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Poppy needs to keep either her passive or her ult, otherwise, she's not Poppy.

Yormaughm·4/22/2015, 8:37:11 PM·64 votes·6,742 views

I don't main Poppy, but I do really like her, and as someone who used to main Veigar, I'm here to tell you that Poppy's about to get Veigar'd.

I've just become aware that back in March, Meddler basically said that the upcoming Poppy rework would remove her passive and her ult, and only keep her E. Link, also, Solcrushed, who's working on her rework, if I'm not mistaken, has apparently said that her E is the most iconic part of her kit. Link, scroll down a bit. I don't agree with this at all, and I'm pretty sure most Poppy players don't either.

The most iconic parts of her kit are the parts that allow her to charge into the enemy team like the Juggernaut and get away with it, aka; her passive and her ult. It's her survivability that makes her iconic not the "charge-in" part. While everyone else on the team is busy playing long range League of Dodgeball, Poppy just says "fuck it, I'm going in" and if the Poppy player is good, they succeed. If they aren't good, or if they miscalculated, they get destroyed, just like anyone else who makes an ill-advised engage, and if you don't agree with this answer one question. If Poppy truly is unstoppable and always succeeds when diving, why isn't she on every team, why isn't she a perma-ban?

Here's the thing. Poppy is a very unpopular pick right now (and as far as I know, she pretty much always has been) and the reason for that is because there really isn't anything she does well enough to be picked for any other reason other than the way she "feels." She gets countered hard in lane very easily, possibly worse than any other champion. It's amazingly easy to deny her farm. Poppy is always going to have a difficult time surviving and farming early game. Her mana costs are so abysmal that she also has to make sure she picks her fights correctly too or she'll be left with no oomph and no ability to threaten her lane opponent. Some may argue that she's a virtually unstoppable high reward champion in late game, which is true, if the liability of being Poppy doesn't backfire to the point where she never reaches lategame which it often does. My point being, she may be high reward, but she is also deceptively high risk as well. It's a fair tradeoff.

Poppy right now has a unique feel among all 124 of the champions in League of Legends, she is literally the only champion who does what she does and feels the way she feels. If Riot simply turns her into a tank, as they seem to be indicating, then why would I pick Poppy over the 10 to 20 other champions who also fill that role? Obviously, based on the fact that she's 121st most picked out of 124 options "Why would I pick Poppy?" Is a question most League of Legends players are already asking. But I think I know the answer, at least for those of us who do pick her.

Why do we pick Poppy?

To me the "feeling" of Poppy is unique there are several aspects and attributes about Poppy that make her different from the other 123 champions in the game.

~ Revenge: Poppy spends most of the laning phase in most games getting destroyed. Denied farm at best, killed over and over at worst. (I can't speak to jungle Poppy, never really messed with that.) Her passive is literally the only thing that makes her laning phase possible. She can sit there at 10% health and the Poppy player can make a calculated risk to go in and Q the cannon minion, because they know they still have a chance to get that sweet, sweet 40 gold, and if they're lucky get out alive. The point I'm making though is that in most cases Poppy spends 10 to 15 minutes every game getting abused relentlessly and having a terrible time (unless the Poppy player is super skilled or their opponent is very unskilled, or your jungler camps top lane.)

Then, it happens. Poppy finally gets enough ranks in her Q, or gets her first full item (for me it's usually Triforce) and then it's like she just explodes. Poppy's finally done with your shit and now it's payback time. She's like George McFly knocking out Biff in Back to the Future. The kid who spent the whole game getting picked on, and now she's a certified badass and the other team needs to look out because it's time for some hammer diplomacy. As a Poppy player the moment when you get that shut-down on the top laner who's been harassing you the whole game is one of the best feels you can ever have playing League of Legends. Although the double and triple kills she gets in the ensuing teamfights because the enemy team has no idea that they need to be afraid of her are great feels too.

~Determination: This one really fits with her story and theme as well, just like Poppy in her story never gave up in the presence of crushing adversity, Poppy players know that if they hang in there long enough, and somehow make it to late game, anything is possible. Poppy is like the 2004 Red Sox, they haven't won in 86 years and they're down 0-3 to the Yankees in the pennant, but somehow determined enough to reverse-sweep and pull out the 4-3 win, then sweep the World Series. Again, a lot of this is due to her passive, but the decision making surrounding it is something that's actually present the whole game. Poppy constantly has to make decisions revolving around weather her passive will allow her to get what she's after, whether it's farm, or a surprise kill on the lane opponent. But this isn't without tons of risk. I don't know how many times I've dived my lane opponent as Poppy, stayed for the fight cause I knew if my Q came up again I'd get the kill despite the damage they're putting on to me, got the kill and then died to creeps because of course I had to fight them in their creep wave and those caster minion bolts aren't mitigated by my passive. Point is, I'm not very skilled, a good Poppy player knows when and more importantly how to never give up, and when that works, it just feels like such a Poppy thing to do. Poppy's ult contributes to this too. She's one of the few champions who can legitimately take a deep breath, and then hit the tower-dive button, and exhale if/when she gets out alive. It's always a tense moment and not as much of a "free win" as her opponents seem to think it is. Especially because good opponents should be able to anticipate and even bait it. Also I really feel that in the current state of "get baron and poke the tower down from long range" that seems to be the only way to take base turrets nowadays, having at least one champion who just goes in isn't unhealthy at all, especially if it's accompanied by the appropriate amount of risk.

~The Yolo Factor: To be fair, every champion has this. The button they press when they just want to start some shit. But most of them die when they do it, or they bank on their insane burst damage preventing them getting killed in return (Kat, Zed, Riven.) But Poppy's version is a little bit different, Poppy is uniquely able to get away with "just engaging" without having to fear getting bursted instantly like assassins do because of her ult and passive. Now I understand that typically this type of engage is reserved for assassins, and I understand that Poppy is sort of played like an assassin and that doesn't fit her. She shouldn't be an assassin, I agree with that, I think she should do a bit more sustained damage over time, because defensively she's strong enough to "just engage" and stay in the fight without relying on burst like she does now. I do think she needs a rework, but I also think she needs to keep her ability to engage and stay safe, but maybe lose a bit of her ability to assassinate as compensation. If she did a little less damage (or had to "spend" more to do the same damage [in the form of say, cooldowns because lord knows her mana costs are already insane]) but had the same capacity to survive, this is what she needs to keep her feel. My main point being, Poppy's identity is tied to her ability to engage and survive, not in the specific way she engages. Her E is a great part of her identity, her R is a better one. Right now all of her power budget is in her Q, and sort of her R, her W doesn't do anything (except keep her semi-relevant in league of mobility) and her E is only situationally useful. Poppy can survive without her ult, she could maybe survive without her passive (though I'm not too big on that prospect) but if she loses both, she's lost everything that makes her unique. (In fact I could even envision a world where Poppy's ult becomes her passive, but then I'd worry it would basically make her too similar to Alistar, especially since her E and his headbutt are virtually the same already and if this change were made their ults would be virtually the same too.) A successful Poppy rework will move her damage around (possibly nerf it a bit) and not just front-load all of it on her Q, fix her mana problems and make her laning a bit more tolerable, and keep her more or less just as safe when yoloing into the enemy team or turrets. This is a key part of her identity that's being thrown out the window I'm afraid. Now the obvious thing to say here is "well what if the rework does all this, but without her current passive and her current ult?" Well, if it did that'd be great, but I kind of don't know how it would without replacing them with abilities that are equally "unhealthy." Effectively the "problem" with Poppy now is that late game or super-fed Poppy can yolo, and get at least one guaranteed kill without fear of retribution. I feel like a slight nerf to her damage and/or her ult timer would fix this, without doing away with her ability to yolo-dive, or changing what her abilities do. (Too much of a nerf to her damage though would discourage diving and therefore make her "just another tank" so it's a fine line that's difficult to balance and still maintain her identity, but identity is the only think keeping her even remotely relevant right now.)

Finally, we play Poppy because:

~She's The Underdog: Big things come in small packages, and everyone loves the underdog. Anyone who's ever lost to Poppy, or ever won with her understands this completely. People argue Poppy's passive is bad because it has clarity issues aka; "as Poppy's opponent, I don't know if I can kill her based on her current health." It's easy to make the argument that this is "unhealthy" for the game, but I'd argue it's actually essential to Poppy's feel. And Poppy is not the only champion with deception built into her kit, other champions can be deceptive, Shaco and LeBlanc are the most blatant examples, but even some tanks like Volibear with his passive have similar deceptive qualities. Her passive is deceiving, yes, but this isn't a problem thematically, in fact it's no different from the way her size and appearance belie her true power (this is also why Lollipoppy is the best skin in the game, but I digress.) Poppy is the underdog from start to finish. 121st most popular pick out of 124 options, spends the early part of most games losing, has the worst mana management of anyone, but through determination, cunning, and a little bit of deception, she hides her true power until it's too late for her enemies to do anything about it. Poppy is a true hero, and League of Legends needs this kind of hero, the unpopular kind, the one who takes abuse but never quits, the kind that doesn't attract many followers, but who, nevertheless stands victorious in the end because the player who chose her believed, persevered, and crushed her naysayers under the surprising might of her hammer.

If Poppy loses her ult and her passive, what will she be? Just another tank who soaks damage and delays the enemy team until her team can show up and get the kills? Just another wet noodle fight in top lane until there's a teamfight at Dragon? League of Legends has tons of those. But it only has one blue-skinned, hammer-weilding, badass yordle who will fuck your shit up if you let your guard down even a tiny bit. After the rework, this needs to stay true, anything else is unacceptable.

107 Comments

Maximum Zilean4/22/2015, 9:10:02 PM35 votes

There is absolutely no way to salvage either of those 2 parts of her kit and have Poppy good with a rework. Simply because those 2 parts are hilariously broken, and overpowered.

Strawberrycocoa4/22/2015, 9:35:57 PM25 votes

Even if they change/gut/remove Poppy's current ult and passive, that doesn't mean being a highly durable in-your-face fighter is off the table.

I'm kind of looking forward to a Poppy that's a rough tough shield-bashing bruiser. To me, that's the character's identity. She's a blacksmith, a weapon and armor forger, with a giant hammer heavy armor and a sturdy shield. She's an assertive takes-no-shit frontline fighter who beats people across the head with shield and hammer until they collapse from a concussion or a broken skull. Even though she is fun in her current state, to me a lategame hypercarry assassin is something that would fit better on a more nimble/lithe character concept. Poppy is stocky strong and stubborn as hell. She screams "Tank", and I can't wait for the rework to go live.

Dies to Wolves4/22/2015, 10:21:39 PM13 votes

saying her passive is iconic is like saying high damage is iconic to Zed. Yes, Zed's associated with high damage, but it really isn't what makes you think "That's definitely Zed!", since there are tons of champions with high damage, just like there are tons of champions who are tanky besides poppy. They can very easily remove her passive and find out another way to make her tanky without being as obnoxious as it is currently. They say her E is the most iconic part of her kit because, other than that absurdly unbalanced ultimate, which honestly shouldn't exist as is in the game, her kit is: generic hit-modifier damage boost Q, stat/movespeed buff W, passive tankyness from her innate passive (well, that sounded weird, but I think you understood what I meant). Her E is the only really interesting and truly "different" thing about her skills. Being tanky is part of her identity, yes, but simply "well, she receives low damage from stuff" really isn't iconic.

r11na4/23/2015, 12:17:38 AM11 votes

Poppy remake is going to be garbage for sure. Poppy was my favourite champ at one point but I know Riot's rework will just screw her up. Basically removing Poppy from the game and replacing her with a different champ called 'Poppy'.

RIP Poppy. FU rito.

junglerboy164/23/2015, 12:20:11 AM8 votes

They need to keep the feel of her ult and passive in her kit, but keeping either of those incredibly ancient, outdated mechanics in her kit whole cloth would completely spoil anything new they tried to put in.

Instead of keeping the actual abilities themselves, they need to keep them in spirit/effect. She needs to:

  • Get tankier when at low health (the method used in her current passive is so archaic it hurts, but the premise isn't totally unredeemable)
  • Be able to YOLO dive a whole team somehow (I have no clue how to fix her current ult and keep this, but I sincerely hope they don't neuter her raid-boss potential)
  • Be a strong mid-late game duelist (the durability+1v1 damage amp is amazing)
  • Be a powerful siege breaker (ult someone, ignore tower for several seconds)
  • Still turn into a golden deathball somehow.
mi ramfan4/23/2015, 12:09:38 AM7 votes

The thing is, Poppy's ult and Poppy's passive are just bullshit.

Neither of them really tell the enemy what's going on. Her ult just puts a golden thing around somebody else with no real indication of what it does other then four members of your team not doing any damage. But if you've never played against it before, you can blow your whole combo before realizing that you can't deal damage. On top of that, even if you do know how Poppy's ult works, she can dump it on the support and unload for free on your ADC.

Her passive is even worse. There's zero indication that Poppy is taking reduced damage, and the method by which damage is reduced isn't immediately clear. It also makes calculating all ins against her nearly impossible, especially when life steal is considered.

I'd love for Poppy to be good so I can run my Battle Regalia Poppy again, but it just can't happen with her passive or her ult in play. Honestly, I'd be happy to trade her current ult and passive for a new ult and a playable laning phase.

NinjaFifer4/23/2015, 6:16:53 AM7 votes

Poppy cannot keep her ult. Period. That ult is the primary reason she's in the "nerfed until rework" category. Pressing one button and getting to completely and totally ignore 4 players of the enemy team for 6-8 seconds, PLUS getting 20-40% bonus damage against that fifth player is not just broken, it's uncounterable. There is absolutely no counterplay to that ability itself, and the ability gives Poppy as a whole nearly zero counterplay for her whole character for a long ass duration. The rest of her kit is powerful enough that keeping that ult just isn't going to happen. She's got too much damage (and Triforce synergy) packed into that kit for the long duration near-complete invulnerability to stick around.

Yormaughm4/22/2015, 8:46:13 PM4 votes

Also, before they even appear, I'll comment on the "Poppy's Ult and passive are OP" responses which I'm sure to get. The same discussion happened during the Veigar threads. Veigar, who was 76th most popular pick overall, was suddenly "super-OP and had no counterplay" according to some people. I mean at this rate we might as well just make 124 "insert character is OP" stickied threads where people can rage post whenever they lose to that character. I've never understood how a champion that's in the absolute bottom of popular picks could possibly be "too strong." I'm still waiting for someone to explain that. According to lolking, Poppy is 121st in popularity right now with a 49.45% winrate. Anyone arguing she's OP might actually be certifiably insane. But that's not what this thread is supposed to be about, it's supposed to be about her rework, and she does need a rework, but not because she's OP.

In competitive games like this, people who are trying to win rightfully pick the options that they believe give them the best chance to succeed mathematically. Poppy is almost never one of these options. Yes Vizicsacsi once picked Poppy to great effect in a Challenger series and showed what it looks like when skilled Poppy players succeed. But he also picked her during one game in the LCS this year and got dumped on, does anyone remember that? TL:DR for this paragraph, skilled players are OP no matter which champion they choose. But unpopular champions are not OP, because then they'd be FoTM and Poppy has never even been close to that because she has huge downsides, the math isn't in her favor, no matter what people who have lost to her think.

Rebonack4/23/2015, 12:46:16 AM4 votes

It wouldn't hurt my feelings much of Poppy got a totally new Ult, but the two things really define her, IMO, is her ability to take nukes to the face like a boss and her wall-slam ability.

Poppy's passive makes her tanky in a way that no other champion is. She is able to wade through heavy attacks, but smaller faster dot-y-er attacks still eat her alive. It's a lot more interesting than just giving her passive resist (like Shy) or a refreshing shield (like Vi). No one else eats fireballs with their face the way Poppy does.

The Soulforged4/23/2015, 3:04:09 AM3 votes

I'm really hoping that they'll keep the passive as it gives her this unique tankiness that doesn't stack with armor/mr, which could actually hinder the effectiveness of your passive. Her q feels awesome, and I hope they keep any aa modifier on her kit as well as her e. Her ult could go if it was replaced with something strong, and fitting to her kit, while her w is something I could see go, as long as she gains some mobility from any part of her kit...

I'm really tense about the Poppy rework as a Poppy main, and I hope they actually keep her identity.

Meep Man4/23/2015, 11:29:10 PM2 votes

I would keep the passive between the two. I heard she was being reworked into more of a Tank, so the passive fits for tanking. Her ultimate is just too binary.

Retillin4/23/2015, 12:31:46 AM2 votes

I agree. Poppy is the little ball of power/pain that has to dive. She has to have SOMETHING that keeps her alive. I would like to keep both, but I understand Riot doesn't like it. Okay, trash the ult but keep the passive. To me it's up there with Singes poison. It's that thing that you have to know. Yes I understand it is "hidden power". But so is almost every passive in the game. I LOVE the feel of people doing a 100 hp spells to kill me when I'm at 100 HP. It shows that they don't bother to pay attention to the game. It's no different than the over heat on Rumble, you have to put a little time/effort into the game to know the little things.

Partholonian4/23/2015, 2:21:04 AM2 votes

spends the early part of most games losing, has the worst mana management of anyone

I feel like you have no idea why these things are true. It's because of her current ult. She was nerfed into the ground worse than Olaf and Veigar combined, on purpose, because of how much it ruins the game for her to have her current ult and be even remotely viable.

Effectively the "problem" with Poppy now is that late game or super-fed Poppy can yolo, and get at least one guaranteed kill without fear of retribution.

Yes, that is indeed the problem. I feel like you're only looking at this from the perspective of the Poppy player, but Riot can't do that. They have to also look at it from the perspective of the Poppy target. And from that perspective, you get a guaranteed death without hope of being able to accomplish anything useful.

Most people don't have a chance in hell of dueling Poppy. That's not so bad on its own, some people have to be stronger duelists than others, but it's really bad in combination with an ability that means you also can't rely on your team to defend you from Poppy.

Riot can't allow there to be a champion who can guarantee the ability to kill the target of their choice in any situation including 1v5s.

Soleka4/23/2015, 2:25:03 AM2 votes

I love Poppy, but here is an assessment: Honestly there are better ways of handling every aspect of her kit. Poppy's passive could easily be turned into an active ability in her kit with a real indication that she is taking less damage. Because she's played so infrequently No one knows how to handle her ult. You ult one member of the enemy team and suddenly you are taking 4 ineffectual ults and one ult that means something. That doesn't make for good healthy game play. Her W and Q (which are also core to her identity) are boring! Her W gives glow effects and stacks for her passive, and a small speed burst. Her Q is a burst shot for her next basic attack. At the time they were really new and hard to deal with, but they are showing their age. Honestly it's okay to let the past go!

Right now Poppy has a bit of an identity crisis. She wants to be a tank, but doesn't have a kit that can make her a great tank. She wants to be a fighter, but everything hinges on her autoattacks. She wants to a melee mage (thing), but doesn't have the mana to support that. She is meant to lane, but can't clear minions worth a damn. Honestly she is currently nerfed to being practically unplayable early game, to being nigh unkillable late game depending on how your early game went. She is absolutely dependent on building the most expensive item in the game, just to catch up with everyone else.

Please please, can we let go of the past, let Poppy be reborn so I can play my favorite champ again?

Chespin20134/23/2015, 9:08:13 AM2 votes

keep her passive fuck that ult most toxic thing in the game by far

Aelvr4/23/2015, 12:45:05 AM1 votes

I think what you are describing is more properly described as getting Karma'd, or Xerath'd. tfw your favorite hipster champion loses its unique feel, I know it too well. Here's hoping that it doesn't happen to Poppy, and she gets Sejuani'd. (Reworking the kit into something familiar but undeniably better.)

UndeZyrablee4/23/2015, 8:17:02 AM1 votes

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with two huge points.

The first of course being that she gets countered in lane hard. I have never beaten a poppy in lane, and I have never lost lane as poppy. I'm not sure where you get this from, but her defensive rune, flask pot start is harder to poke down than nasus. You give up all your farm to get her out of the lane, and then she tps right back in. Poppy in no way has a weak laning phase. In fact a few months back I posted in these forums asking how to lane against her, and everyone told me to have the jungler camp my lane, and to not despair because she was getting a rework.

The second major point I disagree with is that there is another champion that does exactly what she does, but in a less bullshit way. Zed. Zed too can all in you and you can't do anything about it. The difference is that you can buy a few items and then zed is no longer a problem. Poppy is always a problem. The fact that you can't peel an ulting poppy is one of the stupidest things this game has to offer. Zed at least has a 1-2 second window that you can try to hit him with things, and you know exactly where he is going to appear.

If you want me to pick at other things, you talk about how she "feels." She feels clunky and reckless, and that is the reason she isn't terribly popular. People who like to play clunky and reckless prefer champions that hit harder. Poppy does not hit hard. (at first) She just last forever without trying. She has a better steroid than Teemo, and can use it just as often. What is the point of having a support if one champion can walk through a whole team to the adc without a scratch?

Poppy also has to unique feature of fucking you if you have a single weak link on your team. Why? Every team fight she will ult that 0-4 katarina who does no damage and has no cc, and every team fight your adc will die.

"Then just pick Poppy and get to Challenger with her" says the strawman. She is not that broken. (She isn't 'broken' in that since at all) But she is also not that fun. Even if you are unkillable, your team is not. Everyone except your target will walk past you and destroy your team. Your target will run until your ult is down and THEN the team will turn and kill you. The fact that she is melee is our one saving grace. Poppy is NOT op because her teamfight isnt great, (unless they focus her) and her laning, while she cant be killed, still wont rack up all that many kills. (Just free farm) Poppy is stupid because her kit says fuck you to the fundamentals of League of Legends. Tanks protecting squishies goes out the window with this stupid kit. THAT is why she needs a rework. NOT a buff. NOT a nerf. A rework. She could be a 0 dmg punching bag, but with her bullshit kit I would still complain. The fact she does %hp instead, and has a stun, AND can run away after is just a spit in the face.

EDIT: Also in the thread where I asked for help they said "play Olaf." Which I am not inclined to do. With the rise of smite top laners (and thus challengers smite) Poppy will be less of a hassle, because I can just take smite instead of tp or flash. "Why not ignite?" says the annoying strawman again. Because you will never get her low enough to ignite because she knows you have ignite and because her passive is stupid as fuck. Challengers smite is at a low enough cooldown that you can use it everytime or almost every time you trade and come out on top regardless of the stupid passive. Sooo.... THANK YOU JUNGLER BUFFS FOR MAKING TOP LANE POPPY BEATABLE.