to Boots of Mobility or Mercury's Treads if the enemy team is literally full of AD damage. These boots are definitely situational but can become quite handy.
Mercury's Treads is a standard boot item that you sell Mobility Boots for because of the Tenacity (reduced Crowd Control) and Magic Resistance it grants. Self explanatory but it's indeed a great item when Boots of Mobility falls off a bit late game compared to it's early and mid game.
Wit's End is a fantastic item on Nautilus because of it's Magic Resist, minor damage on hit and attack speed it grants Nautilus. This item synergizes very well with Nautilus' abilities and makes him a very strong powerhouse while being tanky against AP casters.
Guardian Angel is a item most champions aim to get later in the game. Comparing this item to others, it is definitely one you want and shouldn't be super high in priority but it's just amazing overall because it brings you back to life if you somehow die and provides Armor and Magic Resist.
Abyssal Mask is very hysterical but scary on Nautilus. Asides from jungling, Nautilus is known for being a strong AP carry because of his semi decent ratios on all of his magic dealing abilities. With Abyssal Scepter, you gain a bit of Ability Power to increase your damage output, gaining Magic Resistance to withstand AP attacks while reducing all enemies' Magic Resist thanks to Abyssal Scepter's aura de-buff.
Force of Nature is an item that I honestly don't recommend but is situational. Force of Nature grants Nautilus move speed, magic resistance and health regeneration but is not as strong as other MR items when compared.
Maw of Malmortius is undoubtedly one of the most broken and "OP" items in the game right now. Like Force of Nature, I don't recommend this item on Nautilus but it's situational. The magic resistance it provides while having a minor spell shield when near death is amazing plus AD damage to deal more with auto attacks is very nice for Nautilus. When compared to other items, it's not as strong but once again, it's situational!
Banshee's Veil is one of Nautilus' worse items possible when compared to others just because the spell bubble does not help as much as one would think for a tanky champion like Nautilus. You are going to be the front line and you're going to get it popped by a weak spammable ability instead of negating a ultimate-like spell. The magic resistance and health/mana it gives is neglectable.
Warmog's Armor is an item that extremely situation on Nautilus because of it's high cost and requirement to farm in the jungle. I honestly hardly ever get this item but it's definitely on my "situational items" list because of the health it provides on Nautilus that scales extremely well with Titan's Wrath and because asides from MR, Health is a hard counter to AP damage.
Shurelya's Battlesong is honestly the only Utility Item I build on Nautilus because as Jungle Naut, you primarily want to be tanky. Shurelya's is the only exception because of it's incredible burst of move speed that you can use to escape or initiate with. A very nice item that's core on Nautilus. Also, it builds out of Philosopher's Stone, a GP/10 you should have from your early game!
Situational Item Start
Cloth Armor + Health Potionx5
* Cloth Armor is a very nice item that smoothly builds into Aegis of the Legion. Cloth Armor allows you to be very tanky in the jungle while also being able to eat autos when you gank. Potions are self-explanatory and provide nice sustain in the jungle and recovering HP after ganks.
Cloth Armor + Health Potionx2 + Sight Ward
*This start is very similar to the one above except there is less potions to rejuvenate HP off of. The main reason why I suggest this build at times is that the Sight Ward allows you to see enemies invading your jungle, especially with the sudden resurgence of strong early game invaders like Alistar, Blitzcrank and Taric.
Boots + Health Potionx3
*This start is a very standard item build for all junglers giving decent sustain while being very mobile. As much as I love this start, Cloth Armor is just too safe of a pick. Boots start is definitely fine though
Winning the Game Hard?
When I say "winning the game hard", I mean that if you yourself have a few kills under your belt and your CS is absolutely crushing the enemy jungler. In this case, just skip an Aegis and go straight for a Wit's End. If you have a Wit's End and was crushing the enemy before, you will just smash their faces and a 20 minute surrender is almost guaranteed.
1942 ELO game as Nautilus versus Saintvicious from Curse and CruzertheBruzer from Team Legion!
1940~ ELO game as Nautilus with imaqtpie from Dignitas!
1952~ ELO game as Nautilus with chu8's "smurf" apparently!
Ranked Stats for Nautilus as of 5/14/2012. Win Ratio isn't anything special but the KDA shows that even if I lost, most of the time, the games were close.
Note: Even though I only have 36 Naut in Ranked, I have A TON in Normals. :<
Game Replay 1: http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/471870/
-1952 ELO Ranked Game as Nautilus. This game, I didn't really need Wit's End and wanted to prioritize tankiness since my team was pretty squishy. For the most part, I think my plays were pretty solid except for the moment when I abandoned my team to clear wraiths because I thought that waiting until baron is better than trying to outseige a Lux. Anyways, I hope you can learn one or two tricks from this replay!
Game Replay 2:
*** LoL Recorder Broke and I couldn't upload it. I'll try my best to fix this and get this section updated as possible! ***
Note: If you want me to talk/make a guide for Top/AP Naut/Support Naut, please let me know in the comments or through messages and I will think about it!
5/17/2012 - Minor additions and clarification on items like Philo and HoG.
5/27/2012 - Added a section to runes where you can maximize Titan's Wrath DoT @ L18 w/ Wit's End whiling sacrificing a bit in the Early Game.
5/29/2012 - Added a screenshot of 1952 game as Nautilus. First Replay added and it's a Solo Queue Game!
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