Hello all! Welcome to my first real attempt at making a League guide. I have played Naut as a support and he is pretty much what broke me out into Gold from Elo hell. It has been a painful and slow, but relatively upward trajectory from there.

Most people see him as a strong CC support, but his untapped damage potential with the recent item changes and natural runes at his disposal make him a strong tank to go top. And by taking him top you'll be able to build some of those sweeter items with more gold, now that supports are hurting for gold by mid to late game with the new support item changes this season.

Naut is a tank, not a natural bruiser like Darius or Renekton. His strength lies in whittling enemies down while they do little to no damage to him in the exchanges. When he get's rolling, he has a lot of innate damage in his kit to frustrate or outright destroy enemies, depending on how matches are going. I've had many a time where an enemy AD carry or squishy mage thought they had me, only to get ult combo'd and ignited to death, leaving me to walk away with a double kill and a lot of gold.

He is also the king of puns! If you aren't making Nauty jokes during the game, you're naut taking advantage of his full kit!

To go into more depth about why I chose certain runes over others, the idea is simple. Find little ways that build up to big ways to sustain Naut in fights. Item changes to things like Death's Dance and Sunfire Cape open a lot of doors that I don't think are being utilized to their greatest potential.

I'll put the numbers out there. The combination of grasp, hunger runes, the catalyst line, and death's dance/wit's end (if the game gets to late enough to build both) usually nets me anywhere between 5000-20000 self healing. You heal off bambi and thornmail as well.

Alone these items and runes wouldn't do much healing for Naut. But with 15-30% healing for AOE and direct damage, grasp and wit's end, plus the shred reduction from Death's Dance, you'll find that you'll survive a lot of fights that would leave most tanks dead in the rift.

As this is my first solid attempt at building an in depth guide, I'm always looking for constructive feedback! This guide is by no means set in stone, and I expect changes as items and champions change. I'm always toying around with which runes might be better on him for damage, tanky builds, or items.

One big mistake that I make still is not managing lane right. Naut needs time to get his one or two items before he really shines in lane to get that "enemy slayed" announcement and leave the other team wondering how their Garen is going 0/5 against a Naut. Manage your time, set up ganks or counter ganks with your jungle, and use your big man on the rift status to protect your squishy "carries" while your carry them to victory!