As a poppy player, I agree she needs nerfs. Here are my ideas.

kasfas··7 votes·1,676 views

First, her passive gives her a massive shield that many have a hard time breaking through. Lowering its active time is a good start, but 3 seconds isn't right.

  1. Lower its use time to 4 seconds instead of 3.
  2. Change the shielding amount to 10/12.5/15/17.5/20 at levels 1/5/9/13/16 to make her lane phase weaker.
  3. Change its damage to physical from magical.

Second, her q damage is actually pretty high for a tank and gets to a fairly low cooldown later in the game. Her q essentially becomes a sustained 7% - 14% max hp damage.

  1. Lower the % damage by 1% on both ends.
  2. Increase the cooldown late game by 0.5 seconds.
  3. Shift more of the damage into the second proc to make it less reliable.

Next, her w is fine for the most part, but...

  1. It shouldn't deal damage.

Then, her e. It's mostly fine, but some people have a hard time dealing with it.

  1. Change the stun time to 1.4/1.6/1.8/1.9/2 seconds to reduce laning power.
  2. Lower base damage to 30/50/70/90/110 from 50/70/90/110/130.

Finally her ult. The change that they're doing seems appropriate, but there are still some things I can say.

  1. Increase the self slow to 20% from 15%.
  2. change the cooldown to 150/120/90.

Note that these are just ideas for changes that I have as a poppy player that I think would be appropriate. Not all at once mind you, but maybe one or two at a time until she balances out.

40 Comments

Ralanr3 votes

"Change her damage from physical to magical"

No. Fuck you. I like having AD damage tanks.

No offense. But so far only her and Sion really have AD scalings.

Edit: I read that wrong. My bad.

Bradley Dragon2 votes

{quoted}

"Change her damage from physical to magical"

No. Fuck you. I like having AD damage tanks.

No offense. But so far only her and Sion really have AD scalings.

says "too physical from magical" he is talking about the on hit auto attack in her passive.

kasfas3 votes
DaNinad2 votes

Finally a player admits their champion is too strong.

Sexy Jack Rabbit2 votes

These nerfs are excessive. Poppy is strong, but she's not that strong. People want to see her easier to duel, not gutted to the point she is no longer viable again. (Well some people might)

You don't really understand Poppy if you don't know why her Buckler deals AP, her Q Base is so high, or why her W deals damage. Removing or changing that could severely gimp her kit.

The duration nerfs and Ultimate damage nerfs on the PBE are targetting the correct problem areas in her kit, which are Dueling and Ganking potential. The current combo is E into Wall, Q, AA, Second Q Proc, (Uncharged) Ultimate and E if it's off of CD. By nerfing her ultimate damage they reduce the raw damage from her combo and by nerfing her shield duration people have more opportunities to duel her when she isn't stacked.

kasfas1 votes

Firstly, you said buffs not nerfs which I assume is an accident.

I did in fact say only one or two of these might be appropriate, not all of them.

Her W doing damage is rather unnecessary with the utility it provides against those dash champions.

I believe her q does too much damage on too low a cooldown. I've found its pretty rediculous, but if her shield is getting nerfed it's probably unnecessary.

Her passive dealing magic damage I never really understood anyway except to keep her damage relevant against armour stacking targets, but she also deals % hp damage, and if her team is full ad anyway, that's a flaw in the teamcomp ignoring the usefulness of last whisper or black cleaver. ( on any of the champions on her team, not necessarily her).

And finally her ult damage and passive duration nerfs are fair, and I think it's good to go through (though three seconds is rather short), these are just all other fair options that would still preserve the good feel for playing the champion.

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

Yeah meant nerfs, typo mb.

Removal of damage from an entire ability is excessive. W is not only for CC, it's to provide a Zone. If you removed the damage, the threat dissipates. The exact thing happened with Taliyah and her E. As a result of the nerfed damage on the E, it nows suffers when used as a zoning tool.

Q damage is her bread and butter, her damage out-put is rather inconsistent and slow, she just has high bases, similar to Nautilus. It would be better to nerf other parts of her Kit, rather then her percentage health damage. 7 - 14% depending on whether they are CC'd is not that high. Sejuani can deal a minimum 24% of max health damage (Which scales +3% per 100 AP) with just her W. Adding on Sejuani's stick potential and low-gold cost requirements, Poppy's percent health in on the low side. I could understand nerfing the cooldown, but Poppy's dueling is all combo's anyways, and her wave-clear is already sub-par.
There are probably better areas to nerf.

The reason why her buckler deals AP damage is due to the nature of Squishies. Before release Poppy's buckler went from dealing AP Damage with a scaling, to raw AD for a while. It was shown that the passive provided too much burst on squishies, specifically ADC's who couldn't stack enough of one stat. The ability was swapped to AP without a scaling so that it could be built against easier, and allow for squishies MR to mean something against her. (The scaling was most likely removed to stop incentive for AD-Hybrid builds.)

The same question could be asked why Illaoi doesn't have AP scalings if that is an issue. It's mostly due to Illaoi (And a lot of other raw AD Scaling champions) being easy to kite, or having low base stats elsewhere in their kit (Like Kindred's low Armor and lack of MR scaling.)

Reducing Poppy's shield duration down the 3 second actually makes a lot of sense considering she now almost solely runs Courage of the Colossus. Keeping Poppy's passive at even 4 seconds allows for 8 seconds of pure shield when optimized right, which is frankly bonkers. Lowering her buckler passive shield would also just be the reversion of a previous buff. It's better to make weaknesses more obvious, such as Poppy's shield being down, then to make strengths slightly less so.

kasfas1 votes

The thing is her w already stops the dashes of champions and CCs them for a second after landing which is pretty massive considering many dashes blocked by this either are the champions best gapclose or reset in some way. Denying the gap close or the reset is pretty massive already, that extra 230 some magic damage is just unnecessary. Couple that with the fact that poppy is likely to e them after they land and they basically can't fufill their function for a significant time. The difference with taliyah is that it only had a slow and relied on doing damage, whereas poppy has more overall utility and doesn't need to build damage. Plus it's not like it's doing any damage to champions without dashes anyway, so it doesn't affect her as much as it would affect taliyah.

Sejuani w only does 6% targets max hp, and 12% her max hp. As well as having a longer cooldown and not providing a slow zone. Plus her health damage is dealt over a 4 second duration rather than all in one instance making poppy's q more reliable and more bursty despite sejuani's stick potential. Plus she is a warden not a vanguard. She shouldn't do as much damage as a tank who is meant to engage and disrupt the back line.

I didn't know about her passive, so I guess that's fine.

And on the topic of the 8 second shield, it's not very often that poppy can save her cc for 4 seconds after landing buckler, and grabbing buckler 4 seconds after Cotc is also difficult because using cotc means you are likely in the middle of the fight and people are going to step on it or you just ccd someone on your back line and need to stop them from mirdering your carries so grabbing the shield is suboptimal.

Her previous value buff changed her shield value from constant 15% to 15-20% based on level, so reducing the early values to account for the later values is appropriate.

Umbral Regent2 votes

I like all of the proposed nerfs you wrote out - although I don't actively play Poppy and have yet to face her in earnest - I think my favorite of these would be shifting the damage into the latter-half of her Hammer Shock - not only because it's one of the easiest for me to grasp without thinking too far, but also because it would emphasize more positioning and skillful play with Poppy, like with how her Heroic Charge functions.

(some small ideas, largely irrelevant but still entertaining, are enemies risking the stronger %health damage for trying to stomp out her Shield, or the sheer panic as they try to scramble away from a wall - likely less panicked if they also nerf the Heroic Charge wall stun duration, but still funny to think about either way)

Asayake 5150glow1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Umbral Regent,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EQhNM0pa,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-01-01T23:58:56.676+0000)

I like all of the proposed nerfs you wrote out - although I don't actively play Poppy and have yet to face her in earnest - I think my favorite of these would be shifting the damage into the latter-half of her Hammer Shock - not only because it's one of the easiest for me to grasp without thinking too far, but also because it would emphasize more positioning and skillful play with Poppy, like with how her Heroic Charge functions.

(some small ideas, largely irrelevant but still entertaining, are enemies risking the stronger %health damage for trying to stomp out her Shield, or the sheer panic as they try to scramble away from a wall - likely less panicked if they also nerf the Heroic Charge wall stun duration, but still funny to think about either way)

Her Q procs fast enough that it simply wouldn't matter.

BlueNinja892 votes

Interesting ideas. Here's some of mine.

  1. The passive is fine and Riot lowering the shield to a 3 sec. from 5 sec. is fine.

  2. Poppy's Q and E are is fine as is. If you really want to nerf her damage you should focus on her base AD scaling instead. Maybe lowering it from 4 per level to something like 3 or 2 per level would probably do the trick.

  3. I agree that Poppy's W shouldn't do magic damage. In exchange for removing the magic damage however, I think that its cooldown should be lowered from 24/22/20/18/16 sec. to 20/18/16/14/12 sec.

  4. The self slow on Poppy is fine as is. Just reduce the damage the Ult does instead. I think that most Poppy mains would be fine with losing 100 damage at all levels (from 200/300/400 to 100/200/300) if the cooldown was also lowered from 140/120/100 sec. to 100/90/80 sec.

Sexy Jack Rabbit2 votes

I think I agree with these changes a lot more then the ones listed.

The only issue with lowering the cooldown on W, is that it could become Oppressive, being able to W every 8 seconds (with 40% CDR which is very easy to receive considering Poppy's build paths) is excessive. Janna's ultimate is the only other spell in the game that creates a zone, and despite the long cooldown, is still considered too oppressive for what it is capable of. Buffing the cooldown on the W could create a similar situation. Sejuani Q, Zac E and Gragas E all lie around 8 seconds as well, being able to W almost any time these champions dash, could be to difficult to play against.

I don't even think increasing the self slow on Poppy's ultimate would do anything tbh, any skilled Poppy player will be using it in a way that they are guaranteed to hit it anyways.

Can't agree with lowering the CD any further, 60 Seconds at 40% CDR is very for such a powerful peel tool. I think the current damage nerfs are sufficient.

BlueNinja891 votes

Would lowering the cooldown for the W more at early levels be better than lowering it across the board?

For instance: 24/22/20/18/16 to 20/19/18/17/16

That way the trade off for having no damage on her W would be the ability to use it more often earlier in the game while still retaining the original max cooldown.

Also, I think that Riot is doing the right thing with her Ult as well. I just really love using her Ult and wish that I could use it more often. XD

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

That would prrorbably just play out as a hard nerf. Entire removal of damage from her W for 4 less seconds in the early game.

Poppy's issue isn't so much her damage, as much as how difficult it is to trade with her. You could lower the cooldown and remove the damage from her W, but it's still going to stop Dashes outright. It'd be better too look at other parts of her kit to nerf, as opposed to her W.

Nerfing her base AD Scaling seems like a really solid idea. Yes, tanks should scale into the late-game. But for a champion who can dive your back-line and peel like a god while doing it, I don't know if she should scale as well as she does, which is frankly bonkers.

DDasani1 votes

So many people complaining about new poppy, why not just revert the new to old? Oh but wait..that's too strong too. Nothing satisfies you people. Learn to "love and tolerate".

TequilaZombie2 votes

Old Poppy had a kit problem. Her kit was just too obnoxious to deal with. New Poppy has a pretty fair and balanced kit, the only problem is that her numbers are a bit too high right now. No biggie.

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

That's because old Poppy was trash, as well as extremely toxic.

E GIRL SNIPER1 votes

Nothing satisfies anyone because riot cant get it through their head tanks with tons of cc shouldn't do damage. Poppy is basically Janna level cc that will blow up carries.

Ralanr1 votes

Solo laners need to hurt people.

Aptest2 votes

which results in tanks not being played anywhere.

in lane? the other guy ignores you, builds a little bit of sustain to have no problems then damage until he can break your tank and then kills you for free and takes everything.

in jungle? you can't clear therefore you can't gank and the other guys who can do both do both and also take your jungle and come kill you in it because you can't progress enough gold to be worth anything in a fight.

support? who wants to have their character be a DEDICATED support all the time?

Ralanr1 votes

To be perfectly honest, I feel they should just outright remove the damage from her ult entirely.

BlueNinja891 votes

If it meant getting a huge drop in the cooldown as well I'd be all for it. :)

xWaters1 votes

{quoted}

To be perfectly honest, I feel they should just outright remove the damage from her ult entirely.

What

Rozzeta1 votes

"Courage of the Colossus: No longer works with displacements."

That's all the nerf you need.

Arakadia1 votes

Now you just nerfed a crap ton of other champions too.

E GIRL SNIPER1 votes

Good, courage was a terrible idea and made toplaners who cant take it instantly at a massive disadvantage. Anyhting that nerfs it is amazing

Arakadia1 votes

Nothing with courage is terribly designed. Your just salty its over tuned.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

her damage is the only problem. I play poppy a lot. one of my favorite champions. but its no fun her chunking 60% of your hp in lane at level 3-4. nerf her damage not her passive please. specifically her Q damage

WinTheWarOnPants1 votes

i really don't like dmg nerfs on poppy. poppy always has and always should deal dmg. I would much rather see nerfs to her tankyness. lets also not forget that she abuses CoC. which is another reason why i have a problem nerfing her right now. i would much rather see CoC removed since it is causing quite a few champs that were fine before to become oppressive.

Dusk Mane Rengar1 votes

poppy always has and always should deal dmg

You know there is a problem when people say that TANKS are supposed to do damage.

Anags4 votes

If tanks dont do damage then they are just another Baum forced to support.

Laners have to do some damage or they won't be able to solo lane. So, tanks have to do damage in this game. Just get over it already.

Poppy is one of the few tanks that gets incredibly tanky in this game. More so than any other currently and she procs CoC easily.

She is really strong but she isn't even destroying soloq right now compared to prior patches.

The nerfs riot has listed seem adequate.

Dusk Mane Rengar1 votes

Tanks should be useful due to their tankiness and utility not because damage.

Im fine if tanks have like 5 seconds stunts or whatever since they shouldn't do ANY damage.

Until that happens tanks are and will be an overpowered class.

Ralanr1 votes

Tanks are useful for their utility and tankiness. Their damage is often pretty poor compared to carries.

There are a few reasons they are shown as high though.

  1. Tanks tend to survive longer than squishies and often have AoE effects, so it adds up the longer the fight goes on (especially with the battle Trance mastery). A carry however doesn't like long lasting fights.

  2. The carries that die easily to tanks are often very squishy and die easy to burst in general. Tanks usually deal burst damage (but not on the level of mages and assassins) and because of their lockdown they make it difficult for squishies to avoid it once caught. It's not really surprising to kill a squishy in this game, assassins could do it with their base damages alone. That's what lead to tank assassins working, they couldn't survive their targets long enough to kill them with their combo.

Now there are tanks where I feel their damage is dumb, but Poppy doesn't fall into my reasoning. Maokai does.

I have no problem with tanks having %max health damage as long as it has counterplay. Sion's is either breaking his shield or leaving the blast radius. Poppy's is to avoid her Q (and also avoid walls because that makes her Q a guaranteed hit).

Maokai's %health damage is on his point and click root. You can't dodge it at all. IMO it's dumb.

The point I feel you're trying to argue is that tanks should deal no damage at all. That in itself is really stupid as this would prevent tanks from functioning anywhere outside of support and even then they'd be poor supports because their main income item is one that requires them to CS.

Damage is not just a stat for beating other players in fights. It's also used to take towers and secure objectives, something that tanks when alone are really bad at doing (the only reason Shen is considered a decent splitpusher is because of his teamfight ult. Compared to other split pushers, and you'll notice he's on the slower end of taking towers).

Most importantly, tanks in solo lanes actually do need kill potential. Else they become an incredibly uninteractive class in lane. I'm talking old Shen levels where the main strategy was to last hit under tower and hope some idiot dives you.

Dusk Mane Rengar1 votes

Im not saying that tanks literally 0 damage but please i have outdamage an adcrwith a Maokai with just a frozen heart.

When Tanks are able to do more damage than an ADC with just tank items there is a huge problem imo, of course they need some damage but they shouldnt be able to go into a fight and melt someone squishy.

Melt squishies is Asssasin's job not Tanks job

Ralanr1 votes

Again, being squishy usually means that anyone can kill you. This is a game where offense outscales defense, so it only makes sense that base damage is going to outscale base defenses on champions that don't really build either stat.

Now as I said before, I don't actually like how Maokai applies his highest damage spell because unlike Poppy or Sion, there's no counterplay to it. At least Poppy has to use two abilities if she wants to guarantee both Q procs. Maokai is just a point and click root that doesn't %max health damage (magic as well, which is basically true damage to ADCs considering they do not buy MR or get it per level).

A for out damaging carries, it's more that they just outlast them in a fight. I've seen a marksman kite a tanky character and kill them. Hell I had a Caitlyn yesterday who was able to kit an Olaf (trust me, I was shocked). But if a marksman can't kite, then odds are they are going to die since they shouldn't facetank people.

There is a reason QSS and Saber are important items to an ADC. It allows them to get out of CC and continue kiting so they don't constantly get hit by a tanks damage (or get away from their sunfire).

I'm probably rambling. Sorry.

Bottom line: I do not believe that tanks out damage carries. Tanks just outlast carries that don't get peeled. Tanks also don't have the same damage output towards structures, but their damage in teamfights often adds up because they are very AoE based while marksmen are single targeted.

WinTheWarOnPants1 votes

Poppy is/should be a diver/fighter. I played the crap out of old poppy and quite a bit of new poppy. I never pick her for a tank. her character design just fits much better as a dmg dealer than a full on tank. Obviously she needs to be tanky to survive her engage, but she should NEVER be a wet noodle champ and like a said i would much rather see her tankyness be nerfed than her dmg. also like i said CoC has been a problem since the day it was introduced, no reason to nerf champs because they happen to abuse a BS keystone that should just be removed. Vi Hecarim Nautilus Taric Poppy and others are all in the same boat in regards to CoC abuse(even after it's nerfs). Poppy is definitely not the worst abuser either.

Requiemsfire1 votes

Here's a question why would you want to lower the time on a conditional stun that requires the enemy champion to be whammed against the wall on a tank?

kasfas1 votes

its just an idea to make her lanephase worse. It may not be the best one but it still fufills its purpose.

Dusk Mane Rengar1 votes

Just gut her nobody cares anyway lmao

Irelia Bot1 votes

I would argue that making her passive's shield duration scale 3/4/5 increasing at the same levels as the cooldown reduce 16/13/10 would be fine. Poppy was picked a ton at worlds because she is really safe. The idea is not to kill her off but make her a less safe especially in laning. If you need context this would be somewhat like when Riven's shield was reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2.5. It makes it have to be used at proper times instead of whenever.

Beyond that lowering the Q damage by 1% would help but this is not required.

If they want to do more, reducing her ults damage would likely be within reason since it is kinda a similar effect to what bard has to offer in providing a chance to give your team a numbers advantage. Its main feature was never about the damage anyways but instead rejecting unfavorable situations.

Poppy is strong but not what I would consider way over powered.

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