INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone and welcome to my first champion guide (gulp). The preseason patch brought a lot of changes to the game, at which builds were kind of needed to be redone, a current switch between who is viable and who isn't, yadda yadda. So this guide is to get you started with something.

Poppy is one of my favorite champions that I have been playing since I was about level 10 in the game. She has the pretty nasty hurdle of a balls bad early game, but the reward for getting through it is so amazing that I couldn't stop playing her. She is one of those underplayed champs that really has a lot of potential in the right hands, and not to mention S3 brought a lot of options for her build, which I will present to you further down.

I am going to do more than show a new potential build for Poppy, though. I am going to go into some depth as to how to play her, since that seems to be everyone's problem here.

WHO'S YOUR POOPY, AND WHAT DOES SHE POOP?
Poppy is a Fighter Assassin. That is, she has relatively good defensive scaling while at the same time has powerful burst damage and a means of locking into a key target. She has among the strongest late game of any champion, next to Nasus and AD Sion, at the cost of a sub-par early game, which means she really benefits from a protective team. Poppy's kit is very adept to killing off a single target in a short time, though struggles a little against multiple targets. One of her saving graces, in addition to killing off key targets quickly, is her ability to displace the enemy with her E: Heroic Charge. This can actually make her a pretty big deal in teamfights as it is difficult to escape once she's charged you towards her team. As far as difficulty is concerned, Poppy is around medium to high skill cap. She is reliant on positioning in order to be the most effective and takes some practice to use, especially for farming.

THE KIT
Passive: Valiant Fighter

- This is the passive that makes Poppy deceptively durable. It particularly scales well with the armor and magic resist you have (their reduction is calculated before this passive's reduction). With that in mind, you don't want too many health items would Poppy as it will only mitigate the effectiveness of this passive.

Q: Devasting Blow
- This is Poppy's bread and butter skill and I usually max it first. A common misconception is that it only scales off magic damage, when it actually calculates the damage of her AD and her opponent's health. This makes building Poppy AD/hybrid viable on her, and in my opinion it's the best route for more sustained damage.
- Her Q resets Poppy's attack timer, so it helps with last hitting a bit. It can also be useful for stacking more damage on your opponent in laning. When harassing, start with an autoattack then hit Q for some pretty nasty damage.
- With that in mind, you mostly want to use your Q for harass only during the laning phase, as Poppy's mana regen stat is horrid. Pace yourself, and try to master last-hitting with your auto attacks.

W: Paragon of Demacia
- I usually take this skill first, for extra durability, especially against AD bruisers. However, I usually max it second after her Q for the damage. However, as Poppy gains AD scaling is increased with the passive effects, it works really well with Devastating Blow. A good combo is to activate your W before hitting your Q on an enemy for some good damage.
- During laning, you want to mostly rely on the passive of this skill as oppose to activating it constantly. Doing the latter drains your mana a bit too fast.

E: Heroic Charge
- This skill is fairly underestimated. While mostly a utility skill it can do a lot more than gap close a champion. Remember that it can select ANY enemy target (champ, minion and monster), and use that to your advantage.
- It's a great, albeit situational escape tool. If you are being ganked and in enemy minion is nearby, E the minion to quickly create distance from your enemy and hit W to run towards your tower.
- You don't need to select the champion to gap-close them. A good way to catch opponents off guard is to E the minions they are standing next to to reach them, then switch target to the champ and begin your burst-a-thon
- It's not Alistar's knock back, but it's still a good displacement tool. Use it on an opponent that is running away from your team to push them back. Keep in mind, this means that you need to get your positioning down.

R: Diplomatic Immunity
- One of the most overpowered ultimates in the game. It allows almost secondary factors to interfere with you killing your target other than the champion she selects and your mana.
- You are immune to ANY outside damage other than from your target in this ult's duration, that includes minion and turret damage, making Poppy one of the most threatening tower-divers in the game.
- It amplifies ANY damage you do to your target, including active item effects and summoner spells. Yes, Ignite's damage is increased under the effect of Poppy's ult.
- A good trick in teamfights is to select the target with the least amount of damage/CC, then switch focus to the enemy squishies/carries as any CC/damage they have wont effect you at all. A fine way for getting double kills.

PROS/CONS
+ Damage too stronk, especially in late game
+ At 345 base movement speed she is among the 3rd fastest champions in the game. Not to mention her kit includes a movespeed steriod, making her a relatively mobile champion.
+ Her passive saves her butt so many times.
+ Good displacement tool.

- Bad farming capabilities
- No inherent sustain
- Takes CC a bit too hard
- Overall very weak early game

THE SPELLS
Ghost/Barrier - Barrier seems to be largely underestimated at this point in time, but if you want to bait your opponents or survive any extra tower damage in your dives, taking Barrier is not a bad choice by any means. It's cooldown is longer than desired, though.

or

Ghost/Ignite - Good overall for doing your job as an assassin. Only issue is that you may wont have a lot of options to sustain through your early game as the above.

or

Ghost/Exhaust - If your team is already ignite heavy you can go with this. It is great for sticking to your opponent, though is a little less reliable as a finishing move compared to ignite. Helpful with jungle ganks, too.

Why no Flash? - Flash seems really ideal for Poppy due to her heroic charge positioning, but the inherent problem with Flash is that after you use it, you only get one shot. It doesn't allow much room for error both in terms of escaping and sticking to targets. Poppy is also a champion that without external aide (items/spells) she could have some trouble sticking to her opponents, so I chose ghost as my main escape/chase tool over flash for better reliability.

THE RUNES
-See attachment for the page-

I give credit to Spamhappy's Poppy guide for this page as it is largely based off his guide. I take health regen quints because it really helps with Poppy's sustainability in lane, and procs well with regen items. Flat physical damage helps with last-hitting and improving her AD overall, and the rest are armor runes. You can change the glyphs to flat Magic resist seals if you feel like you would be left out in terms of MR, you want to pick the page that works best against your opponent anyway. Take note that these are flat runes, because they are mainly geared towards improving Poppy's early game.

THE MASTERIES
-see attachment-

Offense Tree:
Summoners wrath to give bonuses to both ignite and ghost, 3 points in attack speed to make her laning a bit more bearable, and the AP/level -> Magic Pentetration for better damage from your Q. This is really about all Poppy needs for offense as her lat game scaling/items do most of the job for you.

Defense Tree:
Key thing for this tree is health regen, minion damage negation for lane freezing, and anything that will help you win trades against your opponent. The 2 points I put in tenacity is also really helpful as Poppy is a very CC vulnerable champion, no matter what phase of the game she is in. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Just like the rune page, your goal is to improve Poppy's livability early with these masteries.

ITEMS

EARLY GAME:

Cloth Armor + 5 pots if you are up against an AD bruiser.
The nerf on this item isn't that bad as Poppy already has a high armor scaling and with her rune/mastery pages its even more rediculous.

Rejuvination Bead + 5 pots + 3 mana pots against anything else.
*WARNING - THIS STARTING BUILD HAS YET TO BE TESTED*
Honestly a **** item compared to regrowth pendant, but it should proc well with the regen masteries/runes you already have should be somewhat helpful. You will have a regen stat of about 21 at level 1.

Boots + 3 Pots
This route is only recommended if you plan on playing aggressively early game (starting with Q instead of W), and it's inherently risky with Poppy. If you are successful with this, however, props to you.

MID GAME:
Sheen
This is a must have for any Poppy. The mana and damage you get from this item is too good to pass up, once you get this, your attacks will really feel brutal to your opponent.

Hextech Revolver
This gives Poppy good sustain in lane, especially with the damage of her Q. It also builds into a great assassination item with I'll mention in the core.

Tiamat
A very expensive item, but the splash damage, along with the health regen will turn a previously terrible farmer into a machine. The improved tiamat really helps Poppy this time around

Defense items:
Chain Mail, Negatron cloak, whatever. Get these items to survive against your opponent. Remember that the key to winning is to adapt your build to work against your foes.

Boots:
Go either Mercury's Threads or Ninja Tabi, depending on weather your opponent has hard CC or does strong AD respectively.

For your enchantment, take Furor. The movespeed bonus REALLY helps in sticking to your opponents

Situational Items:
Philosophers Stone - Wait what? I'm putting this as situational!? Yeah, the stats ARE good for Poppy and it gives more gold to assist in farming. However, playing Poppy for a while, I am at a point where I can clear about 90-100% of each creep just by last-hitting, so if you are doing well in your lane, there isn't much of a reason to prioritize this item over your offensive items. I'm not saying its a bad item by any means, it's a great item to get if you feel you wont be able to keep up with your opponent.

Crystalline Flask - 3 mini pots in one! Ever since I first used this item I fell in love with it. It gives you good health and mana sustain in your lane and recharges every time you return to base, and on a champion gimped from sustainability as Poppy really benefits from this item. By late game, however, you want to sell if off for better items.

LATE GAME:

Ice Born Gauntlet:
Armor, Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction and a sick slowing passive just works like a beast with Poppy. The damage you do with this item also splashes to nearby creep waves, helping you with farming a little bit.

Ravenous Hydra:
Tiamat on 'riods. Splash damage that procs lifesteal, in addition to the splash damage from Gauntlet makes Poppy's farming problems over. It synergizes really well with attack speed items, as well, so consider getting some along with this item.

Hextech Gunblade:
A great hybrid item giving both sustain and assassination tools. Remember that Poppy's ult amplifies active item damage, too, so use that to your advantage

THE REST:
Guardian Angel:
Nerfed item is nerfed, but still improves Poppy's survivability overall

Mercurial Scimitar:
As Poppy often needs to get into the CC-fest of late game, getting this item isn't a bad choice by any means. It gives good AD stats and a QSS effect.

Zephyr:
If you didn't get a mercs threads early game and want the extra tenacity (adding to what you have in your masteries) go ahead and get this item. It gives attack speed and cooldown redux too, synergizing well with Hydra in particular.

Shurelya's Reverie:
Not a bad option to make your Philo stone useful and get bonus movespeed.

Runic Bulwark:
If your support's not doing their job and you want some extra durability + want to help the team there's no harm in getting this item.

-THIS THREAD IS STILL A WIP AND ALL THINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE-

So that's my build for S3 Poppy. May your Pooping endeavors be fruitful! Any comments/criticisms are greatly appreciated.

longest guide ever! although poppy is my main too, ( i got scarlet hammer ) and this is a pretty good guide, although i would replace hextech gunblade with an attack speed item, for the hydra proc.

What happened to trinity force? I think it still offers the biggest burst on her Q, more speed, mana/ap/damage/slow on hit, I think its way better than the gauntlet.

Im confused about her passive. The way you said it makes it WORSE with armor/MR. Say you have 1000 health left, and you get nuked for 1k with someones Ult.

With 0 MR, you would eat 10% of the damage (100), plus half of the remainder (900/2 = 450). eating 550.


With 100 MR, you would only eat 500 damage normally, so you eat 100 (10% of your health), then half of the remainder (400/2= 200) = 300 eaten.

Your passive is actually more effective in the first scenario (450 reduced), vs the second (200 reduced). Hence, most people only get just enough survival to avoid getting insta-gibbed when they engage.


I agree that Triforce has been the gold standard and was one of the new non-nerfed items. Gauntlet is more defensive in nature and doesnt give the extremely useful Movespeed bonus (plus all the other offensive stats).

i tried jungler her for a minute, her clear seems awful and slow thoughts?

You have a point. In terms of damage, Iceborn gauntlet actually gives 10 more AP than Tri-force, but Triforce also gives 30 attack damage and crit damage, in addition to a slow chance and attack speed that really works on Poppy. In terms of passive effects, however, I find that Gauntlet is a bit more reliable (the slow is not chance-based, for instance). The armor and cooldown reduction it gives also synergizes a little better with Poppy's kit. The downside with guantlet, however,is that you have to get other items for attackspeed in order to best utilize the set I mentioned.

Overall, I agree that tri-force shouldn't be neglected on Poppy, but Gauntlet really isn't a bad item on her in my opinion.

@JooMancer: This guide is mainly geared towards laning with Poppy. Personally I don't think jungling is a good option with Poppy as her clear times are slow, her ganks are a little hard to pull of and junglers with better early games can walk over her. She is also like Amumu in that she gets shut down hard by invasions on her Blue buff.

@Elier: I disagree with excluding Hextech Gunblade as the spell vamp recovery is not only great on her during the laning phase, but the amount of recovery is generally huge with her Q. The active slow effect with it is also too good to pass up with Poppy, either.

It`s actually passive before stats.

So poppy first reduces incoming damage with her passive, and then she reduces it with armor/mr.

In your case (1000 dmg nuke with 100 mr), reduce the incoming dmg first with her passive (1000-100)/2=450 +100=550, then reduce it by 1/2 with her magic resist, so she would be dealt 275 dmg.

The build is nice. I was wondering how new items would do for her

The wiki says that armor/MR come first and then poppys pasive.

Valiant Fighter is a passive ability that will activate whenever Poppy takes damage that exceeds 10% of her current health, reducing that damage by 50%.
Valiant Fighter's damage reduction only applies to the portion of the damage that actually exceeds 10% of Poppy's health, not the entire damage.
For example: Poppy has 1000/2000 health and is being hit by a 400 damage nuke (after resistances). The 10% of 1000 is 100. The 400 damage nuke exceeds 10% of current hp (100) by 300. The exceeding 300 damage will be reduced by 50% to 150 by passive. This means you will be dealt 250 damage instead of 400 because 150 was reduced by passive.
Example : ( 400 - ( 1000 x 0.1 ) ) x 0.5 = 150
Formula : ( [damage received] - ([current health] x 0.1) ) x 0.5 = actual damage reduced.
Valiant Fighter's damage reduction occurs after armor and magic resistance's reduction.
Valiant Fighter's damage reduction applies to absorption shields.
Valiant Fighter does not affect True damage.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wik...bility_Details

Think of it this way: armor & MR do less for Poppy than they do for other champs, while HP does more for Poppy than other champs.

E.g., with the example from the wiki, if she had enough additional resistances to take 380 (after resistances) instead of 400..
On a normal champion, that extra resistance reduced the damage by 20.

On Poppy, with the same health, 280 of that damage exceeds 10% of health, so she takes half of that (140), plus the 100 that didn't exceed 10% of her health, for 240 total.

Without that extra resistance, she took 250 total.

So, that extra resistance only reduced 10 damage, instead of 20.

It still reduces damage though.
We can say that at BEST, Poppy gets the same reduction as other champions from Armor/MR (when taking hits that are <10% of her current health, after reduction).
All other times, Poppy receives less benefit from the armor/MR than a different champion would.


And actually, health is more valuable on Poppy.
Why not bad? Well, sure, if you had say 2000 hp instead of 1000 when you get hit, you would end up taking an extra 50 damage.

But, consider hits required to burst you down.

Lets say you have 2k hp total. How many 400 damage hits would it take to kill you?
The first does 300 (10% of 2k hp is 200, 400 damage, 200 is halved, for 300 total)
Next hit does 285 (300 less hp, 170 is 10%, so 230 is halved, and you take 170 + 115 = 285)
Next hit does 271
Then 257, 244, 232, 220, 209 (kills you)
8 hits.

2030 hp gets you to 9 hits. (Was almost there anyway)
2347 gets you to 10 hits.
2681 gets you to 11 hits.

What do we see? On a normal champion, it would take 400 hp to survive an extra hit.
On Poppy, it takes less than 400 (though the more hits you can take, the closer to 400 it will require...)
To take 10 instead of 9, you need 317 extra hp.
To take 11 instead of 10, you need 334 extra hp.

What if the hits were <= 10% of your current health? Then at worst, HP on Poppy is AS GOOD as it would be on other champions.
All other times, HP is worth more on Poppy than it would be on another champion.

To summarize:
More Armor/MR will mean you take less damage, but not as much damage is prevented vs a normal champion. Armor/MR is worth LESS on poppy than on other champions, but isn't bad per se.
At best, it is worth the same as on other champs (if all damage taken is <= 10% of Poppy's current health)
Other times, it is worse than on other champs (but still reduces overall damage taken, compared with not having the extra armor/MR).

More HP on Poppy means you can survive longer than normal champions--HP is worth MORE on poppy than on other champions.
At worst, Poppy's extra HP is worth just as much as it would be on a normal champion (when taking <=10% of current health on all hits)
Other times, it is worth more.

Similarly, HP regen is worth more on Poppy than on other champs.


EDIT: If you are going to downvote me, at least post why.