Welcome to my second build, this time dedicated to Poppy, The Iron Ambassador.

I made this build because most of the others I found here are pretty bad, and hardly ever work unless your team is owning the game. I attempt here to make a useful guide that works under all circumstances. So lets take a look at Poppy and her skills:

Passive: Valiant fighter. Poppy reduces HALF damage from anything that hits for more than 10% her CURRENT HP. That's a huge reduction. Lets say Veigar sees you with 550 health, and pops his 1500 damage ultimate. With your MR, its only 1000 damage, good. Then since its more than 55 (10% of your current health) you take 55 + (50% of 945)= 527'5 damage. Instead of 1000. CRAZY. This makes you so much tankier.

Q: Devastating blow. AKA Blow to the nuts. This beauty deals damage based on your attack base, a set number, your AP, and 8% of the enemy health. The great thing of it, however, is that you can pop it right after your AA, to get huge double hits. Low CD of 4 secs helps also. We will level it second.

W: Paragon of Dematia. This skill's passive grants you up to 15 bonus dmg and armor on level 1, and gets to 35 on level 5. Such a high bonus will make her our top priority. The bonus stacks in steps of 1/10 up to maximum, and stays as long as you hit or are being hit. However, we can also gain max bonus by activating the skill. Doing so will also increase Movement Speed.

E: Heroic charge. Our gap-closer. This won't do much damage but takes us to the enemy in an instant, and can knock them back to our team, or into a wall (=stun). The mana consumption however makes it damgerous to abuse in early game.

Ultimate: Diplomatic Immunity. This is the game-breaking skill. The way you use it determines wether you're a good or a bad Poppy. This makes you invulnerable to anything and everything for 5/6/7 seconds, except for the enemy champion you choose and the Summoning pool turret (XD). This is so important, that I'm gonna dedicate a whole section to it.

I've seen very bad advice on how to use poppy's ultimate, so I decided to make this whole chapter. Please read thoroughly as this is probably the most important part of the guide.

Things your ultimate do, from less to more important:

1º.- It blocks enemy damage. No champion will be able to kill you or even scratch you but for the one you choose.

2º.- It blocks any and all CC except for the chosen enemy. You can't be stunned, slowed, feared, suppresed, snared... nothing. This doesn't apply to the target you chose, who can still CC you

3º.- It makes you deal 20/30/40% extra damage to your target. For some stupid reason, this is often overlooked. Poppy deals A TON of damage to her ultimate's target.


Now, what do we make of this? Most times you'll hear "focus the support with your ultimate, then go kill!!!11". What if the enemy support is Alistar? He can stop me dead, let the carry escape, or even Nuke me silly with his skills. Now its 4 vs. 5 for the enemy. Lost tf. Most AD carries have little to no CC. That should be your focus. There's no way for him to outduel you, specially with a 40% advantage on your side. Now lets summarize what you should do with your ultimate:

TOP PRIORITY: Initiate tf.

You can start tf almost unscathed thanks to this, so do it. Make the enemy team waste skills on you. BUT! in order to do this, you can't pop your ultimate as soon as you enter the enemy formation, or else they will avoid you. Start normally and use the ultimate once you've been focused. They will try to stun you before you can use your R. Good. Make them waste stuns too. Just be fast with your R once they've commited to the fight.

SECOND PRIORITY: Carry destruction.

After initiating the teamfight, find and chase the enemy carry, preferrably the AD carry, since he's likely to lack a CC, and chase him to death. Push him out of the teamfight so he can't hurt your teammates.

x9: Pretty much self-explanatory, this'll make your damage way higher through the whole game.

x9: Needed for sustain in lane, as they will grant you defense versus enemy AA.

x9: This makes your MR very high late game (they pretty much negate Sorceress boots Magic penetration) and will help in mid and late game.

x3: Just like marks, this grants lots of damage.

Support route masteries:

This 3 points make your life much easier, as 100 mana mid game are very important in the mana-starved Poppy. Late game, 200 are even better.

Defense route masteries:

For early sustain, mainly. 36 extra health and 6 extra armor are great, and tough skinwill make quite a difference when you have to take that annoying minion aggro.

Offense route masteries:

We need the armor penetration from Sunderand Weapon expertise , and also the life steal from vampirism . The others are just needed to get there.

We will start withand five potions. This is more than enough to boost further your defense (remember we get another +15 from our W) and give you all the health regen you need till you get your lantern. On your first back you should be able to get at least and . Then try to get both and on your next one. With these, you should have more than enough presence on lane, on you can continue to get your Trinity and the rest of the items listed above.

We will always start withto get that 15 bonus to both armor and attack damage. Combined with your flat Armor runes, masteries and Cloth armor, this grants you a very high armor right from level 1. It also makes up for the lack of damage of not getting any attack damage items/runes. I find its much better than any of the two other skills, since you won't be harrasing much at level 1.

For your second skill point, get . This is your main damage skill that allows you to double-hit your target, therefore harrasing it. Try to save your mana for this skill and use it on the enemy every time they get too close to you.

The third skill point goes to your third skill, , which we will only use as a gap closer when we're looking for the kill, if the enemy overextended, or if our jungler came to gank. Don't use this skill for harrasing purposes as it will quickly deplete your mana.

After that, max first, as we will need that speed buff soon, as well as the extra damage and armor, then your bread and butter Q and finally your . Obviously rank up your ultimate every time you can.

Best choices

: This will save you if your oponent is chasing you in lane. It will also trap him for you to kill, or help your jungler in the gank. When teamfights start, this negates any and all damage from the enemy AD carry, or debuffs heavily the enemy AP carry. Mandatory on Poppy, given her role on teamfights lategame and midgame.

: AD carries are extremely important lategame. If your carry is fed and the enemy carry is behind in both farm and kills, it'll be gg. That's where this beautie comes in handy. See your jungler ganking bot? Good. Go into bushes, teleport bot and dive the tower with your R. Try to let the carry pick the kill (you can lock the enemy escape by stunning them with your E or by using exhaust on them). 4 vs 2 bot often ends in double kills, and you're the only champion in game that can tank a tower for 5/6/7 seconds for 0 damage.

Other options

: You don't want to take this, but if your support REALLY thinks he needs that Heal+Flash then... take it. Your team will make use of it. Leave Exhaust in this case.

: You're kidding, right? No I'm not. Combined with teleport, this can be quite troublesome for the enemy, as it grants you extra speed and extra health, and with teleport, you can go back to the fray inmediatly. 500 extra health on Poppy are not to be overlooked.

: If your jungler knows what he's doing, this can mean TOTAL jungle dominance. Combined with his Smite, you can take the buffs down in a heartbeat, and if the jungler takes wriggles lantern too, he can place a ward for you to teleport to him in just 4 seconds.

: I don't like this spell, but maybe I'm just bad at using it. I've seen some people using it though, and it can be quite troublesome. This makes Poppy a killing machine on lane (R for extra damage and no help for the enemy, Exhaust for no escape and huge debuff, and Surge for even more buff on you). Hard to use, though.

Just don't

: This is usefull early game, but not really game-changing as some 200+ extra mana won't really sustain you to the point you can skill-spam. Useless late-game, so no.

: We're packing Tenacity boots already, so this isn't that useful, not with that cooldown.

: We all love Flash, but there are better options for Poppy.

: Crazy speed id good. Yeah, but stacking even more speed won't make that much of a difference and you're losing an important slot.

: See Clarity.

: Might work for some kills, but not worth it on teamfights later, so no.

: Never liked this spell. 0 use on lategame, so no.

PROS

• Very tanky with this build, can take tons of damage and still escape alive.
• Very fast, can catch up to almost anything.
• Very bursty versus squishy targets.
• Can tank a tower for longer than any champion.
• One of the most tetam-disrupting assasins, can take on the carries while making the enemy waste important skills/ultimates on her while invincible.
• Almost never dies on teamfight without taking someone down with her.
• Very low item dependency.

CONS

• Very poor farmer.
• Extremely easy to kyte.
• Mana-starved.
• VERY hard to master.
• Extreme dependency on her teammates, as she can't carry on her own.

This is not a jungling guide, as you'll be on lane, but as soon as you get your Madred's razor, or even better, your lantern, you should start pushing your lane like a boss. Once you do that, you have the choice to either teleport to help other lanes (preferrably bot) or invade enemy jungle for a fast steal. Be sure to coordinate with your jungler as a 2-people team has better chances of stealing the buff, and a 4-people team is almost warranteed to kill in a bot gank.

Always pester your jungler to use wards (his lantern is enough, if he has one) to gank and dominate the jungle with your teleport. Remember your E stuns when colliding with walls (easy enough to do in jungle) and you should be able to completely destroy the enemy jungler.

Poppy is all about teamwork. Wait. Let me repeat that.

Poppy is all about teamwork

Please ALWAYS keep this in mind, as Poppy is not a great laner and she can only really kill one enemy on teamfights (which means you will get mauled by 4 enemies if your team lost) so remember this golden rule:

"I'm not here to try and get fed, I'm here to try and feed my mates"

Getting your Shaco 2 kills by minute 10, plus the ones he got himself, can easily mean gg thanks to a fed Shaco jungle. Keeping your Cassiopea midder with blue buff 24/7 can easily mean gg thanks to free farm mid. A single double kill for the carry bot can do pretty much the same, let alone if you do it twice for 4 free kills for that merciless Graves. However! if you got any of the listed above, it wouldn't mean that much to the game. So please, focus feeding your allies, not getting fed yourself.

• Wait till you have enough gold to buy the items of your first back (Madred and boots). If you ran out of potions, you'll need some too.
  
• Got the gold and doing fine top? Good. Now push that lane to tower. Ask your jungler for help if he's near.
  
• Look at the map: can you counter-jungle? Do it. No? Then try to take some creeps in your own jungle. Your jungler needs them? Then tell him to gank mid, and go there too. 3 vs 1 mid with your ultimate should give you the kill, or at least some strong harrass on him.
  
• You're probably hurt. Go back and buy the items mentioned.
  
• Did the enemy push your lane to tower? Then teleport back. No? then walk there (this is much preferred). And keep farming till you force him back. Push your lane again, and it's your time to shine.

1. TOP PRIORITY: bot lane. Stay in lane till your jungler is close to bot, then tell him to gank. Hide in bushes then teleport there for a 4 vs 2 gank. Even if you can't get the kill, its 4 people bot, and enemy bot lane should be pretty low on health, so get that dragon now.
2. SECOND PRIORITY: jungle. Ward and have your jungler ward enemy buffs, then steal them 24/7 with the help of teleport and your speed. Try to negate the enemy jungler's farm. Keep an eye on dragon too. Best thing is to steal enemy "dragon buff" (Blue if you're playing below, red if you're above) then go for dragon with the help of your bot lane.
3. LAST but not LEAST: mid lane. Feed your midder blue buffs. Harrass the enemy. Try to get a kill with your R (remember, its best if your midder gets it, not you, but never risk him escaping alive, you're no support).

As I said before, Poppy is all about teamwork. Wait. Let me repeat that again.

Poppy is all about teamwork

As you have a wriggle's lantern by now, try to keep Baron warded at all times. This'll make your support's life that much easier. Red buff should go to you in most cases, as it'll help you chase down enemy carries. Try not to get into a teamfight without your ultimate up. Talk to your teammates, let them know when you're ready. When you are, remember you're one of the best initiators, so start the party.

1. Make sure your whole team is there, don't go wild.
   
2. Get close slowly, don't charge all of a sudden, and tell your teammates your intentions (I think I'll go for Leblanc, I'll chase her out then turn back to fight. I have exhaust up so I'll use it on Ezreal. You guys focus "X" please).
   
3. Don't pop your ultimate inmediatly. Try to make the enemy attack you first. If they see you gleaming then they won't attack, nor waste their resources. When you see them coming for you, popon your target, or a no-CC enemy champion, then go for those carries. Try to savefor last, as its a perfect chasing skill (it also pushes the enemy out of the teamfight).
   
   
4. Once the carries are disrupted, you've fulfilled your duty as assasin. Try killing them, or the most damaging/disabling enemy. After chasing/killing the enemy carries, it really is your team the one to win the fight.

Poppy is a great assasin, and an ideal teamworker. She's hard to master, but more than worth it. However, please remember:

• Ranged enemies top are hard to deal with. If you're up against Teemo try to get help from your jungler during early game.
  
• Bruisers are just as annoying. Cho-gath and Singed are easy examples, and you should avoid close distances with them. You might also want to get some health regen instead of life steal, thus getting(but not wriggle) and getting lategame. For the health regeneration, will go later into our warmog, so you can simply get it sooner. This hurts your early-mid game, but it can't be helped.
  
  
• DPS mages such as Vladimir and Cassiopea are death for you. Just don't get Poppy if you're going to end up against them top. If you're stuck in that situation, try roaming a lot more, or you'll end up tower-hugging most of the time.

That's all for my guide to Poppy, solotop. Please rate and comment, all criticism is welcome as long as it makes sense ^_^