My name is Trent, I am a Diamond Top lane / ADC player. I peaked Diamond 2 with Diamond 1 MMR so far this season and am currently the rank 46 Poppy on NA. Poppy has been my favorite top laner to play since I discovered my hatred for Riven. I decided to make this guide because many of the other Poppy guides I was reading were filled with things that ran directly counter to my understanding of the champion

Poppy is an extremely well rounded champion that can fit into 90% of team comps solidly.
Pros of playing Poppy:
- Disgusting early - midgame damage for a tank
- Oppressive laning phase in almost any matchup with a small lead=
- Extremely strong late game peel and defense for carries
- High outplay potential
- **** Riven mains

Poppy is one of the few reworked characters who Riot actually decided to put clear weaknesses into:

- Not a reliable engage tank
- Carrying usually requires some team play
- It is very obvious to good players what a Poppy is about to do 90% of the time
- Darius is a popular champ

Grasp

Grasp is the most optimal keystone for Poppy in 100% of games. Good use of the rune is an extremely important of Poppy's harassment pattern with her passive and its healing allows her to remain relevant in ranged matchups.

Row 1
Shield bash provides the most value in row, the damage is minimal but the extra resistances during the shield are noticeable and catch many players off guard increasing outplay potential

Row 2
This row is the only place I would ever consider a change. Conditioning coupled with the passive on Steadfast Presence results in absurd armor and MR values with very little investment and allow Poppy to itemize more into health. However, in certain ranged matchups or matchups into champions with DoTs second skin can heal upwards of 1k health just during laning and should be taken.

Row 3
Revitalize increases healing from Grasp, Potions, Regen, and increases the shield from your passive, an argument can be made for overgrowth but in my experience Revitalize has a much more profound impact on the outcome of games much more often


Stat Shards
Always take adaptive force in the first shard, in most melee matchups double adaptive force allows for extreme early game damage and bully potential but in ranged matchups should be swapped for whatever champion you are up against, this applies to the third shard as well, take armor or MR do not take the extra health.


Aftershock

Aftershock provides a lot of teamfight tankyness if you find yourself behind to a point of having no items. The rune does its job well but we don't want to be behind, we want to win. To do that you kill people, aftershock does not kill people. Do not pick this in top lane unless your paid for a boost

Conquerer

This path was suboptimal before conquerer nerfs and remains so after them. Conquerer cannot be stacked fast enough to be relevant in most matchups and grasp provides much more power. Can result in some cool outplays but why outplay someone from a bad situation if you could just never be in that situation in the first place?

Electrocute

Good for 1000 AD 1 shot Poppy, bad for everything else. Not enough defense and inconsistency of procs just makes Domination primary sub optimal for everything that isnt jungle Poppy

[Coming Soon]

One of the most important parts of playing any tank is understanding when to build what items and the damage profile of the enemy team. Knowing when items such as Bramble Vest are appropriate and recognizing them early in the game can keep you ahead of your opponents and make you unkillable to that Tristana who didn't realize that you were stacking armor and skipped her Last Whisper for another zeal item.

Itemizing too far into resistances or health is inefficient and the two stats need to be balanced, this is explained further in this post



Understanding each items role in your build and how it interacts with the champions on the enemy team is extremely important below are my opinions of common Poppy items and when they should be purchased

Sunfire Cape
Buy it every game you're laning against an AD champion as your first item

Adaptive Helm
This item takes precedence over Spirit Visage in most games unless you have a healer on your team, you have ocean dragons, and most importantly the enemy team has no champions that are weakened by adaptive helm.
Side Note about this item: Many abilities that do not come to mind typically are actually extremely impeded by adaptive helm such as: Varus W on hit damage, Warwick Passive, Kaisa Passive, Syndra Ultimate, and Jax Ultimate. In most cases the damage reduction you receive from this item is equal to, or higher, than the extra healing you would gain from having a spirit visage with a Soraka on your team.

Iceborn Gauntlet
I find myself in the minority on this item and rarely every buy it. It is usually bought as a second item after sunfire cape but I find that the lack of health from these 2 items being rushed leaves me vulnerable to the enemy midlaner or other magic damage threats. If another armor item is required immediately following sunfire the Cold Steel passives on thornmail, frozen heart, or randuins make them much more appealing to me in most games. Try the item out for yourself and form your own opinion on it.


Gargoyles Stoneplate

This item is overpowered and no one talks about it. For 2500g you receive up to 80 armor and MR with the ability to double your health for a short time. This is a great early pickup in games where you are short on gold and need to frontline for a fed ADC or a great pickup in general for a game that is focused around teamfights as opposed to skirmishes and 1v1's I usually buy this 3rd or 4th every game

Laning Poppy is a criminally underrated laning powerhouse that most players will underestimate. Poppy has 2 trading patterns that do not require an opponent to make a massive mistake:

Priming Grasp before your passive is available and using that auto to harass. This is a large amount of damage in early levels that can net you big advantages before you even have all of your abilities. BAMI'S CINDER IS YOUR BEST FRIEND HERE
the AoE damage on Cinder can be used to charge Grasp without wasting the passive auto or mana on your Q. This is why I recommend Bami's cinder as a rush item in almost all matchups.


Casting your Q on top of a minion your opponent is about to last hit then autoing them during their auto attack animation on the minion. This is insanely oppressive in early levels and even higher elo players will not respect this to the degree it should be.

Poppy's other trading patterns involve stunning an opponent into a wall, casting Q autoing and walking away or continuing to fight if it is safe and winnable.

Being a ***** A Poppy with a lead can destroy a lane with safe, under tower harassment that will make the strongest mental players ragequit. Start with a passive auto on either the opposing laner or something else, pick up the shield, stun them against their own tower, Q and run away using W if necessary. This combo is almost unavoidable when behind as Poppy can easily keep a losing opponent under tower and can be performed if they attempt to farm.

Splitpushing: While not the fastest pusher in the world her passive allows Poppy to be decent at wittling down towers. Despite this, after the first tower falls, and especially if it is in your lane, it is often best to try to shove waves and group up with your team.

Poppy's midgame threat onto backline carries is extremely high if they happen to misstep and sometimes even when they dont. Immediately after the first tower falls is your best time to have a significant impact on the outcome of a game and correct your teammates mistakes. Use sunfire cape and Q to shove waves before running down to midlane to assist your teammates. Look for flash stuns into walls and enemies out of position.


Teleport
This summoner spell is a huge reason tanks can exist in this game, without it you can easily be run over by split pushers and poor use of the spell can make games extremely difficult

My general rule is: after level 8 unless you are going to miss an extremely large wave or the enemy is threatening your tower Do not teleport to lane there are exceptions to this rule when teleporting to fix a wave and immediately grouping with your team are viable but this summoner should be used to join team fights or catch a wave after a 4v5 fight where someone is splitpushing.

Timing the enemy top laners teleport to force them to catch minion waves and be unable to join team fights is also a very important strategy that can be used to win from any position as any champion.

General Rules:
- Keep people out of position with your W and E
- Focus on utility and being obnoxious for the enemy team to kill
- It is ok to use your E without a stun
- Your passive shield is worth picking up


Midgame


This is the time in the game where it is sometimes better to try to kill the enemy carries instead of peel for your own. Coming out of laning top laners are often 2 levels ahead of the AD/Support duo and this level advantage can be enough to make your damage scary enough to be a solo threat. A stun combo onto a level 9 Caitlyn as a level 11 Poppy will do about 60% of her HP and should always be something to look for.


Lategame
Poppy's lack of engage makes her role to simply stand in between your carries and their team. Push away and deny enemy backline threats while soaking as much damage from enemy DPS. Poppy's Ultimate is a game changing ability that can be used to deny engages with long cooldown teamfight abilities (Taric R, Fiddle R) or thrown into a member of the enemy team to create a temporary 4v5. Overall your main job at this stage is to enable your primary damage dealers to do their job safely

This guide is missing alot of the more indepth concepts that Poppy has which will be added at a later date with better formatting and video examples of all combos and concepts explained in the guide