Poppy

The keeper of the hammer. Poppy is great late being one of the tankiest champions in the entire game while still doing decent damage. If your team needs a good front liner who can soak and dish out a lot of damage, Poppy will do an excellent job of it.

Pros:
-Scales well in to the late game
-lots of cc
-prevents most enemy movement abilities
-high base damage

Cons:
-Low mobility
-Easy to kite
-Short range

Poppy is a late game champ and as such her early game isn't the greatest.
Laneing phase:
Generally you will want to prioritise farm. Poppy's harassment comes in two forms: her passive and her Q. Her passive is a free auto every few second you can use to hit an oponent or kill a minion to get a shield for trades. Poppy generally wants to keep the lane frozen on her side of the map as much as possible since she can prevent the enemy from escaping a gank or at least burn a flash with her W. You push only to either siege, go to other lanes/do objectives or to deny the enemy laner farm when they back. You want to all in when the enemy is at around half hp. The best way to do so is to engage with your E in to a wall, this will give you enough time to do your full combo.

Mid/Late game

This is the point where several towers are down and people start moving to pressure other lanes and team fights star to break out. At this point you have transitioned in to your "The enemy attacks tickle" phase. Generally you want to be the one to initiate a team fight. As a tank with a lot of disruption your job is to get into the middle of the fight and do your best to separate the enemy team as much as possible. You will generally E into the enemy front line and then position your self so that you W can block as many dashes as possible to prevent the enemy from getting to your back line, if that fails use your R to peel the enemy of them. If the enemy has a heavy dive comp it is sometimes better to stick to your back line and peel for them.

Resolve:


Aftershock synergises well with Poppys W passive making her already substantial resistances even greater. Grasp is a good option if you are going for a more bruiser build.


Demolish is the best of the three runes in this tree for a top lane tank, giving you more siege power.


Conditioning has great sinergy with aftershock and Poppy's W passive giving her an incredible amount of bonus stats.



Due to the changes in rune placement this is now the best rune for poppy since it gives her cc reduction to help in laneing and later in the game to help stay relevant in team fights.

Precision:


Triumph is useful for dives and staying in fights longer because of the amount of health it restores.


Tenacity is a useful stat since you will be front line and will thus be cc-ed a lot.

Shard 1 should be either attack speed for trading in lane or adaptive for damage later into the game.
Shard 2 and 3 should be resistance to scale with W and conditioning.

Items

Doran's shield

Standard tank starting item. Good sustain good survivability early nothing more to say.

Corrupting potion

Good start in an easy matchup or in a matchup with little chance of you and your lane opponent killing each other.

Sunfire Cape

Standard tank item, gives nice stats and some early game damage. Be warned that this item will forcibly push lane so it might not be wise to buy it in some matchups.

Spirit Visage

This is the standard magic resist item, all the rest give less stats.

Iceborn Gauntlet

This item gives mana and armor, two things poppy really need. The bonus damage and AoE slow are also very useful and you can use the passive prock to enhance passive damage.

Dead Man's Plate

This gives Poppy movement speed which really helps with her lack of mobility. The bonus damage from the passive synergises well with her passive.

Warmog's Armor

You can use the massive amount of health it gives to your advantage and just stack pure resistance items to a much greater effect than almost all other champions. By the way does anyone know what a Mog is?

Locket of the Iron Solari

This item gives both armor and magic resist which is great for Poppy, and the active shield will let you and your team survive team fights better.

Passive:

Iron Ambassador

Poppy periodically throws her buckler with her next basic attack, which then falls near her target, where it remains for up to 4 seconds. If the buckler kills its target, it bounces back to Poppy automatically. Enemies can step on the buckler to destroy it.

This is one of the reasons poppy is so tanky. The % max health shield along with her natural tankiness means she will take almost no damage in properly done trades. Even though this attack is ranged it is coded as a melee attack which means it fully procs all on hit effects.
Q


Hammer Shock

Poppy smashes the ground in front of her, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit.

This ability is your bread and butter. The high base damage and the % max health damage make sure it hits hard no matter if your target is squishy or a tank, and the slow can help you escape ganks paired with your W. Always max it first since it will be your primary trading tool.
W


Steadfast Presence

Passive - Stubborn to a Fault: Poppy's total armor and total magic resistance are both increased by 15%, doubled to 30% when she falls below 40% maximum health.

Active: Poppy gains bonus movement speed for 2.5 seconds and generates a barrier around her for the duration, causing all enemies who dash within to be Grounded icon knocked down and dealt magic damage.

Steadfast Presence can only block a single dash per enemy per cast.

This is what makes Poppy such a good tank. The passive doesn't seem like much but late game the amount of armor and magic resist it gives you is insane, especially at low health. The active is incredibly powerful too since most dashes in game have a fairly long cooldown. Note that talons wall jump counts as a dash for the purpose of this spell and the wall you prevented him from jumping will still go on cooldown. Max this ability last since its the least impactfull ability you have early game.

E


Heroic Charge

Poppy dashes to the target enemy, dealing physical damage and carrying them along with her,
if they collide with terrain, she deals them the same damage again and stuns them.

This is Poppy's only real mobility and since it is a point and click dash it is hard to use as an escape unless you have enemy minions in front of you. It has great base damage like all of her spells and the wall stun makes it easier to zone enemies if you position properly. Max it second for the increased stun duration.

R


Keeper's Verdict

First Cast: Poppy channels for up to 4 seconds, retaining the ability to move but slowing herself by 15% for the duration. Keeper's Verdict's cooldown is set to 30 seconds if its channel is canceled.

Second Cast: Poppy smashes the ground, sending out a shockwave that travels in the target direction. When it hits an enemy champion, a massive hammer erupts, dealing physical damage to all enemies around it. Enemies impacted by the hammer are knocked back an incredible distance towards their fountain.

Releasing the ability instantly cancels the channel, dealing 50% reduced damage and knocking up all enemies around Poppy for 1 second.


This ult is one of the best disengage tools in the game if used properly. It can also be used to break apart the enemy team during fights and the instant cast is good for securing kills. It is all around a great spell but just be careful where you aim and remember that the enemy will fly towards their fountain no matter the direction you fire your ult. Put points in this whenever available.

1.Flash

This is one of the most powerful summoner spells in the game and you should almost always take it. An alternative would be ghost but it just isn't as good since Poppy already has great sticking power.

2. Teleport

This is a standard spell for top lane. It gives Poppy the ability to get to other parts of the Rift quickly and helps contest objectives. I would suggest taking it. An alternative would be Ignite but it just isn't as good on Poppy since she does sustained damage rather than the burst usually necessary for this spell.

In short Poppy is a solid character with a great late game and relatively easy to learn. She does well against most top matchups and against those that she doesn't she can just play passive and generally become tanky enough late game to make them much less of a threat. You also need to remember that wile she gets tankier when she falls bellow 40% health she is still missing more than half her health and you need to be mindful of how much damage you are taking.