Hey Everyone, thank you for taking the time to check out this Nautilus Support Guide. If you've made it this far, it means you're looking to curb stomp your enemies with ease. In this guide, I will give you all of the in-depth knowledge I've gained from becoming an OTP as Nautilus. I will also call out information based on Elo, with this guide being most beneficial for players in Plat and below.

I started League of Legends back in Season 2, and I've been a support main for just as long. While I started with enchanter supports, I got heavily into engage supports and started spamming Nautilus back in Season 9. In Season 10, I peaked in Plat 1 with a 60-75% WR as Nautilus over only ~100 games, and I'm certain I could have climbed higher if I had put more time into playing.

There are many reasons to play Nautilus. Do you enjoy free wins? Does it feel good to smack your opponents with a giant Anchor? Here are some of the strengths of playing Nautilus Support:

Strengths:

+Easy to play, Fun to master
+Heavy Crowd Control
+Play Maker
+Can single-handedly decide a teamfight
+Great for single picks or group AOE
+Decent damage for a tanky support
+Stays relevant late-game


Weaknesses:

-Squishy if caught and Aftershock is not procced/on cooldown
-Few options to exit fights (this gets easier with mastery)
-Relies on solid decision making skills

Before we can talk about anything else, we need to talk about consistency. If I asked you, "What does any given ranked game look like at 00:00 on the clock?" You'd look at me like I was crazy and confidently say "Both teams have all five champions sitting in spawn, most likely buying starting items". Now if I ask, "What does any given ranked game look like at 30:00 on the clock?" You'd still look at me like I was crazy, but for a different reason.

The point is, every second that passes by in each game means more variables are getting added to the game, it's becoming more complex, and that's how you end up with "Coinflip" games. In general, and especially as Nautilus, you need to be making proactive plays as early as possible, because that is what will give you the most consistent climbing experience.

First off, in basically every game, INVADE. It doesn't matter if the enemy team on paper is much better level 1, or if your invade is weak from the rest of your teammates, or even if you only have 3 people for the invade because some players weren't paying attention or were AFK. In my experience, most teams are not playing the game as they should in watching for invades, let alone is there enough coordination around stacking in a bush in low Elo.

When the game starts, type "Invade" or "Inv" in chat, buy items quick, and ping two times on the spot where you want to do the invade from (I.E. ping bot lane if invading through bot, or mid lane if invading through mid). Don't bother invading from top.

Make sure you're leading the invade. You need to be in front so you're ready to engage when the opportunity comes up. When you go for an invade, there are a few possible outcomes. I'm going to outline each outcome and what to do from there.




If the enemy starts reacting, immediately assess if you can land a Dredge Line without Flash. If you can, do it. If not, go for the " Flash + Dredge Line" any time you feel confident you can land it. If you do this, they will most times burn their Flash as well (I've even encountered times when I went for the " Flash + Dredge Line" and was going to miss but they Flash anyway). Sometimes they won't burn Flash and you'll catch them, and sometimes you'll miss and they didn't burn anything. Don't stress when the attempt fails, mute teammates if needed and just focus on what comes next. You'll get better at this the more you do it.

Additionally, consider if your Ignite is needed to secure the kill.

ADVANCED STRATEGY
If the enemy team spots you and the engage does not look good, walk away with your team as if you're retreating; then go and "loop around" (if you invaded from bot lane, go around and come through mid, and vice versa). Most enemies are not ready for this strategy.



Congrats, a free kill for you and your team



If this happens, then there are one of three possibilities.


Most times, simply wait at the enemy buff and either have your Jungler secure it, or find that the enemy team came back to it because they didn't expect you to wait there. When they least expect you, go ahead and engage (ideally use your Auto Attack for the Staggering Blow passive if they step close to the bush, then use your Dredge Line. Use Dredge Line first if they go to ward it or look like they won't walk toward the bush).

Now, after leashing (if you need to leash), next assess whether you can level 1 cheese the enemy (done by waiting in the enemy tri-bush if you're on red team and waiting in the river brush if you're on blue team).

Once you've done all of this, you're ready to continue the pain train.

Now that you've done everything you can to put together an early lead, let's talk about continuing that trend.

Gold and below: Go for the Level Two cheese. There's a reason this strategy has been around forever, and it's because in lower Elo most players don't truly respect the Level Two power spike. If you make it in time to lane to be around for all of the experience, you'll hit this after the entire first wave + the first three melee minions from the second wave. There are plenty of wave management guides out there, so the quick note is, make sure you have an advantage on clearing the wave (you want to hit Level 2 before them), but don't push too fast because you need enough room in the lane to engage and kill the enemy laners.

Platinum, but can benefit other Elo's: When in Plat, especially higher up in Plat, most enemies will be aware that you're looking to Level Two cheese them, and as such will start backing off if they fail to contest your push. Instead, I would recommend trying to pull off a cheater's recall if possible.

Cheater's recall: There are plenty of guides on this as well, but essentially you set up your wave so that you slow push waves one and two, then crash your third wave and quickly recall. You and your ADC get to buy a cheap item early and return to lane fully refreshed without missing much CS.

Those are some basic strategies for the beginning of lane phase, but what do you do after those strategies? Well, this question highly depends on what position your wave is in.


When the wave is even, you need to be constantly looking for opportunities to engage. There's a lot to be said about how to engage, which is why later in this guide there is a section called "The Art of Engaging" where I will outline everything you could ever want to know about fighting.


If the wave is pushing away from you, you either need to be planning something off of a slow push (such as a back, dive, roam, etc), or ensuring the wave crashes under the enemy tower entirely by pushing it with your ADC super fast. If the wave does not crash properly, assess whether the enemy laners are pushing back or attempting to freeze the wave. If they attempt to freeze, you ABSOLUTELY MUST go and make a play around the map elsewhere, at the very least make yourself present around the map so the enemy bot lane feels like they have to push the wave to punish your roam.


If the wave is building up, sit back and wait until you can clean up the wave on your side first. You want minion advantage when taking fights if possible.


When facing against ranged supports, you need to be mindful of how far up you can stand in lane. Only approach minions when necessary, such as when securing one of your Relic Shield procs or setting up the wave to make some type of a play.


You should be doing one of three things in lane:

1. Stay parallel to your ADC (you both are equally far from the enemy laners)
2. Use bushes to conceal yourself, exert pressure, and can be used to zone enemies if you're able to freeze the wave on your side.
3. Stack on top of your ADC (if you're in a VS ranged matchup and they have bushes warded

When you've reached mid-game, there are a few key goals you want to keep in mind:

1. Vision Control
2. Picks
3. Objectives

They are listed in this order because this is the order they must come in. You must first secure vision (which I'll outline in a separate "Vision" chapter), then look to make picks, and finally look to secure objectives off of those picks.

Late game will be much the same, though in the late game there may be the need to emphasize peeling for your carries instead of looking for the engage. You need to assess the number of Assassins/Burst Mages/Divers on the enemy team, your carry's carry potential, and the number of engage champions you have on your team. If you have no engage options on anyone else but yourself BUT ALSO need to peel, wait for the enemy team to engage and be ready to protect your team from it.

Okay, so we've talked about Nautilus overall and what to do throughout the course of a game, now let's talk about HOW to do it. Thankfully, he has a tried and true combo that will serve as the foundation for success, and then there are a few variants and finally the decision making that goes into his kit.

Start with casting your Depth Charge on your target. Once the Depth Charge hits them, throw your Dredge Line at them so the hook hits right as they're about to land. Follow up with an auto attack, then cast Riptide, auto attack, and then Titan's Wrath to get the auto attack reset. When in doubt, stick to this combo. I've had enemy ADCs type in chat to me saying, "Guess that was the only way you could land your hook? ;)" Do not listen to them and try some crazy fancy maneuvers, just stick to this combo because they're only saying that since they are unable to do anything against it most of the time.

If you do not have Depth Charge yet, just do the rest of the combo and skip the first step.

Now that you know the golden combo, let's talk about the variants.

This combo is the same as the golden combo, except instead of casting Depth Charge first, you cast your Dredge Line and then follow up with your ult after the hook has landed. The big reason/time you want to do this is during teamfights. In specific, if you see their team grouped up, you Dredge Line onto the closest target, then cast your Depth Charge on a key backliner. This version will knock up more people, and if you combine this with any other big AOE ability, will single-handedly win teamfights.

This version of the combo is designed to put all of your burst up front. While less damage overall, it's good when looking to very quickly burst a priority target. You can also opt to cast Dredge Line before Depth Charge if it feels more natural.


Finally, I wrote up an entire guide on just about everything you could want to know about trying to land your Dredge Line, so feel free to check that out here: How to Land Your Hook

While I originally opted to leave out an in-depth look at warding, I did not originally anticipate this guide getting as many views as it has been! To that end, I'll go ahead and outline all the warding strategies I've used during my time climbing through low Elo.

Let's break it down:



Before you even load in to game, you should start considering how the game could look on paper as a baseline. Take a look at each team comp, compare each lane, and determine very roughly how the matchup should go. For example, noting that top lane is Riven vs Yasuo (two very aggressive, melee champions), you can expect that lane to be a "volatile" match-up. Alternatively, maybe mid lane is Aurelion Sol vs Akali, where you could expect that lane to include Aurelion Sol permanently pushing the wave under Akali's turret.

Once you've done that for each lane, you should have some type of rough narrative indicating what each lane's expected outcome is (I.E. Top lane is Volatile, Mid lane your mid laner will be permanently pushing the minions under the enemy tower, and your lane is all in vs all in). Now, next look at the Junglers for each team. Building this understanding takes time, but think about the ideal starting route for each Jungler (If you're unsure, you can always pull up a MOBAFIRE guide on each Jungler and skip ahead to starting Jungle routes.

Once you have this baseline, there is an incredibly important decision you need to make from the very start of the game, which is: What am I going to do with my first ward?

The answer to this comes down to a very few key pieces of information, which is why we start by establishing a baseline for how the game can go. First, decide if you will need your ward in lane.

For instance, if you're playing against an enemy support that provides lots of pressure via bushes (think Blitzcrank or Hextech Flashtraption Sett as some examples), you may want to save your ward for lane because you need the vision to help alleviate the pressure placed on you and your ADC.

Another scenario is that you will absolutely need your ward to watch for a Jungle gank. For instance, if the enemy team has an Elise and they started in their top-side Jungle, you will be at increased risk of getting ganked early since she typically will do a Three-Camp Clear (Buff + Buff + Gromp).

Finally, you may decide that you do not need your ward. For instance, if you're laning against Tristana + Soraka and your ADC is on a late-game carry such as Vayne, it is more likely that you will end up just sitting under turret until your Jungler comes down to gank.

If you do not need your ward, you should place your ward in the enemy jungle after you performed the invade mentioned earlier in this guide. You'll find that roaming to top lane is one of the more difficult things to do on Support, but dropping a ward in the enemy jungle during your invade is one way to help your other laners without actually showing up at their lane. Drop the ward, if you see a Jungler show up, communicate that with your team, and if you don't ever see the Jungler pop through when you think you should have seen them by now (say you warded the enemy bottom-side buff, but it's been almost 3 minutes on the Rift and they haven't shown on that ward), be sure to also call that out and Question Mark Ping the top-side jungle. This will be a clear sign that the enemy Jungler is either counter-jungling your Jungler's top side, or looking to potentially make a play in Top or Mid.



To keep building on the knowledge we just talked about, as the game progresses, take mental notes on ways the game is different than how you originally thought it would go. Individual players are different than the champions they are playing; keep these things in mind so you can make decisions tailored to the individuals you're playing against (For instance, you could have a Vayne as your ADC, but perhaps YOUR Vayne is an aggressive player, and demonstrates in-game that they have good knowledge on how to play Vayne early. Knowing that knowledge means you may end up playing more aggressively into a match-up that you wouldn't "on-paper")

To this point, during the first few waves, start absorbing any of this information that you can, both from your team and the opposing team. We'll circle back to this, now let's talk about early game vision scenarios.

We mentioned before that there are 3 possibilities right from the get-go:


If you need your ward for lane, then you should first see how the wave is going to move. As an example, if you're in the high-pressure lane we mentioned earlier against Hextech Flashtraption Sett, chances are that the enemy lane will have priority (meaning they get to walk more freely around in lane than you and your ally do). As a result, they will most likely be pushing the initial wave into you. In that scenario, I would ward the lane brush closest to your tower.

You need to ward whichever bush (or alcove) will be used by the enemy laners to threaten. Also, if you are looking to start a fight with the enemy laners, have a ward ready to drop in a bush during the fight.

Additionally, as the position of the wave can and often will change, you need to adjust your ward strategy to match. If you're sitting under tower, you will want to ward the brush beside/behind your tower to spot if the enemy team is looking to tower dive your lane. If you're pushing, you'll want to ward the river to watch for ganks.

Now, if you don't need your ward for lane, but you do need your ward to watch for ganks, then buckle up because we're about to go ham.

Before you start warding for ganks, think about what enemy Jungler you're up against. While there are many individual ganking strategies specific for each Jungler, let me break them down into groups to make it a bit easier to plan accordingly.

I wanted to call out the Morgana matchup in specific, because I've personally encountered this matchup more than any other from becoming an OTP (due to the power of her Black Shield). As I mention in the notes, there are a lot of options to deal with Morgana, so let's talk about what you can do:



Having the additional cooldown reduction will help when trying to force fights.



If you know Morgana's Dark Binding is on cooldown, you can walk at her/her ADC menacingly, and wait to see how they respond. If they move from side to side while walking, you will catch up with them and can simply auto attack to proc your Staggering Blow first, then cast Dredge Line accordingly.



Some of Nautilus taunts (Control 1-4 by default) can be used to act as if you're casting your Dredge Line. Walk at the enemy laners as if you're going to cast your Dredge Line, then use one of your taunts and see if you can blow a Flash or get Morgana to cast Black Shield. I've found that this works less the higher in Elo you go, but I've definitely gotten players to blow Flash from this trick in Gold.



Black Shield is on a longer cooldown than Dredge Line early, so you can always go One-for-One by casting your Dredge Line into her Black Shield, just be sure to set yourself up for the re-engage when Dredge Line is back off cooldown.


You can deliberately act as if you're throwing your Dredge Line at one of the enemy laners, but actually aim to hit terrain with it instead. Be sure to think through it, as you don't want to pull yourself closer to the enemies and then get hit by Dark Binding, but if you do this, you will get a 50% mana and cooldown refund on Dredge Line (most players don't know this). This will give you a larger window to throw a second Dredge Line before Black Shield is off cooldown.



Act as if you're looking to target one player (for instance the enemy ADC), then throw your Dredge Line at the Morgana instead. The longer you act this out (as an example, spending several waves aggressively moving towards the enemy ADC), the more safe the other player will feel, which can sometimes result in Morgana casting Black Shield on the wrong target.



In the mid-game, depending on how Morgana chooses to level her abilities, you can sometimes use all of your magic damage to break through the Black Shield. This can be especially true if your ADC has some amount of magic damage, like Corki, Kai'Sa, or Varus.


In the late game, you outscale Morgana since you can impact a whole team while Morgana can only protect one person with Black Shield

Hey all, given the high popularity in heavy poke support champions right now (I'm looking at you, Maokai), I wanted to talk in more detail about these matchups.

Now, each of these matchups will vary based on the specific champion performing the poking, but there are a number of options available to you that applies across the board.



Before your game even starts, you need to look at your runes. In the Notes section of this guide, I mentioned that you should be adjusting your armor and magic resistance runes based on the combination of the enemy bot laners + jungler. When facing against a heavy poke support, you need to weigh them more importantly than the ADC and Jungler when making your decision. Also consider what amount of the time each champion would be trying to attack you.

As an example, let's say you're facing against Zyra and Vayne bot lane. Without knowing what Jungler the enemy team has, I would take double magic resistance runes because Zyra is expected to do most of the harassing in lane. If they have an AD jungler (let's say Xin Zhao), then you need to consider how likely they are to come bot lane. If it's often, you may have to take the standard health and armor runes. If you're unsure, you could also take health and magic resistance as a nice in-between.

When kicking off a game against one of the heavy poke supports, you need to determine whether you'll be soaking up the harass during the early game, or if you'll be trying to engage onto the enemy laners to kill them as your means of winning the game. This generally comes down to two things: The team comps/each team's game plan, and how each player of your team plays. For example, if you are paired up with a heavily scaling ADC, and they play defensively as a player, then your overall game plan should be to soak the harass and let your ally scale.

Keynote: Deciding to let the team scale is also highly dependent on game state. If your team overall is winning, and/or if the team comps are such that your team scales better than the enemy, then you should play it safe and stay defensive. HOWEVER, if your game plan was to play defensively, but you see that your team is starting to lose, and/or your team does not scale as well as the enemy team, then you need to look a bit more aggressively for opportunities to turn the tides.

If your plan is to soak up harass, then one option is to rush Knight's Vow. This rush is good for two reasons: First, it will help your ADC by allowing you to absorb some of the damage they take. Second, it will help your own survivability because of all of the raw stats in the item (Ability Haste, HP, and 300% HP regen). Finally, in lanes like this you can use your shield as a means to help absorb damage, since you'll also be using some of your rune synergies ( Shield Bash is one example thanks to the built in armor and magic resistance buff) in conjunction with your shield to protect yourself.



You will encounter many poke supports, and the number will continue to grow over time to be sure, so I'll outline the most common ones here as of this patch. If there are any in specific you've run into that you have questions on, please post the question on this guide and I'll update to include info on them.

Ashe - This is one of few supports where you would want to bring double armor since her early game damage will be physical (Even if she will eventually be building ability power). Thankfully, as is true of ADC Ashe, she is very immobile and very squishy, so go for the engage if you've stayed healthy enough. Also, to stay healthy, keep the minion wave between you and her whenever possible to protect from her poke. If you are healthy but your ADC is not, you can use your body to soak up the harass for your ADC.

Brand - This matchup is the bread and butter of the heavy poke support matchups. The only challenging aspect of this matchup is that you are a big boi, and as such are very easy to land skill shots on as the Brand. Generally speaking, so long as you maintain decent health in lane, you can look to engage on him and blow him up since he is squishy and immobile.

Lux - Literally Brand, but with less fire. Treat her the same way you would Brand and you should be all set.

Maokai - The sole reason I decided to add this section of the guide. Maokai, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult heavy poke supports to deal with as Nautilus. The pitfalls of many other heavy poke supports don't apply to Maokai: He can dodge your Dredge Line with his Twisted Advance, heal during lane with his Sap Magic, and completely deny bush control from Sapling Toss. Additionally, like Leona, he has the potential to ignore you and dive your ADC during a 2v2. If the enemy Maokai plays aggressive, punish them whenever their Twisted Advance is on cooldown. If they play passive, wait patiently under tower (as your lane will most likely be pushed into you), avoid saplings/walk them into the wave as much as possible, and conserve resources until you can receive a gank. If your ADC is having difficulty with the saplings, you can absorb the hits for them.

Shaco - He is less challenging than Maokai, but tougher than most heavy poke supports. He can trap you in with his boxes, bait you into them when you look to engage, dodge your Dredge Line with his Deceive, and dodge your Depth Charge and Dredge Line with his Hallucinate. In this matchup, do not look for the engage unless your team is rotating down, as Shaco has too many tools to deny your engage and even get a counter kill in the process. If you do engage, always do so onto the enemy ADC. Best options here are to soak and scale, or make sure your ADC is safe and then roam.

Zyra - She is treated almost the same as Brand, with one very notable exception. Her plants will be a decent obstacle to play around, because it's quite possible for her to block your Dredge Line with her plants. Assess the skill level of the Zyra player, if they have slow response times then you can look for the engage as you would with Brand. If they show they have respectable response times, wait for Zyra to use a lot of abilities, destroy plants when it is safe by stepping on them, and then look to engage during windows when she is waiting on cooldowns. Special note: If she lands her Stranglethorns on you, you can throw your Dredge Line to a nearby wall just before the Knockup occurs from her ult. The timing can be challenging, but if done right you can pull yourself out after the knockup started.

As a special note, here are some of the more advanced tips and tricks I've picked up both in general and from Nautilus in specific.

1. Dredge Line can be used to hit terrain as an escape. That knowledge is a bit more common. However, after you cast Dredge Line but before the hook hits, you can also cast Riptide, which makes for a useful getaway. (You could cast Depth Charge during this window as well, but the uses for that are much more fringe case)

2. If you need to engage a fight but also peel and get out, you can use Depth Charge to engage, then Dredge Line to an enemy diving your backline, both giving an escape and peeling for your carries.

3. Not only should you keep wards on you to light up areas during fights, you can also turn wards into combat wards. The logic is a bit rough, but very simplified, each player moves using their mouse, and they attack in one of a few ways. Some people use the "attack-move" feature on the ground, some use that feature on the target they're attacking, and some people click their mouse directly on the target. If you're in a desperate pinch, you can drop wards on top of your ADC/other carry. Very rarely, you will place the ward in the same spot the enemy clicked their mouse to attack. If that enemy is an ADC, that could be a Critical Strike, so while it doesn't come up often, I have saved an ADC or two with this trick.

4. Nautilus is a big boi. He's so big that you can legitimately try body blocking the enemy to protect your carry by getting in the way of the enemies path, akin to being minion blocked.

5. If you do not have Mobility Boots, you can use your Dredge Line on terrain on the way to lane to get back to lane faster. I would not recommend doing this once you have Mobility Boots.

6. Speaking of Dredge Line, if you "Attack-Move" a nearby enemy (such as a minion) that is not affected by Staggering Blow, then immediately cast Dredge Line in a different direction as the auto attack starts to land, you will glitch out the animation, which will result in your Dredge Line coming out of the side of your champion.

7. On a similar note, if you're about to be affected by a crowd control ability, your Dredge Line can be animation buffered. For example, if you are about to fall asleep from Sleepy Trouble Bubble, you can cast Dredge Line, then when you are asleep the hook will emerge from your sleeping body and can pull you to safety.

Thank you for reading this guide! Hopefully you found this guide helpful, please feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions, and have fun out on the rift!