I haven't played Poppy much, but since my favourite playstyle is melee fighter, I thought I'd give her a go with no research and see how I do.

Well, I ended up 14/7/16 or something like that and had a blast playing her.

Runes I have are movement speed quintessences, mana glyph, dodge seals, and arp/crit damage marks. Not really a pure poppy rune build but eh, it suffices for most heroes.

Masteries were Ghost/Exhaust. Ghost as a pure defensive escape method, or lane rush. Exhaust with diplomatic immunity was awesome.

Talents were... Utility 1 for ghost. Damage 20. Defense 9 (dodge move speed)

I tried to rush Phantom Dancer as my first big item.

1: Attack Speed part of zeal and heal pot.
2: Went back with enough gold for zeal and boots +1
3: Life steal and Ninja Tabi
4: Emblem of Valor or whatever Life Steal goes into >< Can't remember, lifesteal and hp/5
5: Phage or Finish Phantom Dancer
6: Whatever I didn't do in 5
7: If game is still going, start building for Inf Edge, and whatever else you need.

My play style this game was gank, not tank. My movement speed was really nice with ms quints and PD 12% bonus.
I'm still learning this hero, but I'll run with this sort of build and experiment I guess.

Anyways, any feedback for be awesome. Cheers!

I've been quite succesful with Poppy lately, and personally I build her more defencively than you. I almost always start the game with a catalyst, and then a sheen.

After that my build isn't really set in stone, it changes from game to game depending on what I feel I'll need. Though here are some items I really like and often build on her:
Brutaliser
Trinity Force
Glacial shroud (possibly frozen heart in a long game)
Guardian angel
Starks fervor
Frozen Mallet
Banshees Veil

As you can see theres not really any huge damage only items in there. I ussually don't make any huge dps focused items like infinity edge unless I really got my farm on from an easy lane, or I'm dominating and just trying to end the game quicker.

Also your boots basically vary depending on the game, but for me it's mostly merc treads on her. Though in the case that they don't have any hard nukers on their team tabi may be a good choice.

Where's the sheen? And I would recommend flash. It will help setting up stuns.

Thanks for the replies and lack of trolling posts.

I'm taking all this into consideration. Played her again with my current set up before I came back here to see what you had all put down. I did well since the team I was against was Cho, Trynd, Yi, Morg and Corki. So Yi and Trynd I was able to dodge like a mofo

Anyway! Sheen seems okay, but what about the nerf to it? Is Trinity Force worth it? Considering I love Phantom Dancer so much for dodge, movement speed attack speed crit in one awesome item. So would be hard to get enough gold for that and whatever else I need.

Just looking for feedback here, as I love Poppies abilities, and this hero just fits my playstyle perfectly.