Welcome to my Nautilus champion guide here on MOBAfire. In this you will be exposed to everything there is to know about how to play and itemize easily one of the best new champions Riot has released in recent memory, Nautilus: Titan of the Depths. Keep in mind that this is a full guide NOT simply a generic build, so do not judge it as such. When voting and commenting please consider the entirety of the strategy rather than just focusing on items alone (although I'm sure you'll agree with my claims once you try the build as well). Now without further ado, especially since I'm sure 90% of you skipped this section entirely, let's begin.

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greater mark of desolation

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philosopher's stone

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Nautilus is an amazing new champion who is a true CC machine with four out of his five abilities providing some sort of crowd control effect. He is a strong melee bruiser adept at sticking to his target and dealing significant damage while they remain locked in CC. This champion is very tanky by default and near unkillable if built into a defensive role. This guide focuses on creating a very frightening tanky hybrid DPS champion who will punish enemies who are caught out of position. Being the tanky bruiser he is, it is easy to stick to the enemy carry and completely disable them while simultaneously dealing enough damage to take them out of the fight. Positioning is key to playing Nautilus as his abilities require his proximity to the enemy while avoiding being kited by ranged champions with their own forms of CC. This champion is not easy to play but very rewarding once you understand his skillset and strategy. He has good and bad matchups as anyone does but skilled use of his abilities and positioning can turn the tide of near any fight. It is my hope that this guide will confer some of my experience with this incredible new champion and enlighten you with an original way to build and play Nautilus: the titan of the depths.

Basic Statistics

Damage Attack Speed Health Mana Movement Speed Attack Range Armour Magic Resistance Health Regeneration Mana Regeneration

52 (+3.30 / level) 0.613 (+0.98% / level) 432 (+86 / level) 200 (+50 / level) 300 175 12 (+3.25 / level) 30 (+1.25 / level) 7.45 (+0.55 / level) 7.45 (+0.70 / level)

Pros +Powerful duelist +Many forms of crowd control +High anti-carry potential +Inherently tanky with +Large teamfight disruptor +AoE pushing ability

Cons -Outharassed by ranged opponents -Difficult early game (lane & jungle) -Skillshot gap closer (can be blocked) -Farm-dependent itemization - DoT only active while shield persists -Slow base movement and attack speed

Flash Easily the most invaluable summoner spell available. This will allow you to initiate ganks as a jungler, avoid ganks as a laner, escape from tower aggro, close the gap for a kill, and juke over walls. The possibilities with this spell are endless and that's precisely why you and nearly every other player will take this. This one is pretty much irreplaceable in my honest opinion.

Ignite I have seen more and more top laners packing this to give them an advantage in those 1v1 exchanges that sometimes occur in a less gentlemanly lane phase. Champions like Riven and Gangplank who need to get fed early will often take this and be very aggressive against a more passive opponent. You don't want to be the one without it when those inevitable exchanges occur. This spell will add a considerable amount of true damage to our combo that will most often secure a kill against your typical top lane matchup. Not to mention it is a very effective counter to heal-based champions such as Vladimir or Dr. Mundo.

Teleport If you intend to take the top lane as any farm-dependent melee bruiser should, then teleport will be your instant channel back into lane after your recall. This means you won't miss out on farm and experience in the laning phase if you're forced to recall due to harassment or simply to go back and buy a critical item. Later in the game this allows you to split push, rejoin your team gathered in a lane, assist in taking towers, baron, or dragon, and instantly initiate ganks from brush. Overall a useful skill all throughout the game, definitely take this if you prefer it over Ignite for all the aforementioned uses.

Smite If you intend to play Nautilus as a jungler, this spell is non-negotiable. It speeds up your miserably slow early clear times, allows you to secure important buffs such as dragon and baron when contested, and allows you to do some counter-jungling of your own. I shouldn't have to explain much more as to why this is crucial for junglers, the minion true damage is just that important, especially for a champion such as Nautilus with sustain issues early-mid game until you get 4-5 points in Titan's Wrath.

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Exhaust A great anti-carry summoner that will leave the enemy severely weakened in a teamfight without the ability to deal adequate damage. This spell is also great in laning for those inevitable duels that seem like even exchanges until the summoners are popped. Don't be the guy who comes up short from a Heal or Exhaust bait. This spell is also a very strong anti-gank spell that will leave the enemy aggressor slowed while you walk away or cleverly pull yourself with Dredge Line. While not as effective as Flash at this role, it can be a useful alternative due to it's dual nature of both offensive and defensive uses. Pick it up if you like it, as this coupled with your own crowd control make you a serious threat to the enemy carries.

Ghost This spell will give you greater net movement than Flash over its duration but the delay in acceleration as well as inability to juke over walls hinders its use. Champions with some sort of CC immunization such as Vladimir and Olaf benefit from this tremendously, but you'll likely find that flash is better in combination with your gap closer Dredge Line for sticking to targets and conversely escaping.

Heal I like to take heal on my AD ranged carry in bot lane because it can really turn the tide of a fight as well as save your life in a lane where harassment is plentiful. I think it has less utility in top lane where it is mostly just a farmfest between two bruisers who don't have near enough damage to outright kill each other. It has use in teamfights, now especially since the buff to its scaling, but you're likely to have at least one or two other teammates with it and the redundancy reduces its overall effectiveness.

Cleanse This is a strong summoner for hard melee carries who are the most common victims of crippling CC as well as all the enemy debuffs. Champions that match that description are Tryndamere, Riven, and Irelia, but you are playing the king of CC himself, dishing it out from right in the middle. Leave this summoner for others as your tankiness makes you less of a target for the enemies' focus.

Clarity You shouldn't have mana problems in lane and definitely not after completing your philosopher's stone. Two of your spells will push the lane with AoE damage and should be used sparingly in general. The other is a skillshot that is circumstantial and not spammable by any means. The nature of your abilities makes this summoner useless and if you are really having problems controlling your mana usage, recall and Teleport back into lane.

Defensive and Utility Masteries

I take 0 - 21 - 9 for both top lane and jungle masteries as both will benefit tremendously from the extra health, resistances, movement speed, and other attributes these masteries confer. Resistance and Hardiness are two very strong masteries that will give a noticeable boost to our early game resistances, especially coupled with our 9x Greater Seal of Armor and the low early MR from 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. Durability and Veteran's Scars grant extra health to boost our soaking ability throughout the game, while Vigor synergizes well with our starting Regrowth Pendant to really stack up the lane phase health regeneration. The new mastery Initiator grants an easy 3% movement speed when above 70% health, which will be most of your lane phase unless seriously harassed by a ranged opponent or heavier bruiser. Additionally, Enlightenment will not be noticeable until later in the game, but will have a tremendous impact after we acquire Frozen Heart and begin to get up in levels. Finally the last point of the defense tree is Juggernaut , which increases our base health by 3% and will reduce crowd control effects by 10%, stacking multiplicatively with your Mercury's Treads granting 10% x 35% = 41.5% crowd control reduction.

The utility tree is fairly standard and identical for both our jungler and top lane builds. We spec a point into Summoner's Insight for the crucial 15 second reduction on the cooldown of Flash, while placing three points in Expanded Mind for the powerful mana per level bonus. Swiftness is non-negotiable because Nautilus has the slowest base movement speed in the game along with Anivia. Finally I take Runic Affinity because as a jungler this is crucial and even as a top laner you may find yourself in possession of buffs from failed enemy ganks or opportunities for invasion, and I find this one point is more beneficial than 1% spell vamp or 0.5 gold per 5 seconds.

The only difference between my jungle and lane masteries is for jungling I spec the three points reserved for Vigor into Tough Skin and Bladed Armor to expedite Nautilus' horrendous early clears.

Resistance : +6 magic resistance at level 1, helps against all magic damage sources Hardiness : +6 armour at level 1 for less creep damage and overall better tankiness Durability : +108 health at level 18, not a bad bonus to our late game tanking ability Vigor : +3 health regeneration for early laning phase to maintain high health while farming Veteran's Scars : +30 flat health for a stronger early game, slightly stronger than a single Greater Quintessence of Health Initiator : Good counter to Nautilus' slow movement speed, perfect for top lane movements and jungle ganking Enlightenment : strong cooldown reduction at later levels to ensure constant disruption from crowd control abilities in teamfights Juggernaut : very strong single mastery point for a percent increase in health as well as additional 6.5% tenacity when stacked with Mercury's Treads

Summoner's Insight : Critical 15 second reduction for the cooldown of Flash Expanded Mind : Great additional mana for more sustained ability usage later into the game Swiftness : Improves pitiful early movement speed for easier last-hitting in lane and faster between-camp transit when jungling Runic Affinity : Crucial for any jungler (as well as laner), increases the duration of blue and red buffs by 20%, giving you an extra 30 seconds to a total duration of 3 minutes.

greater mark of desolation

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9x Greater Mark of desolation These runes grant 15 flat armour penetration to make your early autoattacks hit much harder. They will effectively cancel out the enemy's armour runes if they have any and also synergize with your passive Staggering Blow which deals bonus physical damage on periodic hits. There isn't much more to say about these runes, they are universally accepted for tanky DPS champions and will increase your overall damage output considerably.

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greater mark of desolation

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9x Greater Seal of Armor Flat armour seals are always effective on junglers and even laning because it reduces the damage you take from neutral minions and early game harassment from auto-attacking champions. I take these seals on almost every champion I play for their early game value.

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9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist I take per level runes because for magic resistance because they offer the most benefit late game when most casters pick up large amounts of AP, and you will need all the help you can get surviving Nether Grasp, Summon: Tibbers, Transfusion, Dark Matter, and many more deadly spells that scale well with AP. Since the recent nerf to Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, these have become an even more attractive alternative for players seeking greater magic resistance, and the turnover point now is level 9, meaning beyond that level you have surpassed the benefit of flat MR runes.

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3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed Nautilus can be very flexible with his quintessence build but I've found that for him, flat movement speed works by far the best and synergizes very well with your Swiftness and Initiator masteries as well as your completed Trinity Force later in the game. These runes offer 4.5% movement speed right at level 1 and scale perfectly into the game for a hybrid DPS tank who needs to be right in the middle of teamfights of a dynamic nature.

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9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed I use these marks a lot of tankier junglers who don't utilize the flat attack damage as well as those with scaling abilities like Trundle. These nine runes will give you a flat 15% attack speed boost at level 1 for faster clear times and great synergy with your Titan's Wrath passive DoT. Great alternative runes for the tanky jungler who may not need armour penetration as much as a laner or carry-type champion.

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Seals and Glyphs should ideally remain the same between each Nautilus build regardless of your itemization.

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3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed I like to take these quints when jungling as well to decrease the transit time between camps as well as allow for stronger and more frequent ganks for overall faster roaming and initiating. Similar to the top lane rune setup, these synergize well with the Swiftness and Initiator masteries to offset Nautilus' terrible base movement speed. An expensive investment, these quints will provide the single greatest utility for tanky melee junglers who need to be right in the middle of fights throughout the game.

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I've outlined two major builds here for divergent Nautilus roles which include the tanky initiator (typically jungle and gold per 5 reliant) as well as the destructive anti-carry (typically solo top and well farmed).
The difference between these builds lies in our purpose during teamfights. The tankier Nautilus will dive into the enemy team to begin a fight with Shurelya's Battlesong activation or a successful Dredge Line catching an out-of-position enemy. Following this powerful initiation is the support of our team who will be dealing most of the damage. Following the enemy's counter-initiation, we transition to protecting our carry by peeling all enemies off him or her so that our team can retain its damage-dealer for as long as possible to hopefully win the fight. Our kit allows us to fill this role near flawlessly by slowing enemies in an AoE with Riptide, snaring single targets with Staggering Blow, and keeping those mobile enemies in place with Dredge Line. I typically prefer to save Depth Charge for the enemy carry unless absolutely required to save our own, but all situations will be different. Activating Randuin's Omen in the middle of the fight will also generate a brief but significant advantage for your teammates to capitalize on by destroying the crippled enemies, DON'T FORGET TO USE THE ACTIVE. If you've done your job and kept your carry alive, he or she should clean up the remaining enemies, securing the teamfight for a push or attempt at baron.
This is my personal favorite way to build Nautilus if I've been farming strong and getting a moderate amount of kills or assists from ganks and teamfights. For this build, the purpose is to focus the enemy carry and lock him or her down with our incredible CC package while dealing deceptively large amounts of damage to more than likely secure the kill and change our focus to the rest of the team. Trinity Force is the single most important item for this role, and in my opinion for Nautilus in general, as it ramps up our damage in so many ways: attack speed for more Titan's Wrath DoT, Sheen proc for more next-hit damage after Staggering Blow, Phage slow to complement our CC package when our abilities are on cooldown, and a noticeable buff to health and mana for general soaking and utility. This build also capitalizes on the passive on-hit effect of Wit's End to ramp up our bonus damage on attacks. Finally, with Hextech Gunblade our overall damage output will go up while simultaneously gaining health back from both lifesteal and spell vamp to keep us in the fight longer. The role of this build is to be a significant threat in any teamfight with strong AoE damage and incredible single target burst to nearly match that of an AP carry. Enemies will no longer underestimate our damage and will be forced to focus us, leaving our carries to continually pummel their front lines.