Hey there,

Welcome to my guide to Poppy, one of my favorite, most underrated champs in league. This is also my first guide so forgive me if the formatting isn't amazing.

I have been playing Poppy as one of my main characters for quite some times with over 200 wins. I have tried every build out there, and tested different item combinations, and I found this to be very effective build if you wish to be a tanky..annoying jerk all game :]

* Please try this build a few times before deciding if you agree or not *

The ruins I have chosen can be mixed and matched to your preference.

Poppy is naturally on the tankier side, so she is excellent for early game skirmishes.

I personally choose to stack extra armor mixed with Health Regen. This makes you have incredible sustain if you are solo top, or support bottom.

Another alternative that is excellent is additional move speed quints. It gives you a bit extra chase when enemies are getting away.

Even though I am tanky, I have played around with maxing W first for the extra armor stacks, but the damage from Poppy's Q is much more viable for early game kills. Especially when stacking Leviathan.

I get W second for the extra move and armor buff. It is extremely useful for chasing and surviving ganks.

This is all personal preference. Use what you are comfortable with.
Ghost - I use this spell because combined with FoN and Poppy's W, it is an incredible chase tool. As a bonus, it is incredibly scary to get chased down by a speeding blue ball.

Exhaust - I cant count how many times this spell has saved me from both chases, and tower dives. It is extremely useful for helping your team chase down running foes.

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Flash - Flash is also an excellent spell to use to line up charges. However, I find it less useful for tank poppy because she can basically walk out of anything without dying.

Farming is extremely tough with poppy, it makes it easier with the additional armor runes though. She can take a few hits without noticing. It is great to get a Heart of Gold in order to offset your potential loss of CS.

It is important to get a few early game assists/kills.

Use Poppy's Q to secure some last hits.

After playing around with her abilities. It has become natural for me to use her abilities both offensively and defensively. I will go over some of these below

PASSIVE - Valiant Fighter
This ability is your bread and butter. She work very well at low HP. Combine this amazing passive with stacked leviathan and armor = Always being chased and you laughing as they get baited into traps. Use this to bait enemies into traps, stall for time, and escape anytime you wish.

How this passive works:
Whenever poppy takes damage..if that damage does more than 10% of her current health..that damage is reduced by 50%. This is huge. Players will be doing minimal damage to you as you get closer to death. Just know your limit and if any cc's from the enemies are available. You do not want to be caught just before you make your big escape.

Q - Devastating Blow
This move is amazing for finishing off mobs and enemies, doing burst damage. It is important to get some early game kills with this amazing skill.

W - Paragon of Demacia
I use this for chasing, escaping and adding a bit of extra buff when fighting 1v1's. It makes players underestimate her survival skills.


E - Heroic Charge - This is your initiator, and in some cases, your savior and get-away tool. You can use this ability in many ways:

- Pinning/stunning into a wall
- Getting ahead of them and charging them backwards into your team
- Charge minions to gain/close distance to/from enemies.

This move can be life or death. You can also charge enemies through the walls as well.

R - Diplomatic Immunity
One of my favorite moves in the entire game. This amazing move allows you to be invincible for up to 8 seconds to anyone but one person you decide. This gives you incredible lasting power in team fights,
Use this ability to:

- Tower dive with no fear of tower damage (Be careful, when you kill your target, the barrier disappears)
- Be an ability sink for enemies to lay on you, wasting their Cool-downs.
- An escape utility when you are going to die. Simply use this on their weakest player, then walk out like a champ.

Remember, your job is to get as much attention as possible. That being said, its best to allow them to chase when your abilities are on cool-down. Allow them to hit you, then run, come back when your charge is off cool-down and rinse repeat. Poppy can be incredibly annoying and frustrating to deal with if used correctly.

I have found it is best to fight as poppy with lower amounts of health, it allows her passive to take over. It is very deceiving for the enemies to see a low health player and see its even more difficult to kill her. She can easily 1v3 and walk out without dying.

W in conjunction with your Ghost summoner skill is excellent for getting ahead of a fleeing opponent and ramming them back into your team.

Item order should always depend on the match up, if they have more magic, get your FoN first. If they have more AD, get your Sunfire Cap, I usually recommend sunfire first for reasons I explain below.

Mercury Treads

or

This is great for the tenacity and a bit of MR that Poppy lacks, I usually choose this unless the enemy team has no CC or more AD champs. If that is the case I will choose Ninja Tabi instead for the 10% reduction to Physical.

Leviathan



This item is not picked out very often because of the stacking buff. I can understand this. But as with an unkillable poppy, it because a very real possiblity to get all 20 stacks very quickly. On 20 stacks, you gain a mighty 15% damage reduction. You can also stack Ninja Tabi to gain an addition 10% reduction to physical attacks, this is 25% reduction not counting any armor! It is possible to kill a fully fed ashe with less than 300 health with this.


This item will also give you 32 health per stack...which equals 800 when fully stacked, you will have closer to 3800 health at the end of this build.
Sunfire Cap



This item is key if you wish to get lots of assists, in order to get money, you merely have to be around them. This will allow your leviathan to stack very quickly.

Force of Nature



I get this for 2 reasons, the amazing health regen (stacked with damage reduction, you become a Dr Mundo of the Yordle world), and the move speed, allowing for better chase. This also gives you great MR and is usually enough resistance that you wont need much more.

Randiuns Omen



I get this item because of the Active, and the amazing armor/Health/Regen bonus it allows. It is great to get this a bit later so you can allow your Heart of Gold to gather some gold. This item is great for when Poppy charges in and slows everyone down :) It is also excellent if you are being chased by a Master Yi or Tryndamere.

Trinity Force



This item is THE item to get for Poppy if you are going on a more AD fix. If things are going good in your game, feel free to grab this amazing item sooner. I put this last because I like to grab leviathan as soon as possible to start gaining stacks. Start with the Sheen, the Phage, and then finish it off. The game should be over by now. But if you get this far, it literally makes Poppy SUPER POPPY :)

Try this build a few times, I have had great success with it and I believe you will too. I want to add some good tactics to use in the form of YouTube videos.

Your success will rely on how well you can juke, run in and out of battles, and placing your charges. Play Video

Do your best to keep enemies off your squishies.