pay the tithe

"Twas an anchor what broke the Rancour. Pulled Finn down, an' all. Just a handful of us left now, but night's coming... and the cold. I'm sorry, Ma, you were right. The Titan lives."

Nautilus
The Titan of the Depths


Stats
Weight - 135
Walk Speed - 0.65
Run Speed - 1.18
Air Speed - 0.83
Fall Speed - 1.95

Nautilus has EXTREME heavyweight stats, on par with all of the ones featured in Ultimate, but without anything he really excels at. He has the second slowest walk speed in the game, and pretty bad everything else. His jumps aren't particularly great either, though not to the level of Steve or Little Mac, but only just above them. Nautilus is also a big guy, as one might assume from the title of "titan". He's roughly the same size as Ridley, only Nautilus is standing up, but the massive anchor slung over his shoulder extends out behind him, giving him even more mass.


Special Mechanic - Anchor Aweigh
The anchor's size is important, however. It has its own hurtbox completely separate from Nautilus' own, the main difference being that the anchor has permanent superarmor, absorbing all damage that manages to hit it. Note that this does not absorb damage from hits taken by Nautilus, it instead acts as a sort of active shield, with the hurtbox persisting through any attacks using the anchor... which is most of Nautilus' kit.

This isn't a be-all-end-all shield, however. In most of his basic animations, Nautilus has the anchor slung over his shoulder ina  way that makes him specifically defended against aerial attacks from behind, leaving both his front and back wide open. It also can't protect him from attacks capable of hitting multiple opponents, which is most of them. The ideal is to use Nautilus' anchor attacks to block things that might be trouble for a slow character such as him, like projectiles or rushdown attacks. His attacks are just as slow as the scubahead himself, so this is easier said than done - but still entirely possible.


Special Mechanic - Titan's Wrath
A sort of combination of the Titan's Wrath ability from his League kit, and his special Deep mechanic from Legends of Runeterra, the longer the battle goes on, the stronger Nautilus gets. When Nautilus reaches 150%, his eyes will turn from orange to red, and he'll be surrounded by a swirling, dark blue mist. Nautilus' wrath grants him armor, blocking up to 10% damage per attack that lands. In addition to this, Nautilus' attacks will now deal 1.5X damage (knockback calculation remains the same), and will afflict the opponent with the same dark mist that surrounds him. The mist will deal a passive 1.5% damage every 7 seconds, and will remain on the opponent for 14 seconds if let be, but will be refreshed if Nautilus hits them again. This second effect does not apply to Nautilus' Specials or Smashes, though the damage buff does.


Specials
Up Special - Dredge Line
Nautilus sends his anchor flying forward in front of him at a speed much faster than he himself can move. This is Nautilus' most iconic attack, and is obviously one of his most important in Smash. The reason why is fairly obvious, as on contact with any surface or an opponent, Nautilus will zipline over to them automatically, pulled by the chain of the anchor. If an opponent is hit, they will take 3% and be locked in place for the move's duration. This is basically Nautilus' main form of movement thanks to his abyss-mal speed, but there are quite a few nuances to it. First of all, Nautilus can aim the anchor in any of the 8 cardinal directions by quickly inputting a joystick command. Obviously if you hold the input he will fling the anchor directly up, but by quickly letting go of a direction he will return to the default, which is flinging it straight forward.

The speed of the anchor is roughly the speed of Sonic's run with a Bunny Hood, if not a bit slower, and reaches forward 6 Grid Blocks, which is pretty great distance. It's speed is obviously very great as well, and is Nautilus' fastest moving attack, though not his fastest overall move. The zipline speed is noticeably slower, however, roughly half the speed - which is still fast, but not as fast, but is still generally the thing Nautilus needs to get around. When he's ziplining, Nautilus can do one of two things. First, he can cancel out of it, which actually keeps all momentum that he's acquired from the zipline, which in particular can make anchor cancelling VERY fun.

The second thing he can do is input any attack command, which will make Nautilus perform a heavy overhead punch with his free arm. This is mainly what you want to do if you latch onto an opponent (though there are obviously other options that you want to consider). The overhead punch deals a meaty 13%, with spiking downwards knockback that makes it particularly dangerous off stage. On stage, it will cause the opponent to bounce upwards, potentially leaving them open for a follow up, depending on their damage. And of course, the anchor's passive hurtbox makes it so this can be used as a great shield if any unwanted projectiles are heading your way. In fact, it will continue zipping forward through projectiles, meaning you can use this to avoid things like Fox laser spam during approach!

The move has considerable downsides, as you might expect. For one, the attack has heavy starting lag (though in the air it will halt Nautilus' movement for a moment, like some similar USpecs), though it's far from the slowest start-up, it still needs to be used to recover. The main weakness here is that it leaves Nautilus open, and the anchor's hurtbox isn't active during the start-up, which means an opponent can very easily get away with knocking him out of it. Finally, the anchor has a bit of wonkiness in the air. If you end the attack in the air, even if you started it on the ground, Nautilus will enter special fall. The only way to avoid this is to cancel the zipline, but this makes using the anchor to go offstage pretty unviable, even if it looks cool. It has very little lag if ended on the ground, however. Oh yeah, opponents will not enter special fall if they are hit by Dredge Line in midair, and can actually start immediately moving if Nautilus decides to cancel or if he reaches them without attacking.

Dredge Line is a great movement and approach tool, but has a few caveats that need to be worked around in order to use to its full potential. It's basically the most important tool in Nautilus' kit.


Neutral Special - Depth Charge
Nautilus lifts his anchor up with one arm, the hook pointed downwards, and then slams it down to the ground. A few frames after the slam, a puddle will appear 0.5 Grid Blocks away from Nautilus. If the special button is simply pressed, the puddle will burst up into a pillar of water that rises up 3 Grid Blocks and is roughly half the width of one. Nautilus will return to his idle before the pillar disappears, which doesn't take that long. If the button is held, Nautilus will remain pressing the anchor to the ground, and the puddle will instead move forward at a moderate pace, roughly Mario's walk speed, reaching 5 Grid Blocks away from Nautilus in total.

By releasing the button at any time, Nautilus will release his anchor, causing the geyser to burst wherever the puddle currently is. Holding it for the whole duration can take a while, even with low ending lag. Fortunately, Nautilus has his anchor in front of him at all times during this, so he's protected... except in the back, which isn't a big deal. Just use the attack when the opponents are on the other side of the stage. Because you can release it at any time, however, means you don't have to worry about it if you already have a plan to use it.

Anyway, for the geyser itself, if the opponent touches it while its up, they will only take 4% with light knockback. You really want the opponent to be hit while the water is rising, as it will launch them upwards, dealing 8%, and causing a lot of hitstun. This is difficult to actually pull off considering there's a lot of telegraph between when the puddle appears and when it can potentially erupt. But if it does, Nautilus has enough time to throw out a Dredge Line and zip right over to the opponent. He can even cancel into any of his aerials, most of which are devastating.

However, because this is very difficult to land, this is actually more of a tool to threaten opponents with. For example, you can keep opponents far away when you need to just by holding the button down. Or if the opponent is daring, you can instead use this to fake them into rolling, which you can then follow up with a Dredge Line. There's quite a few options for this attack, but again, it's primarily a utility tool.


Down Special - Riptide


Side Special - Devourer of the Depths