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Choose Champion Build:
Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Ghost
Items
Ability Order
Iron Ambassador (PASSIVE)
Poppy Passive Ability
Introduction - An in-depth Guide.
Welcome all to Summer of 2012/2013! For those who do not know who I am. Hi, my name is Stokyj96 and this is my guide concerning, yes you got it right, Poppy the Iron Ambassador. Unlike most of the other guides you have trauled through, this guide will SURPRISE YOU, allow me
to demonstrate Hammer Diplomacy!
She is weak pre-6 to sustained engagements and has trouble collecting CS, however after the initial laning stage and help from your jungler or your tower you should have no problem two-hitting carries in the late game. Her identifying skill is her Diplomatic Immunity, being on a rather long cooldown for a reason, it is an ultimate that has the potential to change team fights, and offers a lot of utlity, providing both damage potential and can be used defensively. Poppy is quite a simple champion to pick up and play, however there are large skill variations and decisions that sort the good from the bad. But, thats what this guide is all about, to turn you into that pro Poppy player we all want to be.
Powerful Pros
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Critical Cons
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SPACESPACE |
At Level 1
Health: 423 (+81 per level)
Mana: 185 (+30 per level)
Attack damage: 56.3 (+3.375 per level)
Attack speed: 0.638 (+3.35% per level
Armor 18 (+4 per level
Mov. speed: 320
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SPACESPACE |
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SPACESPACE |
When compared to other champs, these base stats arnt too bad at all. Her health at 423 base is a little lackluster for a melee champ due to the ease of ranged poking, but that can be worked around with positioning. Her Attack Damage scales well and becomes more within the late levels. Her insane base armour and armour scaling is simply amazing, making her one of the tankiest base armour champs rivalling that of Malphite and Cho'Gath whom are often banned anyway. Her passive is simply the best in the game, hands down. ?Because of these factors her effective health is higher than most champions within the game.
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SPACESPACE |
These stats are rather nice for an assassin at level 18. However with 1800 health at level 18 it is not going to keep you alive on its own, this where our Diplomatic Immunity comes in. As I stated before her armour rating is INSANE, yes it worth saying twice. This is great since we do not particulary need to stack armour items against most AD solotops to mitigate their damage.
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SPACESPACE | SPACESPACE |
Base Stats at Level 18
Health: 1800
Mana: 690
Attack Damage: 113.0375
Attack Speed: 0.638 + (3.35%)
Armour: 86
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Poppy's Skillset
Poppy enhances her next attack so that it deals 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+60% of ability power) plus 8% of her target's maximum health in bonus damage. The bonus damage dealt cannot exceed 75 / 150 / 225 / 300 / 375.
Passive: Upon being hit or attacking an enemy, Poppy's armor and damage are increased by 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 for 5 seconds. This effect can stack 10 times.
Active: Poppy gains max stacks of Paragon of Demacia and her movement speed is increased by 17 / 19 / 21 / 23 / 25 % for 5 seconds.
Poppy charges at an enemy and carries them for a short distance (300 units). The initial impact deals 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% of ability power) magic damage. If they collide with terrain, her target takes 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+40% of ability power) magic damage and will be stunned for 1.5 seconds.
For 6 / 7 / 8 seconds, Poppy is immune to any damage and abilities from enemies other than her target.
In addition, Poppy's attacks deal 20 / 30 / 40 % increased damage to the marked target. Damage increase applies to summoner spells and items used by Poppy.
Any damage dealt to Poppy that exceeds 10% of her current health is reduced by 50%. This does not reduce damage from structures.
For those that like the math:
- Incredibly Technical.
- Mana Hungry.
- Reliance upon Lich Bane procs in between abilities to pour out the burst.
- Deathfire Grasp + Ulti = OP nuke. (Even since Deathfire Nerf)
- Overall more burst on your abilities ---> Where the term "2 Hit-KO" comes from.
- The 8% extra damage from Devastating Blow caps when the enemy has around 4650 hp and over, which is hard to acheive on non tanks so damage is generally wasted.
- Heroic Charge into wall = 1/3 of squishy health.
- Worse farming ability than AD build (Its hilariously bad).
- Noticeably less sustain than the AD variety.
- Higher damage on Devastating Blow (Crit + 1:1 invisible AD ratio, however it is turned into magic damage).
- Higher sustained damage once cd are blown- allowing easy triple/quadra/penta's.
- Higher sustain in lane, with a better farm rate.
- Better Teamfight Utility.
- Really only needs Iceborn Gauntlet or Trinity Force to wreck faces.
- Stronger late game, which we are all about.
- Paragon of Demacia provides 35 AD steroid, good in lane.
- Easy, high damage procs on Sheen. Heroic Charge + AA + Q = Hurt.
- Less reliant on the "Long" cooldowns Poppy has.
Runes
AD Poppy
Why? Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration?
Why? Greater Seal of Armor?
Why? Greater Quintessence of Lifesteal?
AP Poppy
Pro Tip
AD Masteries
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Tier 1Sorcery - Attack Speed is unneeded on Poppy, I vouch for the added cooldown reduction, allowing us to trade better due to our high base damage spells being on a reduced cooldown. However if you can't handle Poppy's sluggish animation, you can take the attack speed. Butcher - Helps with last hitting, adding damage to minions and monsters to ease Poppy's bad auto attack animation. Tier 2Brute Force - Scaling attack damage, What more could an AD carry ask for? This allows the player to rank up to achieve a point in Martial Mastery as well as allowing for a stronger late game and improve last hitting capability. Expose Weakness - Great for ganks and teamfights. As you will be using your spells to both initiate and deal a large portion of your damage, this is a nice addition to the damage your target will be inflicted with when fighting with teammates. Since Poppy's cooldown on Devastating Blow is rather short when maxed out, this can be easily applied. Feast - Any little bit helps in the sustain game. Tier 3 OnwardsSpell Weaving and Blade Weaving - These help you to trade with your lane opponent when it comes to all in's and extended trades, which really shouldn't be happening until 6. These are great if you can keep the stacks up. Martial Mastery and Warlord - Extra AD for last hitting, pretty straightforward. They synergize with one another pretty well. Executioner and Dangerous Game - Executioner helps to finish enemies off providing a substantial damage increase upon enemies with less than 50% hp. Dangerous Game however can sometimes counter the last few ticks of a dot or ignite that would have killed you otherwise after an engagement. Devastating Strikes - This is the reason why we dive deep into offense. Three points for what last season would have been nine. As it stands this is one of the most cost efficient masteries per point possessing the most gold value out of all three trees. Havoc - Doesn't get more straightforward than this. If your this far down the tree, there's no point in not getting this. Summary
Havoc is now at the bottom of the tree but now requires one point for a 3% damage increase compared to three points for a 2% increase. More AD and CDR than in the season 3 masteries. |
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Tier 1Fleet of Foot - Movement speed, helps in pretty much every way. Meditation - Gives a small amount of mana regen, nothing too game changing but is used to progress down the tiers. Tier 2Summoner's Insight - I put three points in this because the single point in strength of spirit is wasted on Poppy due to her insanely small base mana pool. And at the start of the game is when you need the regen the most. Summoner spells on the other hand are useful to escape situations and have a slight advantage with the damage and heal reduction from ignite, which will be useful against sustainable top laners such as Nasus. Alchemist - Improved pots, longer duration = More health = More sustain, great for surviving the lane phase. Tier 3Culinary Master - Probably the best single point within this tier. Pots now give a small amount of health and mana instantly when consumed, it gives you that much more sustain. |
Suitable Choices
Other Options: Mercury's Treads if the enemy team is CC heavy, I recommend switching to these late game, Ionian Boots of Lucidity if you are building AP or simply want to spam Devastating Blow, definitley a viable option for Poppy due to her insanely long cooldowns.
Iceborn Gauntlet vs Trinity Force
- Better Slow -- Rather than the chance to slow + higher ms reduction (AOE slow 35% vs 30% maybe single target slow)
- AOE Slow and Damage -- Strengthens Poppy's ability to push
- Lower cost -- Quicker benefits
- CDR + Armor for winning trades-- lowers CD on abilities + Damage mitigation
- Mana -- this combined with Crystalline Flask will help your mana issues
- BUILD THIS AGAINST HEAVY CC/PEEL TEAM COMPOSITIONS, OTHERWISE STICK TO TRINITY FORCE FOR THE EXTRA DAMAGE, MOVESPEED AND HEALTH
Other options: Iceborn Gauntlet
Other Options: Blade of the Ruined King, Hextech Gunblade
Other Options: Infinity Edge for the added damage that synergizes well with your Phantom Dancer(Pure Damage Route). Further options include Bloodthirster for upfront damage.
Other Options: Infinity Edge if you are after pure damage and havnt taken it earlier in your build, Banshee's Veil although doesnt always remove the CC thats on you due to it being popped by lesser abilities beforehand, Randuin's Omen.
Other Options:
Black Cleaver for the extra burst against all squishies (This I recommend normally if the teams are evenly matched, as your job is to NOT kill the tank rather the squishies), Infinity Edge/ Phantom Dancer if that is your preferred method and you have either already purchased, if against a Double AP composition swap to a Maw of Malmortius.
Explanation of Alternative Items. FAQS and otherwise.
Season 3 item update- What it means to Poppy
This is the one and only true MELEE Carry Poppy build. With these items, your attacks shred the opponents down one at time. Many guides feature this as their main build as you can Ult someone and proceed to a possible triple+ killstreak. This takes a long time while to farm up, but by the time you are at this late game build, you can carry hard games with ease, easily taking out Vayne and Kog'Maw due to your bursty melee nature. Feel free to add a Last Whisper or a Black Cleaver if 3+ enemies have over 100-150 armor. You can also mix and match defensive items like Randuin's Omen or a Warmogs instead of Guardian Angel if you want. As for The Ravenous Hydra, if you really want the added damage or pure lifesteal from Bloodthirster by all means go for it.
This is the double AP comp build. I take Maw of Malmortius when I need the shield and magic resist because there is a fed AP carry or if there is double AP/Will of the Ancients team comp, it is also amazing on the new ARAM map, since the majority of team comps are AP in nature. The shield itself synergizes well with Poppy's passive and the AD boost at low health. Although this build lacks damage, it is great for tanking and being a general damage soak. If you initate directly onto the enemy AD or AP carry they will have a hard time peeling you off them, let alone killing you. The Randuin's Omen gives a much needed health boost, and an AOE slow and attack speed reduction. I'd prefer not to follow this build in serious play as Poppy is built to blow a single target up instantly, not to tank like a Shen or Malphite.
Early Game/ Starting Item set.
Sight Ward
These are a really strong starting item set for Poppy simply because of the sustain and awareness it provides. These allow you to AA --> Devastating Blow as harass whilst taking minimal counter damage. It helps your mana issues as well as sustain you against your top laners.
Against a Melee Bruiser
Most of the time you will want to trade,trade,trade. Despite what people say Poppy's level one through to three is incredibly powerful as the base damage on all her skills and Auto attacks is pretty good. Do not take free harrass from an enemy bruiser, because, frankly you dont need to. The key to winning trades with Poppy is to not extend trades more than what you want to. An ideal trade for Poppy is to smack them in the face with an AA and a Devastating Blow when they come to last hit and back off before they can fully engage upon you, as you WILL lose extended fights, unless of course you get them low enough to kill them with your burst. Remember, Poppy's health is deceptive, you can bait engages for your jungler, do not underestimate your passive! Double kills are very easily gotten with Poppy because deception is the key!
Level One teamfights often break out in higher elo matches, if this occurs I'd recommend taking your skillpoint in Heroic Charge right during the teamfight as this is your only form of Hard CC. Do this when engaging in the jungle. Be sure to get the stun off otherwise you will be out of position and will be quickly focused.
Not every game will be ideal, some games you will be allowed to free farm by your opponent. But there will be those games when your opponent realises the danger of a free farming Poppy.
When solotop you will often be against a sustained bruiser, therefore I advise purchasing a Crystalline Flask as your first item allowing you to survive in lane longer, even if your existance is underneath your tower. If you know you can win your lane, ie. a Jax or a Riven matchup, grab a Long Sword and two pots for the added damage, and call for an early gank. Call for jungle ganks regularly or whenever they are required, be sure to back your jungle up in ganks in case of counter jungles and to signal using blue and yellow pings accordingly.
Early Laning vs a Ranged Bruiser
Start sustain, and try to sustain your way through lane. You have two major options. You can rush Ravenous Hydra so you can push out the lane, sustain through their damage, and then roam. Or 2. if you have jungle support, go for kill potential rushing a cutlass and a Trinity Force. Most importantly take the last hits by utilizing the brush, by running in and out when you need to last hit. Punish them if they try to facecheck the brush with a wall stun and a Q, then run away.
Engaging
Level 6.
Mid Game (Where Poppy begins to unexpectively shine)
You have two major choices.
Stay in your lane and split push. If you are a little bit ahead you can dive and stop anybody who comes to 1v1 you.
Your job, if you are taking this route, is to put your enemies in the uncomfortable position where they either lose a laner and a dragon, or lose a laner and a tower, or just a tower if they are wusses and dont want to 1v1 you. But thats how you win games, force them to play on your terms, and push the advantage.
But what If I my team needs my help?
Make sure your enemy laner doesn't have waveclear, the wave is already pushed right up to the enemy tower, or you have a Ravenous Hydra in your pocket. Otherwise your enemy laner will either 1. Take the tower, or 2. Deny you waves upon waves of creeps. You want neither of those to happen, trust me. If you want to be able to help your team, you are going to have to buy a Hydra for the pushing power, there is no way around it. It is the only thing that will allow you to waveclear and push a wave, so you can go help your team.
Late Game
If she tries to stay in human form she will oom herself, as your passive combined with your sustain makes her Q largely ignorable.
Heres one trick: If she ever switches from spider form to human form, and shes underneath her tower with full hp, having casted her cacoon and their jungler is accounted for dive her. This same trick applies to Nidalee and Jayce. She has no rappel to get out of your dives, so blow everything on her.
If she managed to get her rappel off, she should be low hp by then, and under the tower. Walk outside the tower range for minion aggro to take effect and wait for you E to come back off CD. Rinse and repeat, be sure to keep an eye on the lanes when doing this.
As far as itemizing against her, grab Mercury's Treads and either rush a Ravenous Hydra so you can roam, or a Trinity Force for the added kill potential. You outscale her like crazy!
I recommend rushing a hydra in this matchup, due to Garen's innate ability to push with his E.
Tip: If he uses his dash, to dash toward you for the attack speed bonus, he made the biggest mistake of his life, if your on any more than half your health and neither of you has fed, simply turn around on him and bash him into the closest wall/ towards your turrent, since he is relatively squishy he will attempt to Flash out. Well done! you have made him waste his main escape tool.
I suggest starting a Long Sword and two health pots. Many of you will be thinking this is suicide, especially against a Jax. Start Paragon of Demacia and level it again at level 4 for the extra passive damage and armor. Since he does a lot of mixed damage, grab Mercury's Treads for the magic resist and tenacity for his stun.
The things you need to worry about is #1 Keeping up in damage, by constantly harrassing him, #2 avoiding his stun, and #3 keeping your Paragon of Demacia stacks up. You will out trade jax provided you do one auto attack and one Devastating Blow and then back off. If you stay and engage in a prolonged fight he will do more damage especially at 6 when his ultimate does extra damage every third hit. Avoid fighting when his ultimate is on or his stun is going. If he jumps on you while in the process of dodging you can hit him with q and then charge away if you are fast enough. After his ult runs out and his stun is on cool down, Use your ultimate to ensure max damage and killing potential. Jax can get out of hand if you give him first blood, so careful.
A good jax will trade better with you post six, as he will stack his passive twice on minions and jump you on the third hit, and save his stun for crucial moments rather than engaging upon you with it. If the jax doesnt know that Devastating Blow goes through dodge then he is in for a nasty surprise. Overall, constantly harrass jax with your Devastating Blow and waltz out of his stun range. If the lane is going bad you can always sit under your tower, since jax cant really do much when you are beneath your tower with more than 1/2 hp.
Tip: a common jax trick is to attack you in the middle of your minion wave at level 1 to draw minion aggro, and E stun you, as this will double the damage it deals. Know this technique and avoid it.
I tend to find Kennen a lot lately, maybe its due to his utility that he provides in his multitude of stuns. Unfortunately for us, Kennen is one of the harder matchups due to his ranged nature, with a powerful arsenal of poking tools that will leave us all high and dry in no time. The ideal way to approach this matchup is to simply, like most others, farm under your turrent, hiding within a minion wave to block his harrass with Thundering Shuriken. This means learning to last hit under your turrent.
Poppy gets one major opening in the laning phase against a Kennen. This comes when you have your Mercury's Treads and your Sheen upon reaching level 6-8. In a direct 1v1 situation you will be able to beat a kennen due to the damage amplication from your ultimate. On another note, kennen is an energy user, with no direct way to restore used energy. Thus once Kennen uses his combo, he is useless for a crucial 3-5 seconds relying on his auto attacks for damage between bursts, allowing you to quickly trade, or finish him off.
Often Kennen players will use Lightning Rush as an escape tool. If you can keep up with Kennen even after he has used this it will be an fight, as this skill uses up HALF of his total energy negating a large portion of his burst potential.
Although a good Shyvana might not be the best to lane against as a top lane Poppy but it is do-able. The main problem is that as a Poppy you have a high base defence allowing you to withstand a lot of damage from AD characters, however since Shyvana does magic damage along with that, you will have to build a Mercury's Treads simply for the added magic resist, either that or use flat magic resist runes.
A Poppy should tower hug in this situation, gathering a farm here and there avoiding early tradeoffs as you will come out for the worse, however once you have your Sheen you can afford to be a tad more aggressive beginning to even out your trades with her. But be wary, he damage will rise considerably once she hits 5-6. A Shyvana tends to push quite hard due to her Burnout farming, this allows your jungler (lets hope you got one) to gank her rather easily. I find that once she hits 6, players often become overconfident and tend to Dragon's Descent directly outside your own tower range. This is incredibly silly on her part, simply because a quick thinking Poppy will climb over her back and Heroic Charge her into tower range to draw the aggro, damaging her significantly. Basically, play it safe in this matchup as you are ill prepared to go against hybrid top lane bruisers.
Tryndamere is a surpisingly easy matchup for a skilled Poppy. Basically what you want to have against a top laning Tryndamere is a full set of armour runes, which if your following this build you should have to begin with and a couple points in Paragon of Demacia with all of this added armour he will be hitting next to nothing you with his auto attacks early game, which is his main source of damage.
What you want to do to a Tryndamere and his laning partner is to zone them out completely of the minion line, Devastating Blow him every time he comes close to win trade offs and preventing him from gathering any rage to heal himself. If you are having a tough time with the enemy jungler pick up a Sheen as usual to harrass Trynd out of the lane completely pre 6, for an un-fed and under-farmed Tryndamere really is useless to his team besides his slow.
Pre-6 watch out for his Undying Rage lure, as this sometimes catches me off guard when I believe its on CD. If possible Heroic Charge stun the bugger before he can pop it for an easy kill.
sopher's Stone]] on your first B
other champion. Whilst her base statistics and skillset seem fit for the jungle, it is incredibley hard to deal with early jungling as Poppy but fear not! for it can be done.
There are a few obstacles to tackle when facing the jungle as Poppy an example is having to take Smite which leaves you with only one summmoner to play around with forcing you to pick between Ignite for a better finisher, Exhaust for a reliable form of soft CC in ganks, Flash as an escape mechanism and Ghost for greater mobility, whether it be chasing or fleeing. Jungle Poppy sounds on paper like the go to build straight off the bat. A champion that needs lots of consistent farm to progress to a late game beast. Since the creeps in the jungle dont move your guaranteed the majority of your farm, the one conflict with this is Poppy takes a long to time to start off and become self sufficient.
Poppy is able to inflict some serious single target damage in ganks as well as offer up easy tower diving opportunities around the level 6-10 mark which no other champion can match. As long as one places her Heroic Charge's perfectly, Poppy turns out to be a strong jungler with amazing ganking potential as well as being able to defend against invasions easily.
Powerful Pros
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Critical Cons
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Note: These routes can be customized a bit for your needs if you feel up to it. As a jungler you should adapt to the situation, if this means putting on hold your jungle to attend a teamfight then do so. But remember every second you leave your jungle, you miss out on gold and exp, so be sure you are not wandering around like a lost soul.
The Blue Buff Route/Farm Route Till Four:
•Start Wolves (perferably with a little help to make it go by faster and less health lost)
• Grab a leash for Blue and Smite it when it is low to prevent steals.
•If you think you can counter-jungle, now is the time to run into enemy territory, either camp red with a top laner, or steal golems, I wouldnt recommend engaging.
•If not, just go straight to Wraiths.
•Fight Double Golems while focusing the bigger one first to soften up the damage.
•Go over to red, check bushes beforehand to watch out for quick junglers waiting for a chance to kill you and steal your buff. Remember to smite it!
•Once you have double buffs, continuing jungling by going to Wraiths or decide to gank.
This path allows you to have mana to spam your spells throughout the jungle. This is also the path you want to take if you doubt you'll have early game (before level 4) ganks available or if the enemy jungler is hard to counter-jungle for an easy first blood. After this route its advisable to either gank a lane, or recall to get your next set of items to sustain.
Red Gank/Safe Path:
•Start Double Golems and focus big golem as usual. (Help on this is preferred, prevents counter jungling)
•Proceed onwards to Red Buff and be sure to Smite it.
•Go to wraiths and focus the big one to take less overall damage
•Go to Wolves next and focus the big wolf, again it crits more than small wolves.
•Start Blue Buff and finish it off with smite to get double buffs.
•Decide whether to enter enemy jungle territory, or to take an early gank opportunity.
This is the "safe" path as you can avoid an invasion towards your blue buff that could turn out catastrophic for your team. This path also makes you hard to gank while in the jungle due to red buff slowing any escapes. The time to level 4 with this path is around the same amount of time as the blue buff path, but the main problem with this path is the Mana Management, which restricts your use of abilities on jungle creeps.
This is a path where you might want to conside taking Heroic Charge at level 2 if you decide to early gank or protect your self from an counter-jungler that may be seeking first blood, there has been many a time i've pulled off a successful level 2 gank by taking this at 2. With this path, try for a level 2 or 3 gank. Don't try ganking unless you have Heroic Charge at least. For both paths you should be decently healthy especially if you got a good leash.
Important!!
Why use wards? Especially since I'm Poppy!
The wards are mainly used for gaining vision over the map, this is the most important way to gain map control. Vision over the enemy movements makes avoiding ganks possible, if not easy. It also can be used more offensive way like caughting enemies on the places where they don't expect to be ganked such as in your jungle, or their jungler going for their blue, which might lead to a buff steal.
Poppy as a solo-top/ a top champion shouldnt be the main character warding, you should leave the job up to your tanks and your bot lane support. However in the rare instance that nobody on your team wards, your going to have to step up and fill the gap, after all no point not spending that small 75g on a sight ward and getting ganked giving the enemy 350g+.
The main Areas you should Consider Warding are:
Entrance to Baron for easy steals late game for your jungler, Only ward this past 25min or so.
The tri-bush next to your tower, to prevent any mid circling behind you and catching you just out of range of your tower, as well as to stop any counter-jungler from stealing red.
In lane- this is recommended as you will be pushed to your tower a lot, and you want to know where your enemies are in case of "Mia's" otherwise your own mid lane will pay the price.
The bottom bush of the top lane. This is imperitive as the enemy will often hide down this side of the lane to gank you. Be careful, and avoid facechecking this bush alone.
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