Poppy Build Guide by Zaelik

Introduction

Hey, This is Zælik. I have been playing League of Legends for over a year now. This is my first guide and I am really excited to share the news that jungle Poppy works. Now why Poppy, When I first started one of my favorite champions was Poppy so I figured I would show a video of Poppy at her best.

I used to play her all the time both as an ad carry and Ap nuke. Unfortunately in the current meta there was no place for her. Or at least that is what I thought before I started to Jungle her. Jungle Poppy is an aggressive jungler that can invade very well and get off some incredible ganks. Poppy in general is very fun and can utterly obliterate carries end game. The hard part with Poppy in the current meta was getting to the end game. So back to my question of how to play poppy in the current meta. The solution - Jungle Poppy! and this is my guide to do just that.

A few notes about Warding/Jungling

Before we actually get into the guide I would like to talk about a few key aspect of the game. There are plenty of guides out there on both warding and basic jungle archetypes but for you lazybones out there this section is for you.
First off is Warding. I know people may not think it is important but wards can win games, net free kills, secure buffs/dragon and even free Baron. As a jungler you should help your team out by keeping dragon warded. In addition to dragon I highly recommend that you ward yours and the enemies buffs. This will give you buff control. Buffs spawn 5 min after they were killed. This is vital to know as timing buffs will secure your own and allow you to steal your enemies. Poppy is extremely reliant on Blue buff for her jungle to be fast so keeping it safe is getting you closer to your Trinity Force.
The second thing I wanted to mention is about different types of junglers. I have separated them into three main types, starting with what I like to call the "old school ones" Amumu, Nunu, Jarvan IV etc. Junglers who are weaker at ganking very tanky and move through their jungles fairly slow. Then there are the "ganking" junlgers Evelynn Twitch Lee Sin (now) and last but not least are the "New kids on the block" these are the Shyvana, Skarner Maokai junglers that are unbelivably fast at clearing they may have amazing ganks and can counter jungle extremely well. Poppy can be all of the above. You can counter jungle right up with the best of them. You have amazing ganks and with your Paragon of Demacia you are one of the tankiest junglers at the beginning of the game.

Pros / Cons

Summoner Spells

Smite - Necessary on jungler
Flash - Allows you to position for wall stun. Also allows amazing juke techniques

Also viable

Ghost - Amazing with this build makes you sonic fast
Exhaust - This spell can help with ganks. This would replace flash and I think it is the least viable of the three summoner spells.

All others are useless for jungling Poppy

Runes

I go with:

or you can substitute Arp marks for As and Swiftness quints for the Arp
the alternative runes allow greater ganks for a slower jungle

Masteries

Poppy is an assassin therefore it only seems logical that she would be offensive.
I go for both the AS>ARP and the CDR>MP the reason is that Poppy does lots of magic damage even for an ad champ. (Your Q burst that really chunks people is Magic damage)
I also pick up the lifesteal
I grab more sustain and armor in the defensive tree to help with jungling.

Alternate masteries would be the same 21 in offensive with the reduced death time move speed and runic affinity in utility. This would net you less gold as smite would not give you any gold however it would allow you more ganking opportunities. If you gank often and can secure kills I would recommend this mastery setup.

Skill Sequence

Start with your Paragon of Demacia the reason is because this ability is essential in Poppy's early jungle. Then I pick up Heroic Charge as it helps with ganks, and makes clearing the buff camps easier. Heroic Charge also allows Poppy to counter jungle or prevent enemies from counter jungling. Next is Devastating Blow(the bread and butter of Poppy) so much damage from this one ability I will go over that later. I then put 1 more points in w to sustain jungle and allow for better ganks as it gives more movespeed/armor and damage. The priority to max should be R>Q>W>E.

Ganking / Jungling

Poppy's Jungle route is a standard one. Blue>double golems. However I often try to invade and counter jungle on Poppy once i hit level 2-3. This is something you will have to learn for yourself but once you do it makes Poppy even stronger. Poppy can one v one almost any jungler in the jungle. Her charge, when used correctly does massive damage and stuns the target. When Jungling as Poppy keep your jungle clear at all times and gank often. Poppy scares people because most people have had a game with that one Poppy that went 30-2. They will remember that game and fear Poppy. Run out at them and hit q if you can get a kill amazing if not you probably burned their flash/ghost etc.
Run out of lane wait a few seconds then move back in they will get scared or be out of position for you to wallstun/secure the kill. Then move back to your jungle. Show your hammer the the enemies. The best junglers are the ones with the most presence in game. Once you have your wriggles/boots sheen/phage start giving your blue to your ap carry. As Poppy is a very strong counter jungling assassin fighter you are ok to invade. Steal buffs, Steal wraiths Steal wolves and golems. When you Play Poppy you should have 2 jungles at your disposal. After you steal buffs the first few times make sure you are watching out for wards.
Also place wards at the major buffs. If the enemy jungler is ganking steal their jungle. IF they are in their jungle then Gank them. As I mentioned previously Poppy is very aggressive and her playstyle may take time to get used to.

Items Core Build

I start with vamp scepter however any of the 3 items that build into wriggles is acceptable. I just prefer vamp scept as it is the cheapest and fasted route to wriggles. once you have your wriggles and merc treads it is time to move onto Trinity Force. Tf is Poppy's main item. I generally build Phage> Sheen> Zeal. At this point I assess how the game is going. Can I afford to grab more Damage, do I need more movespeed, Or am I being focused and need more defence. Generally at this point I am still tanky enough that I can go strait for my Infinity Edge. After Infinity Edge I grab a Zeal Force of Nature Phantom Dancer and Finish off with a The Bloodthirster. The theme of this build is to make you Tanky enough that you can charge in without dying, Kill 1-2 people and run as fast as you can away, Live then repeat. Hence all of the movement speed.
Once your full build is complete and the enemy team has yet to surrender dont forget to buy your consumables. All of them help Poppy out.

- I get this because it helps out with the jungle both with the passive ability and the armor/attack damage. Also, it gives you the lifesteal you need until we upgrade to a The Bloodthirster.

- I get these boots because Poppy will be in the center of conflict. When Poppy's Ultimate is on cooldown she is very susceptible to crowd control effects.

- Poppy's main item. Everything about this Item is good for Poppy when building grab Sheen first for the most damage and then grab phage/zeal based on the game. Phage when you need more surviability and Zeal for more damage.

- This is where you start to hurt. This Item is a huge Damage boost. With the Trinity Force " Sheen" effect if you get a crit on your Devastating Blow... Well I guess that would just derive the origin of the ability name now wouldn't it.

- I pick up a zeal here to give more crit(helping your recently acquired Infinity Edge, movement and attack speed. I leave it at a Zeal to tide us over while we build some defensive items.

- I build this item for several reasons and I will fit this into the guide as well. First off Poppy needs Magic Resist in this build. Secondly the passive will allow you to kite the enemy team by healing health as you run. And thirdly with this build you want to be the fastest person on the field of battle and this item helps you do just that.

- Poppy in this guide needs a lot of movespeed. This item gives that extra boost so that you are The Fastest Hammer in the West. I also love the fact that it brings you up to 70% crit chance.

- This will replace your Wriggle's Lantern. It gives more lifesteal and damage.

Items - Situational

Here are some items that can be very useful on Poppy. You should always pick your items based on the game and the core build may not be the best.

- This Item can really stop champions like LeBlanc. I prefer Force of Nature because with Poppy's passive Valiant Fighter you can survive most burst damage. However this item is still viable.

- This is one of my Favorite items on Poppy. When you can run into the enemy team and take out 2-3 champions, die and then comeback you can have a lot of fun as Poppy. I generally skip my The Bloodthirster or Force of Nature for Guardian Angel. Tip; Because of Valiant Fighter when you come back to life with 750hp you can generally escape death.



This used to be one of my favorite items on Poppy before it was nerfed. Now on occasion i still pick it up. The lifesteal will supplement The Bloodthirster. For lesser Attack damage and lifesteal you receive spellvamp and an amazing activate ability. When you activate the ability from Hextech Gunblade you can catch up to anyone. Tip; if you have your ultimate active and you use the activate ability on your target they take increased damage.

- if you feel you are doing less damage because your enemies are stacking armor than this item can help greatly. I would generally grab this item instead of my Phantom Dancer.

- If there are 2-3 champions with 100+ armor than this item becomes better than The Black Cleaver. Supposing an enemy has 150 armor. TBC = hitting a target with 105 armor. LW = hitting a target at 90 armor. This item gets better the more armor that the enemy stacks. As much as it may seem like a good Idea never get both TBC and LW. They stack horribly together.

Hotfixes/changelog

This is where I will be logging changes to the guide. I am still going through and coding my guide. Below is useful information that is valid. However it has not yet been coded.

Changelog
02-26-2012 - Guide posted
02-26-2012 - Added Situational Items
05-28-2012 - Changed Item build due to nerf in phantom Dancer and wriggles

Unique Skills

Poppy has several Unique skills
First is her Passive. which allows her to live from some crazy situations.
You can use this by jugnling when most sensible people would have gone home. Say you just escaped a team fight and you know the enemy team is not pursuing closely. you can generally head to double golems wraiths or wolves and nuke the one that has the health regen aura. clear the camp if you can keep jungling good if not now you back and you made an extra hundred gold.

Secondly (this one is probably most important) Devestating blow. To impact the most damage with this ability make sure that you activate it while you can have the sheen/tf effect as well.
that will make your next auto attack do insane damage. It is a really easy thing to do but making sure every time sheen proc is up it goes onto a q will tremendously improve your damage.

The third trick with Poppy's abilities is Heroic Charge. The key to this ability is aiming so that the target is thrust into a hard surface. Holding off until you can guarantees the stun is important. Otherwise you only push the target away from your allies. Also it does double damage when the target hits a "wall".

Finally Poppy's Ultimate.
This is what makes Poppy really fun and separates the bad good and Godlike/legendary Poppys apart. Knowing when to ult and who to ult can save your life so many times as well as maximize your damage output. I will classify the ult into different categories of when to ult and how to use it.

First. use the ult on a support or champion that isnt a big threat damage wise to yourself. Surprisingly endgame this can often be the enemy ap carry. Make sure not to be using this on a soroka or taric who will cripple you while you have your bubble of OP. During this time you have free reign on the enemy team. nothing but the one u ultied can touch you. This is when u rock the house. Pick one or 2 enemy carries and nuke them. Once they are dead run away from the fight. IF your team was their to engage run back in and pick another important target.

Secondly Use your ult as an escape mechanism. Pop your ult on someone who has no real cc and you can run away from. Say you are warding baron or choose to facecheck a scary bush. Dying in League of Legends is bad right. SO its ok to pop your ult on someone who cant cc you and getting the hell out of there.

Thirdly. If there is that one character on the enemy team that really needs to die and you cant do it in your time bubble of OP. Ult that champ and focus the hell out of them. YOU get increased damage to the target and our fairly tanky so you can use the time to burst that one person down. and again after the bubble is down run away. once you are out of combat you can ***es if you can reengage and onto whom. People have a tendency to really want to kill you when your bubble disappears.

Team Work

Poppy excels when she can be made part of a coordinated team fight.
Try working with your team to get those amazing wall stuns that can change the game.
Perfect situations can be with characters like trundle, anivia and jarvan. Even if they are on the enemy team. use the obstacles to your advantage. If you have someone like vayne on your team feel free to spread out your wall stuns to keep them there longer. Even though the wall stun is nice it can be amazing to thrust an enemy into your team. gragas ult/leesin ult/ janna ult/ ali in combination with your heroic charge can throw a carry into the middle of your team. That = dead carry.

Summary

Quick recap. Fed Poppy =Win. This was my first guide and I would like some feedback. I know it sounds cliche but I want to know what you think. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I would like for you to comment and please not troll vote. If there is something you think is bad let me know and likewise if you like it I would appreciate that as well.
Also I wanted to acknowledge Brum. His Ap Poppy guide is what taught me a lot of the amazing tricks Poppy can do. Here is a copy of the guide, it is outdated but Still has useful information.

Thanks again for Reading my guide. If you have any questions or want to talk more feel free to add/message me in game on Na. My summoner name is Zælik ( the æ=altcode 145)

Also Big thanks to jhoijhoi Her guide helped a lot in making this. Otherwise I would just have walls of text no one would want to read.