Poppy Build Guide by

📘[13.22] The BLUE BIBLE of Poppy

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Poppy Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (3) More Poppy Guides

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Runes: Phase Rush

Sorcery

Phase Rush

Nimbus Cloak

Celerity

Waterwalking

Domination

Cheap Shot

Relentless Hunter

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Flash

Unleashed Smite

Items

Starting Items

Core Items

Full Build Sample

Situational Items

Ability Order

Poppy Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Karthus

Extreme

Scaling beast. He can kill you after you kill him. He deals a lot of damage, farms like a monster and puts you pressure to end a game quickly.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

Introduction - Be ready for Hammering!

IMPORTANT: We creators rely on you readers to grow. If this guide somehow helps you out, PLEASE VOTE IT and comment so I can keep improving!

Why Poppy

is one of the oldest champions in League of Legends. While she received an (amazing) remake, she still holds a simple yet fun gameplay that makes her viable in every single elo.

As a Poppy player, you will be able to deal good amount of damage while you move incredibly fast, lockdown enemies, stamp them on the wall, and avoid EVERY SINGLE CHAMPION on enemy side from jumping, leaping, dashing to your team. As poppy, you can be a complete NIGHTMARE while having a lot of fun with an easy to play champion that feels extremely rewarding when played right.

Shall we begin?

Poppy PROS/CONS

Pros

+ Good clearing speed and decent damage.
+ DASH BLOCKING! He counters half of League Roster with a single ability (W)
+ Good ganks with Speed, CC and damage.
+ One of the most fun champ to play with.
+ Can destroy teamfights with her ultimate
+ Easy and fun to play.

Cons

- You can mess up easily with a bad (E) or (R).
- Not the best duelist one the first minutes.
- She can NOT solo objectives like Drake or Herald.
- Vulnerable to anti-CC champions like .
- Vulnerable to TRUE DAMAGE.
- Predictable plays.

Poppy Skillset - In Depth

skills are simple to understand, yet it is important that you also learn how these abilities synergyze between themselves. The key of Poppy skill learning is to understand them as a "pack", not as individual skills. Knowing when to use an ability or when to hold it will be the difference between a Good Poppy and an OUTSTANDINGLY AWESOME Poppy.

(Passive) You have a ranged attack once every few seconds. It deals bonus damage and it bounces your buckler back to you (if you last-hit) or drop it to the floor (if you don't lasthit). Having your buckler back will grant you a fine shield for a few seconds (ha! no pun intended. I promise)

Overall, this is your best poking tool and you should be using it everytime it comes up.

IRON AMBASSOR - Advanced Tactics

(Q) Bread and butter ability. SPAM IT on fights and during farm. High Damage and Slows everyone on it, plus repeating the damage after a brief time. Looks like short range, but just use it after knocking someone with your E and is going to be free damage.

We will grab this Amazing heaven gift at lvl 1 and we are maxing it as soon as we can for a good amount of damage, clearing speed and CC.

Hammer Shock - Advanced Tactics

(W) No dashes if you're around! is a Major counter to people like khazix, rengar, zac, alistar, sylas, xin zhao and 50% of League of Legends roster. Your ADC is going to love you because of this.

When our circle is up, not a single enemy will be able to cross the area by jumping/dashing.

In addition, it makes us extremely fast during few seconds.

In addition, you will gain resistances of armor/magic resist as a passive!

Get this amazing tool at lvl 3 and max it last. Steadfast is your one-point-wonder ability and you won't need it maxed until lategame.

Steadfast Presence - Advanced Tactics

(E) Enemy on sight? Turn him into a sandwitch between you and that wall! Stomping enemies onto a hard surface is the most satisfying experiences ever.

Nice for offensive ganks and picks, nice for stomping key enemies during teamfights, nice for protecting your carries if someone come after them and you have W on cooldown.

Heroic Charge - Advanced Tactics

Tips and Tricks

(ULTIMATE) "I believe I can fly". Your most difficult to land ability, yet also the most important. You can "tap" your for a simple knockup like alistar's Q, or channel it to pound enemies back to their base. Crucial in teamfights to send away your enemy's tank/support and leave their carries exposed.

Take it whenever possible (6,11,16) like most ulties in any champ. Pretty straightforward.

Keeper's Verdict - Advanced Tactics

HAMMERING COMBOS

Now that we already know our abilities, how do we combo them?
Luckily for us players, Poppy has a rather simple basic combo that we are going to repeat over and over, and that can be made more simple or more complex depending on what do we want to do and how many resources we want to use on it.

Enough talk, let's jump into it. Poppys basic combo is rather simple. When fighting, you will:

Heroic Charge(E) + Autoattack + Hammer Shock(Q) + Autoattack

Once you master it, you can add variations to your combo as a Poppy to provide more CC, more damage or more of a "surprise factor".

ALL IN COMBO WITH ULT:

Steadfast Presence (W)
Heroic Charge (E) + AA
Hammer Shock (Q) + AA
Keeper's Verdict tap (R) + AA

ALL IN SURPRISE COMBO WITH ULT:

Steadfast Presence (W)
Flash
Heroic Charge (E) + AA
Hammer Shock (Q) + AA
Keeper's Verdict tap (R) + AA

ALL IN SURPRISE COMBO WITH DASBLOCK (to prevent escaping):

Flash
Heroic Charge (E) + AA
Hammer Shock (Q) + AA
Keeper's Verdict tap (R) + AA
Steadfast Presence (W)+ AA

All combos are decent and mostly easy to perform after you have been playing poppy for a while. The "hardest" decision is to CHOOSE which combo is perfect for each situation.

Do enemies have a Fed ? Use your CC combo with ult and delay your to avoid him from jumping away.

Do enemis have an Ashe that thinks she is safe? Use your surprise combo with W + Flash to close the gap between you and her, since she don't have a dash to escape anyway and there is no reason to hold W (unless she has , of course).

Overall, has a decent poke in lane, but since we are using her un jungle in this guide we will think of her of an AMAZING short combo provider that gives nice CC and damage for ganking.

GANKING and WALL-BAITING

You know 's combo, good! Now let's move into action. How do we secure kills earlygame through ganks? Obvioulsy, we will use our basic combo.

But there's more.

All our Rune setup is designed to provide us with mighty SPEED. Speed is the best Stat for a ganker jungler. Enemies will have a hard time trying to avoid you even after they spot you with an , and being so fast (thanks to , , and ) will let you block the path of your enemies to the safety of their turrets.

BUT, HOW DO WE ACTUALLY GANK?

Wall baiting™ is a crucial mechanic on Poppy that many people skip and is key to have successful ganks and fights.

In League of Legends, when enemies feel ganked they feel the urge of escaping towards their turrets while they try to keep as much distance as possible from the ganker to avoid getting engaged.

When ganking sidelanes -Toplane and Botlane-, this usually translates into the enemy sticking to the farthest wall, since it looks the safest place to be.

This is EXACTLY what we want them to do, since it sets a perfect scene for a fancy, juicy, demacian to that wall that will turn the gank into a bloody (yet demacian) slaughter. Stomping enemies to that wall will give time to your fellow laner to join the fight and finish that enemy off.

When you ar ganking, keep in mind that the priority to bait your enemy close to a wall. This means that sometimes this is better than plan blocking an enemy's path to push them back, for example.

LET'S JUMP IN WITH A SAMPLE:

IF YOU PREFER, I CAN SHOW YOU WITH A VIDEO!

HOW TO PLAY IN EARLY/MID/LATE

Early Game

Poppy has a good, safe earlygame. She cannot stand long battles at this point, but her Basic Combo deals a good amount of damage and provides amazing CC for ganking. As for clearing speed, maxing your Hammer Shock will give you a nice and easy clearing. Play and clear the jungle towards the lane that can snowball better in the first minutes (renekton or Leona+Draven are nice samples).

Show me EARLY GAME tips!

Mid Game

Poppy will hit her peak damage on midgame. Since enemy carries don't have a full build yet, you will tank good and still deliver insane amounts of damage with your Divine Sunderer and Dead Man's Plate. Faster than ever, secure as many drakes after successful ganks and help your lanes to destroy turrets by covering them.

Show me MID GAME tips!

Late Game

Poppy, the unkillable demacian will be your nickname on lategame. After minute 20-25 you won't be doing that much damage anymore, but you will have become a massive little yordle of chaos and disruption. YOU as poppy decide when a teamfight occurs and when not. If enemies engage and you're nearby you can just hammer them to base with a Keeper's Verdict. If you want to fight, sticking to your ADC with your W ready will tilt that Qiyana like noone did before.

Remember, from this point you are a protector, not a killer. Still, feel free for setting up free picks if that Rakan decides too go ward baron alone because "he can W to safety if needed". he, he.

Show me LATE GAME tips!

Itemization!

There are plenty of builds for poppy. Some are nice for, let's say, "facing an AD top + AD jungler while being a defensive laner with a jungler pathing bottom".

It's true that 's build is so adaptable and thats a GOOD THING. But I think having a solid core base to play around is important, and since we mostly play for jungling pressure, our core build is pretty fixed: we will adapt after our 2th item.

So lets start with the items:

Starting Items

CORE

Mosstomper Seedling: Standard start. Better exp, better farm, better sustain, basically a must for every tank jungler out there. We're taking this little guy at lvl 1. I prefer instead of since i love the bonus tankiness it provides, but that's a matter of taste, so feel free to use Squirtle if you like being even faster.

CORE

Health Potion: Good for a "newbie" clear where you lose more health than expected, or for healing back up after a fight to continue fighting, or to have some "extra hp" that enemies don't expect during a fight.

Core Items

CORE

Divine Sunderer: I love it as aMythic. Huge early damage if you buy on your first back. Amazing sustain with the passive, nice heal, and juicy ability haste for comboing more often. Some people prefer , but that makes Poppy a low-damage tank earlygame, and we NEED DAMAGE early to be reliable and a fearsome opponent.

CORE

Dead Man's Plate:Second part of our main Core build. Deadman's provide us everything we need: Tankiness, MASSIVE SPEED for ganking and BONUS DAMAGE on a short combo. Not many champions build this anymore, yet Poppy is one of the few that can take a lot of advantage from it. Rush it after your .

GREAT

Mercury's Treads: I Hate CC. No, really, i HATE crowd control unless I'm the one spreading it. I usually go Mercury's for the huge amount of utility Tenacity gives. However, it's true that in some matchups it is plain better to get , specially against 4+ AD enemies. Just don't play blind and choose the better boots for every situation.

[/list]

Situational Items

GREAT

Force of Nature: My Favorite MRES item por this little yordle. It's gives A LOT of magic resist, Health, and Speed. When you are facing AP fighters like swain or ryze, will keep you alive while you Stun them to death.

GREAT

Thornmail: Everyone loves Thornmail, since it turns you into a mini-. Huge armor and HP bonuses and healing cut for those nasty sustainers like . Overall a nice add-on to your .

VIABLE

Randuin's Omen: This huge shield is a situational item that will make you win games when built properly. It's passive will make you incredibly Sturdy against Crit-champions like , or , and it's Active will make you stickier to them, since they tend to be mobile AF too.

VIABLE

Spirit Visage: Same than Randuins. Not for every game, but a game-changer when built properly. Despite already having decent stats, Spirit Visage will make the healing (AND shields) you receive stronger, so build it when you have a soraka-like champion in your team and you expect to have long fights in lategame.

MEH

Sunfire Aegis: Meh. A lot of players build sunfire, but I don't think is an smart choice. Poppy is meant for short, strong, CC-rely trades. Sunfirse is meant for sticky long fights to make the constant area DPS worth. Also, since it is NOT a toggle damage it makes your turret-diving way harder by getting insta-aggro from it. Overall a decent item that is NOT meant for poppy.

MEH

Sterak's Gage: This is not a bad item, not even on poppy. Nice stats, nice damage, nice shield. The reason we don't build it is because it would get built as a 4th item or more, and by that point we should be already building for lategame tankiness. Why get en Sterak's if you can build a instead? We should only buy this with I am REALLY fed and I just want to close the game ASAP.

Worth Mentioning

GREAT

Frozen Heart: One of my favourite choices when facing Autoattack based champions on enemy side. You can debuff a , a , a and a JUST BY BEING ALIVE. 20% atk.speed debuf is huge, and you should definetely take this item into consideration if your team needs it.

GREAT

Gargoyle Stoneplate: This is the ultimate defensive item for poppy. If you are facing a team that is fed enough to destroy you fast (p.e, a lategame fed or ), Gargoyle will give you a colossal shield that scales out of your bonus HP, which should be incredibly high if you build it as your 6th item.

IMPORTANT: Remember that we creators rely on you readers to grow. If this guide somehow helps you out, PLEASE VOTE IT and comment so I can keep improving!

Conclusion

is one of my favourite champions since the game got released, and even after 12 years she still is my preferred choice over newbie "overloaded" champions.

Poppy may be tricky to understand at first, but once you know her enough to be calm, wait for the best hero charge oportunity and holding for that to completely disrupt enemy team, you will experience one of the most fun, healthy, satisfying and proactive champions in the whole League Roster.

Best regards!

~White Crow

CHANGELOG

24-dic-2023
The farm meta looks stable on jungle. While you should still be ganking, be sure to clear at least 3 camps before doing a gank to proper lane or you will fall behind in exp.

9-nov-2023
Not many changes that affect us in 13.21/22. The vision-from-bush changes of the last patch may be good to avoid enemies spotting us when our allies missclick an attack from the same bush we're on, but that is not much of a critic scene.

As for the changes that happened a couple of patches ago that "nerfed" jungle pressure, Riot noticed that they blew too harsh and they reverted some nerfs, so we can expect a healthier clear. Monsters have more health, but our pet deals more damage. Overall, a slight balancing issue that won't affect us that much and maaaaaaay force us to farm for a little longer before ganking. Again, nothing game-changing.

13-oct-2023
Many changes, kids.
Not in Poppy itself, but 13.20 is a huge nerf for junglers. Riot lowered the skillcap of jungling by making smiting easier, but all jungler companions got nerfed. While it still needs testing, removing mosstomper slow resist and tenacity hurts way too much. We will stick to Gustwalker for a while since it seems that the nerf is not that hard on that one.

28-sept-2023
13.19 patch is out. There are no direct changes to Poppy, but Randuin's being cheaper makes it a way better choice for a lategame item for when the game is about to end quickly and you don't plan to farm for any longer. Also, it becomes one of the first choices after Deadman'S plate for a teamfight-orientet-poppy.

15-sept-2023
FINISHED GUIDE! Althrough the guide will be updated over the patches an I plan to add further chapters (like how to track and more general advnaced jungling tips), the guide is already solid for a newbie poppy player to enjoy the Hammer Wielder.

Please, feel free to comment and rate the guide! I hope you guys like it.