Poppy Build Guide by RTO

RTO Here! About Me I am a Peak 578 LP Challenger, North American Top Laner and Streamer representing Team Radiance, whose mission is to promote positivity in League of Legends. My main is Renekton, but I play many other champions when I am target banned. I also have an incredible amount of top lane knowledge that I want to share with you guys. Poppy is a strong, tanky top laner who excels at locking down single targets, interrupting dashes and disengaging unwanted teamfights. She's fun to play, with a mid to high skill ceiling due to her positionals. If you like this guide, make sure to check out my even more in depth guides at my new website

★ The main rune choice for a tanky top lane Poppy, offering you sustain in lane, extra damage based on your max HP, and permanently increasing your health - every 4s on your next attack, while in combat.

★ Due to Poppy's passive, Iron Ambassador, she gains a shield every 16 / 12 / 8s when she throws her buckler, and picks it up. Shield Bash grants her extra resistances while shielded, and grants bonus adaptive damage, up to 2s after the shield expires.

★ Demolish is a viable option if you want to focus on taking down turrets and their plating asap, or if you want to play as more of a splitpusher in this fast paced meta.

★ Helps reduce damage taken during trades, and skirmishes, reducing the damage you take from a single champion for 3 of their abilities or attacks.

★ Permanent, increased maximum health for every 8 minions that die near you, and an additional 3.5% maximum HP after 120 is invaluable for a top lane tank. Synergizes well with Grasp of the Undying

★ Revitalize is a good option if you need the extra shielding going into a hard match up, and also gets 10% stronger when you're under 40%, potentially creating a clutch outplay!

★ Helps your sustain in laning phase, restoring 15% of your missing HP and mana, and permanently increases your mana cap by 40 every time you consume, or sell, a biscuit. Good synergy with Time Warp Tonic.

★ Very useful for laning phase if taken alongside Biscuit Delivery. You gain 50% of a biscuit, or health potions, health renewal instantly, and you also gain 5% bonus movement speed while under the effect of said items. Useful for sticking to an enemy for a clutch kill, or catching them off guard with an instant heal.

★ Magical Footwear is an option as you'll be able to buy your core items quicker than having to spend gold on boots. You receive them at 12 minutes, with every takedown reducing the cooldown by 45s - can be unforgiving if you have a bad time in laning phase.

★ If you want to go for a more bruiser top lane Poppy, you can opt for Conqueror instead, granting up to 5 AD per stack, for a max of 12 stacks - and increasing healing by 9% from all sources.

★ Triumph can help grant you a clutch kill, or a quick escape from an enemy thinking he's secured the kill on you in a 2v1. It works in teamfights very well, contributing to the latter, and potentially allowing you to turn a teamfight.

★ Legend: Alacrity is the best choice if you're going to try focus on carrying, and want the extra attack speed for extra damage output.

★ Legend: Tenacity is a viable option if the enemy team has a lot of CC - hard or soft, reducing the amount of time you will be locked down.

★ With Coup de Grace, you deal 8% more damage to champions under 40% hp. Helping you to secure a kill vs an enemy that doesn't expect the extra damage.

★ Last Stand is a good pickup if you want to be that kind of tanky carry frontline, where you'll be in the middle of fights constantly, taking the brunt of the damage, along with AoE damage.

★ The quicker your attack speed, the higher your damage output. No brainer.

★ Your next two runes are interchangeable depending on the enemy match up you're against. You want more damage? Adaptive force! More AP? Take magic resist. More physical? Take armor. Want / need more hp? Take HP!

PASSIVE ABILITY

Iron Ambassador ✦ Poppy periodically throws her buckler as her next basic attack, gaining 350 bonus range and dealing 20 − 180 (based on level) bonus magic damage. The buckler then falls near her target, where it remains for up to 4 seconds. When Poppy picks up the buckler, she shields herself for 15 / 17.5 / 20% (based on level) maximum health for 3 seconds. If the buckler kills its target, it bounces back to Poppy automatically. Enemies can step on the buckler to destroy it. ✦ Iron Ambassador is considered a melee attack.

Q

Hammer Shock ✦ Poppy smashes the ground in front of her, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit. Against monsters, the damage based on the percentage of their maximum health is capped. ✦ The impacted ground becomes unstable, slowing enemies standing on it before erupting after 1 second, dealing the same physical damage to all enemies hit. Physical Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 90% bonus AD) (+ 8% of target's maximum health) Capped Monster Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120% Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% ✦ Spell Shield will block only a single instance of damage.

W

Steadfast Presence ✦ PASSIVE - STUBBORN TO A FAULT: Poppy's total armor and total magic resistance are both increased by 10%, doubled to 20% when she falls below 40% maximum health. ✦ ACTIVE: Poppy gains 40% bonus movement speed for 2 seconds and generates a barrier around her for the duration, causing all enemies who dash within to be knocked down, dealt magic damage, and are both grounded and slowed by 25% for 2 seconds. Magic Damage 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 70% AP) ✦ Steadfast Presence can only block a single dash per enemy per cast. ✦ Steadfast Presence does not stop dashes that are classified as unstoppable or they are untargetable while dashing

E

Heroic Charge ✦ Poppy dashes to the target enemy, dealing physical damage and carrying them along with her for up to 300 units. If they collide with terrain, she deals them the same physical damage again and stuns them. Initial Physical Damage - 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 (+ 50% bonus AD) Stun Duration - 1.6 / 1.7 / 1.8 / 1.9 / 2 ✦ Heroic Charge applies spell effects twice (once when Poppy hits her target and once she stuns them against a wall). ✦ Poppy can use Heroic Charge to go through walls, provided her target is on the opposite side when she casts. ✦ Heroic Charge interacts with impassable, player-created terrain.

R

Keeper's Verdict ✦ FIRST CAST: Poppy charges for up to 4 seconds, slowing herself by 15% for the duration. Keeper's Verdict's cooldown is set to 30 seconds if 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 struck by the hammer are knocked back an incredible distance towards their fountain. Instantly releasing the ability ends the charge, dealing 50% reduced damage and knocking up all enemies around Poppy for 0.75 seconds. Poppy has sight of airborne enemies and they are rendered untargetable for the duration, with their displacement distance increasing based on how long Keeper's Verdict was charged. An uncharged attack does not render enemies untargetable. Physical Damage: 200 / 300 / 400 (+ 90% bonus AD) ✦ Keeper's Verdict only interacts with Yasuo's Last Breath when instantly released, due to enemies hit becoming untargetable for the displacement's duration when charged.

Poppy isn't the best at dueling, nor is she the strongest lane bully, but she can do both well. During laning phase you generally want to be focusing on CS, and trading when your Grasp of the Undying is up. Your first item, Bami's Cinder, can charge Grasp of the Undying without wasting Iron Ambassador's proc, or using mana on your Hammer Shock.
With Conqueror and Ignite, you want to be playing as aggressive as possible, taking takes with your Hammer Shock and autoing your opponent when you have stacked Conqueror. You're taking this keystone against weak matchups, you want to punish them, and snowball yourself, ignoring CS and killing your laner consistently.

Your general aim of playing Poppy early game is to get the first turret kill, along with turret plating for that extra gold and map pressure. If you're taking the first turret kill, you have a lot of map pressure available to you, allowing you to Teleport for ganks or counter ganks, or run around the map and Teleport back top when the enemy starts to siege your tower.
While you're aiming for the turret, make sure to ward your river, jungle and the enemies jungle as much as possible, you don't want to get ganked and snowball the enemy team.

At level 6, you can disengage unwanted fights with Keeper's Verdict, pushing the enemies away back towards their base, helping you escape, or you can use it to knock up an enemy and combo, if you're making the effort to try and kill them.

Once you're 6+, you can focus on pushing the wave into the enemy tower and trying to take some early plates with Demolish - if you chose to take this rune.
Help out your jungler if he comes to take Rift Herald , and secure first blood tower for your team. At this point you can potentially invade the enemies jungle, taking away vital XP, gold and their blue buff, if you're on red side.


Outside of laning phase, you have the option to group with your team and take objectives, or split push. If your team has a strong team fight, you can group with them, invading the enemy jungle, forcing fights over objectives, or pushing lanes.

The ideal times to split push are as follows -

If Baron Nashor is alive and your Teleport is available, you can split push bot lane.
If Baron Nashor is alive and your Teleport is down, you will be split pushing top lane.

If Baron Nashor is dead, and your Teleport is down, you will split push bot lane, especially if a dragon will be spawning.
If Baron Nashor is dead, and your Teleport is available, you can split push top lane.

You want to split push the lane opposite to the most important, neutral objective, if your Teleport is available. This way, you can take the majority of pressure off the objective, as the enemies will not be able to answer you solo, and they give up the objective to your team. If you know the enemies will be collapsing on you soon, you will want to spam ping your team to complete the objective as quickly as possible. If the enemies collapse on your team, you can Teleport to them to quickly reach the fight, or chunk down the enemies defenses.
Make sure you have good vision around you, so you can see enemies coming from fog of war, which you can either back off, or choose to take the fight, potentially securing a 1v2 or using Keeper's Verdict to push them back, wasting their time and allowing you to escape.

If you're in the middle of a fight, you want to be looking for enemy missteps, Flash Heroic Charge into terrain to stun them and burst them down, or push them into your team. You want to be peeling for your team, pushing away any engage and denying the enemies backline any pressure. You can use Keeper's Verdict to completely negate an engage such as a Fiddlesticks ultimate. You can flank opponents, and Heroic Charge them into your team, or stunning them against a wall if they're a high damage threat such as an enemy Vayne. Be careful if the enemy team have a Lulu, she will Whimsy you, completely negating any of your damage and essentially rendering you useless - being potentially dangerous if you have just used Heroic Charge into the enemy team. The same goes for any very hard CC such as Morgana's Dark Binding or Malzahar's Nether Grasp.

I hope you have enjoyed and learnt enough from my Jax guide, to hammer down your enemies, and conquer the game.

If you're interested in seeing more of Poppy, Renekton and myself, please follow my stream! I am streaming every day, and I engage with my chat consistently.

If you like this guide, make sure to check out my even more in depth guides at my new website

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