Poppy is an assassin and not just any assassin. Poppy is the best Anti-Carry in the game. When played correctly, Poppy always gets her target making it 5v4 extremely quickly thanks to her amazing burst. Unlike other anti-carry, Poppy cannot be stopped thanks to Diplomatic Immunity. She goes into battle with one mission which is to kill their carry. She can force their carries to build Guardian Angel and/or Banshee Veil just to stay alive. As such, Poppy is best play extremely aggressively. She is excellent at roaming and putting pressure on the opposite team. She is one of the best turret divers in the game, has a skill based stun, amazing single-target nuke, and a steroid skill which gives her amazing movement speed. Overall, Poppy is a great single-target burst melee champion. However, she is misunderstood by many. As a result many people do not unlock her hidden potential and classified her as a sub-par champion. This is completely false. In this guide I will teach you how to Poppy correctly. Welcome to the world of Poppy, the Iron Ambassador!

Ability Power Poppy

Pros:

1)Better Anti-Carry - Poppy is the best anti-carry in the game. As such, when going AP you can kill the target extremely quickly, faster than AD. Your single target marked will almost never get away if you lane Heroic Charge.
2)Better Single Target Burst - Your single target burst is better than AD. Within a full combo you can kill almost any squishy.
3)Better Scaling - All your abilities use ability power. When going AP, nothing goes to waste.

Cons:

1)Requires More Skill - You rely on Heroic Charge infinitely more than AD. You must lane it or they will simply flash/ghost away during your full combo.
2)Useless When You Fail - If they kite you during your ultimate you are infinitely more useless than AD because you do not have any sustainable damage. You are cooldown dependent.

Attack Damage Poppy

Pros:

1)Better Sustained Damage - Once you complete your full combo you are not useless in the team fight. You can continue to do excellent damage when moves are on cooldown.
2)Better Farmer - You farm creeps more quickly than AP by far.
3)Requires Less Skill/More Chances - If you mess up you can still do excellent damage. You rely less on landing Heroic Charge and more on just closing the gap between yourself and the target.

Cons:

1)Less Burst - You will not have as much burst as AP Poppy. As such, your mark target has a higher chance of getting away.
2)Requires More Survivability - You will be in the team fights even after you use Diplomatic Immunity in order to take advantage of your sustained damage. As such, you must build survivability items.

Magic Penetration Marks because all your abilities are magic damage. I've seen countless guides recommend armor penetration marks because of the fact they are going AD. So? All your real damage even when going AD will come from magic. Your not an auto attack, right clicking champion. You are not Master Yi, You are Poppy! You do not rely on auto attacks for damage making armor penetration less than desirable. Plus, even when going AD you will want to pick up Trinity Force. Trinity Force benefits from magic penetration immensity. Trinity Force procs with Poppy's Q will be magic damage. Ask yourself, where does most of my damage come from on Poppy? If you answer her skills you are indeed correct. As such, Magic Penetration Marks should always be taken!

Flat Armor Seals in order to allow you to farm up and dominate your lane much better. The survivability will help so much. Poppy is a horrible farmer and needs to focus on last-hitting and scoring some early kills. These seals allow her to do just this.

Flat Magic Resistance in order to give you more survivability early game. These glyphs combined with the seals allows you to dominate the lane so much more easily and have good overall staying power. Poppy needs a good early game in order to be effective.

Movement Speed Quintessences in order to chase better and position yourself for a proper Heroic Charge. Movement Speed Quits will make it noticeably hard for someone to kite you during your ultimate. You will force summoner spells to be used. Enjoy!

in order to position yourself correctly. You already have a built in ghost with Paragon of Demacia. When you combine these two together it will allow you to be extremely hard to dodge. Turret Diving becomes a breeze. All your wildest dreams come true, hopefully.

because it work amazingly well with your Ultimate. What people do not realize is that Ignite works with your ultimate making it do insane damage. You must take this spell! Ignite adds a lot to Poppy's overall burst and damage output. The spell ensures kills better than any summoner spell you can take.

As such, you should take both of these spells. They work well with poppy and there really isn't any other spell worth taking over these.

Valiant Fighter - Any damage dealt to Poppy that exceeds 10% of her current health is reduced by 50%. This does not reduce damage from structures.

This is what makes Poppy so tanky even without building resistances. Its really a great passive, possibly one of the best in the game.



Devastating Blow - Poppy crushes her opponent, dealing attack damage plus a flat amount and 8% of her target's max health as bonus damage. The bonus damage cannot exceed a threshold based on rank.
Poppy crushes her opponent, dealing attack damage (+0.6) plus 20/40/60/80/100 and 8% of her target's maximum health as magic damage. The bonus damage dealt cannot exceed 75/150/225/300/375.

Devastating Blow is Poppy's main source of damage. It is a single-target nuke and a damn good one at that. It has a low cooldown, high damage, and is quite spammable due to low mana cost. This is Poppy's main skill, use it well.



Paragon of Demacia - Passive: Upon being hit or attacking an enemy, Poppy's armor and damage are increased for 5 seconds. This effect can stack 10 times. Active: Poppy gains max stacks of Paragon of Demacia and her movement speed is increased for 5 seconds.
Passive: Upon being hit or attacking an enemy, Poppy's armor and damage are increased by 1.5/2/2.5/3/3.5 for 5 seconds. This effect can stack 10 times.

Active: Poppy gains max stacks of Paragon of Demacia and her movement speed is increased by 17/19/21/23/25% for 5 seconds.

Paragon of Demacia is Poppy's steroid skill. It allows her to move quickly once active in order to position herself correctly. Also provides armor and ad damage, all of which work well with Poppy. A very useful skill!



Heroic Charge - Poppy charges at an enemy and carries them further. The initial impact deals a small amount of damage, and if they collide with terrain, her target will take a high amount of damage and be stunned.
Poppy charges at an enemy and carries them for a short distance. The initial impact deals 50/75/100/125/150 (+0.4) magic damage. If they collide with terrain, her target takes 75/125/175/225/275 (+0.4) magic damage and will be stunned for 1.5/1.5/1.5/1.5/1.5 seconds.

The ability to use Heroic Charge well is what separates an Average Joe Poppy from a Pro Poppy. You want to position yourself in order to Charge them into walls, any wall will do. If you are unable to smash them into a wall, you can push them back into your team. You can also push them away from your team in order to save an ally. Master the wall stun and you will master Poppy.



Diplomatic Immunity - Poppy focuses intently on a single target, dealing increased damage to them. Poppy is immune to any damage and abilities from enemies other than her target.
For 6/7/8 seconds, Poppy is immune to any damage and abilities from enemies other than her target.
In addition, Poppy's attacks deal 20/30/40% increased damage to the marked target.

Diplomatic Immunity is what makes Poppy the best Anti-Carry in the game. She is able to mark a target, increase her overall damage, and go straight for them without worry about damage and crowd control of her target's team. Also is the best turret diving skill in the game. Ideally, you want to mark the target that is causing the most trouble and focus them down. However, you have to be smart with Poppy's ultimate. Sometimes its better to Mark the target with low damage and low cc in order to get free hits on the rest of the team. Be smart and think on your toes. Who you mark will win or lose team fights. Always check items and k/d ratios on the opposite team in order to ensure the correct choice.

For Masteries, you want to take 9/0/21. By going this route you are able to pick up some key masteries talents. You want to take 9 in offense, most notably picking up cooldown reduction and magic penetration. You want to put the rest into Utility. This will allow you to get improved experience, improved flash, longer neutral buffs, movement speed, mana regen, and more cooldown reduction all of which Poppy loves.

As for Skill Sequences, you want to get Heroic Charge for a chance at first blood. Afterward focus on maxing Devastating Blow as it is Poppy's bread and butter skill. Next, max Heroic Charge followed by Paragon of Demacia. You want to put points into Diplomatic Immunity whenever possible.

Poppy should duo lane with a support character, preferably Janna or Taric. Poppy also does well with other champions who have hard crowd control, like Sion or Pantheon. You can solo but certain range characters will zone you pretty hard if they are half-way competent.

When you get into the lane you should focus on last hitting and trying to wall-stun whenever possible in order to score some kills. Poppy is pretty good at dominating the lane, especially with the runes I've suggested. She also makes an excellent roamer. With heroic charge you can counter-jungle someone extremely hard and get out safely thanks to Paragon of Demacia and Flash. When you are going for kills, its best to hide in places with lots of walls. You want to strike them before they have time to reaction. You can go in on 1v5 as long as you know your team is coming shortly. As such, don't be afraid to be aggressive.

Poppy isn't an auto attacking champion. You shouldn't be auto attacking with Poppy. Your job is to get in there, stun, and destroy a target. Afterward, you want to get out of the team fight and wait for cooldowns. Despite what people think, Poppy is a squishy champion even when her amazing passive. You will not be able to auto attack champions who are of high skill level because they will cc you to death after your ultimate and/or flash away during it. Poppy is an Assassin, not a Bruiser or at least not until you build Guardian Angel and Banshee Veil. You want to dive in and out of the team fights. Your job is to kill and finish, not tank their damage because you simply cannot afford too. As such, it is best to build raw damage on Poppy, not attack speed items you will not be able to benefit from.

When going in for kills, your combo should look something like this:

AP Poppy - > > > > >

AD Poppy - > > > > >

Remember your job is to kill their soft-carries like Ashe, Annie, Nidalee, Tristana, etc. However, you are also an excellent tank killer with Devastating Blow. Remember to adjust targets when necessary. Always check to see if their summoner spells are on cooldown in order to not waste your Ultimate chasing. Nothing is worst than using your ultimate to see them flash/ghost away.

Poppy is a dominating force early game and a late game carry once she picks up key items. She is able to pick up kills quite easily thanks to her single-target nuke, wall stun, and great overall movement speed. What does this combine into? A great Roamer. You should be constantly moving as Poppy. Why? Because poppy sucks at farming. Poppy doesn't farm minions, she farms champions.

The ideal setup is you are bottom with another strong laner, preferably one that can protect the lane when you are gone and can help assist you with kills while you are there. You need to have good map awareness, always look for lanes overextended. You can easily set up ganks. If you are unable to wall-stun you will want to charge them into your team.

Poppy is possibly the best counter jungler in the game, only rivaled by Eve. The jungle has many walls available for you to abuse. You can easily ward their red, kill them, take their buffs, and get first blood quite easily.

When roaming, its best to pick up two Philosopher's Stone because they will generate gold for you even if you fail to get any kills. Remember that you want to get kills but at the same time you want to put pressure on the enemy lane. If you cause them to waste summoners spells in order to get away you did your job. This is the job of a roamer- to put pressure on the enemy team and give lane control to your team. If you get kills, that is a huge plus but not necessary the main job of a roamer.

You will have to find the balance between roaming and farming. If you are in a lane, you should last hit some minions and help push the turret. Try to keep a decent minion score and level in order to keep up. If you need to lane for a bit in order to catch up, ask someone else to roam while you farm and level.

Here are some games I played in Ranked Games with averaging elos of 1400 to 1600. In each one of these games, I roamed as Poppy. I took the responsibility of putting pressure on other lanes. As you can see, its quite effective:

Early Game Items:

You will want to pick up first in order to give you staying power and also to later upgrade into Philosopher's Stone. Philosopher's Stone will generation you more gold along with allowing you to stay longer and last hit better against a hard lane. It also is extremely useful if you decide to roam as Poppy. You will upgrade Philosopher's Stone into later on in order to get the CC reduction along with the health and mana regeneration.

Next, you want to decide on boots. is the best boots on Poppy. As stated before, the magic penetration will allow you to hit extremely hard as all your moves use magic damage even on AD Poppy.

Core for Battle:

Now is the time to decide if you are going AD or AP Poppy. Look at their team composition. Do they have a lot of squishy characters? Does your team lack burst or ability power carry? If so it is best to go AP Poppy! You are going down the burst road and must pick up as soon as possible. Why? Because Deathfire Grasp combined with your Ultimate does extreme damage, so extreme that you will kill a squishy instantly within your full combo rotation. It is an excellent choice for both AD and AP because it scales that well with her ultimate. Next, you want to pick up . Lich Bane will proc with Devastating Blow in order to do some really nice burst. If you are playing Poppy correctly and doing well the opposite team will build magic resistance. As such, you will want to pick up . Void Staff is even good on AD poppy because all your attack will proc magic damage when combined with trinity force.

So when do we go AD Poppy? Does their team have a lot of beefy characters? Does your team lack a melee offtank? Pick AD Poppy! You are going down the road of sustained damage. As such, you want to complete as soon as possible. This will allow you to proc with Devastating Blow for nice burst. Trinity Force gives you everything you could possibly want. Trinity Force will give you movement speed, ad, ap, atk speed, health, etc all of which Poppy loves. Next, build if you think it will take multiple combos in order to bring them down. Hextech Gunblade keeps getting buffed by Riot and is quite good now. It gives Poppy more staying power and good overall damage as well. The active is also quite nice with the mark to score some kills.

Situational/Survivability Items:

After you complete the core for battle items you will have enough damage output. You need to focus on building survivability items. The best survivability item on Poppy by far is . This will allow you do be absolutely fearless in battle. is the second best option if they are heavy on magic damage. If they are however ad heavy go with in order to counter them hard. Randuin's Omen will give you more health, cooldown reduction, armor, and the amazing active. All these combine to form one awesome item for Poppy. As for damage items, build if they are very tanky. Madred's Bloodrazor scales well with Devastating Blow allowing you to take down anyone, I mean anyone. This will allow you to be more of a tank buster. also gives poppy amazing damage output. Both of these are excellent options in order to do more damage and anti-carry harder.

I'm going to continue to work on this guide. I want to upload videos on how to properly wall stun, do the full combo rotation, and improve the overall information of the guide. I made this guide because I feel like the Poppy guides are lackluster not just on mobafire but solomid and leaguecraft as well. I hope this guide helps people be successful with Poppy. Thanks for reading!