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Why was Poppy changed from a bruiser/assassin to a utility tank?

OddOstrich··18 votes·4,527 views

Okay, so I heard about the rework and came back to League to check her out. She was my favorite champion and I played her almost exclusively, just because she was the only champion I found really fun that you didn't have to have the best reaction time to play. I do not have the reaction speed to play some champions, my mind just doesn't think fast enough I guess.

Yeah she needed a rework, but I always thought when the time came for one, the way she was played would stay the same. Waiting for the opportune time to dive right into the enemy team or flanking them, going through the front line to get at the squishies in the back like some kind of unstoppable blitzing linebacker. Now I feel a responsibility to protect against charging assassins, and occasionally bat people away with my ult to those stupid enough to run towards me...Maybe I just like football more. It's funny to watch them go flying but it's not as fun.

Thematically it all makes sense, just as the spotlight video explained, her abilities accomplish the same thing they did as with her old abilities, but I've always believed the execution of something is more important than just doing it. Which I'm not sure why they made it a point to keep it thematic, it's practically just another utility tank.

I understand needing to change the abilities and even her character(still upset about that by the way, she went from acting tough and serious ambassador to being an air headed adventurer on a delivery quest. Like change her story and change her background but the character...it'd be like making Wolverine act like the Flash all of a sudden. You can change the origins and stories themselves all you want and people are going to love it regardless because of the character, so don't change that part too much!..but money was spent already so what can you do?), but why change how she's played and how she feels to play?

Are all reworks like this? Just change a champion completely on whimsy? It's okay as long as they have the same name and weapon? How could anyone trust Riot to keep true to any of their champions if they could do this to any champion they want? How do you build customer loyalty like that?

Okay maybe I'm being over dramatic with that last part, but try to understand, I feel a bit burned by all this. Was it just the only route to take without deleting the character? Because if that's the case, then I don't care either way. But if it was just the route that was the easiest to take, then I'm just down right disappointed Riot.

I don't want any of you to think that I want the old Poppy back, anyone who isn't insane can tell that would be a terrible idea. I'm mostly venting and getting my opinion out there as an old Poppy fan.

P.S: Yes I'm salty about the character change but even I would tell you this new character is better...is that a good thing? In a way, sure, more people will love her. But in the same token, old fans are going to be seriously disappointed, and it goes back to the loyalty idea; you build a good relationship by being loyal, and the larger implication of this rework is that it sets a precedent that Riot can 180 any character they feel needs it, which means YOUR CHARACTER COULD BE NEXT! But it probably won't be, so don't worry. I mean, it'll never happen to you, this OP is just talking crazy...or am I?

tldr(Why doesn't anyone just call this part summary? Is it just not as cool?): Old Poppy fan dislikes how the new champion that replaced old Poppy doesn't feel or play the way the old Poppy did. Rito why you do this? Poppy wasn't even played often or ACTUALLY considered OP in the meta. You could have taken more time...

87 Comments

Puynsi9 votes

Because she was meant to be a tank, but people never (at least the ones I've seen torough the years) built her pure tank, maybe one armor/mr item on a full damage build and that was it since there was no need of building tank on her because of her passive and ult. Now shes kinda locked into a tank/bruiser set up, but honestly this new poppy is just as devastating as the old one, just without that fucking toxic ult.

Sire Hippington4 votes

I'd argue it does matter little what she initiall was meant for if she was used 6 years stright as an assasin or atleast bruiser/fighter, always with the goal to get in and kill the carry rather than peel for her team. Cause frankly, she got no tools for peeling, so if she was designed as a supportive tank, someone failed really really hard on that subject.

pulling a 180 turn on her playstyle feels unreasonable, why make her a peeling tank rather than a diving fighter?

Mobrex3 votes

Where does the, "she was never intended to be" talk come from? I hear people say that a lot with nothing to back it up. She was labeled an assassin on the games character page and she has an ult to isolate one person and kill them. How is that not assassin? and what about the new poppy is true to the old poppy?

Celeste Benal9 votes

A: Because her kit was toxic as Chernobyl.

Quepha8 votes

Because an armored shortstack with a hammer and shield makes people want to play her as a champ that can take a hit and knock people around instead of a bush-camping assassin. Because the ability people most wanted to preserve from her old kit, her dash with conditional stun, is a powerful enemy repositioning tool and cc. Getting the stun is enough a challenge that the payoff in terms of stun duration mean that any half-decent amount of damage scaling on her would allow her to kill champions before their players have a chance to even do anything, which is kind of a game design no-no.

If she looks like she can take a hit, she has abilities that move enemies around and stun them, and giving her too much damage would make her toxic, then she's gotta become a tank.

OddOstrich2 votes

{quoted}

Because an armored shortstack with a hammer and shield makes people want to play her as a champ that can take a hit and knock people around instead of a bush-camping assassin. Because the ability people most wanted to preserve from her old kit, her dash with conditional stun, is a powerful enemy repositioning tool and cc. Getting the stun is enough a challenge that the payoff in terms of stun duration mean that any half-decent amount of damage scaling on her would allow her to kill champions before their players have a chance to even do anything, which is kind of a game design no-no.

If she looks like she can take a hit, she has abilities that move enemies around and stun them, and giving her too much damage would make her toxic, then she's gotta become a tank.

-I'd like to give people more credit for wanting to play a character based on appearance, I mean it's certainly a factor but I feel the more fun a character is will ultimately decide whether or not you play them. At least for casual players like myself. And sure that's what the people want, but I'm saying it wasn't done too well, if anything she should have been more like Illaoi in that case...and also I agree with that, but you forgot the whole "charge in without giving a fuck" factor.

-I see your point, it's not fun to play against a champion who can lock you down instantly. And I completely agree that her skills needed changing, but I'm trying to find out if there was a way to accomplish this without changing the play-style and feel of a champion?

-The thing is though, she is a relatively weak tank as it stands. Sure she can take a hit, but against four-five people. Giving her more damage and toning down her defenses would make her a "fighter" wouldn't it? Not as bursty as an assassin, not as tough as a tank. That was kind of her defined role, and her secondary role was an assassin.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted} -The thing is though, she is a relatively weak tank as it stands. Sure she can take a hit, but against four-five people. Giving her more damage and toning down her defenses would make her a "fighter" wouldn't it? Not as bursty as an assassin, not as tough as a tank. That was kind of her defined role, and her secondary role was an assassin.

Her utility and additional cc now allows her to build tanky and be useful in a fight, her old kit only had one form of cc so she had to build glass cannon to make her only real asset (damage) into something useful. Durability is mainly sourced from items so to make a tank champion it's more important to make them useful without damage items than it is to make them scale well with defensive stats.

OddOstrich1 votes

{quoted}

Her utility and additional cc now allows her to build tanky and be useful in a fight, her old kit only had one form of cc so she had to build glass cannon to make her only real asset (damage) into something useful. Durability is mainly sourced from items so to make a tank champion it's more important to make them useful without damage items than it is to make them scale well with defensive stats.

Can't argue there, it was almost futile to build her tanky back then, and she could be a bit one-dimensional. Are you saying that because of her additional CC, they decided to make her a tank instead of an assassin then? If they took away the slow on her Q, and maybe even reduced the duration of the stun, would it be enough to merit giving her more bursty damage?

Yeah I can agree with that philosophy to building tanks.

Quepha2 votes

{quoted}

If they took away the slow on her Q, and maybe even reduced the duration of the stun, would it be enough to merit giving her more bursty damage?

Now you're talking about nerfing her main role for what is now considered to be an off role and no, probably not, you'd also need to hit her ult which has a massive duration knockup.

JedenVojak1 votes

{quoted}

Because an armored shortstack with a hammer and shield makes people want to play her as a champ that can take a hit and knock people around instead of a bush-camping assassin.

Several champions have been changed and balanced based on how they are played. Like Kassadin (From sustained AD auto attack focused chasing assassin anti mage to a mobile burst "assassin") and Morgana (from a mid lane dot mage to a support).

Because the ability people most wanted to preserve from her old kit,

Debatable - many people liked her passive or her old Q, myself included.

her dash with conditional stun, is a powerful enemy repositioning tool and cc. Getting the stun is enough a challenge that the payoff in terms of stun duration mean that any half-decent amount of damage scaling on her would allow her to kill champions before their players have a chance to even do anything, which is kind of a game design no-no.

Actually it's the opposite because the dash as a reposition is relatively cumbersome and unwieldy and very easy to misuse, and the stun is very conditional, it's fairly balanced as an ability to actually have the stun on it since it's easy to play around. It was definately in the camp of "tough but rewarding".

Now it's just tough, the reward is all gone.

If she looks like she can take a hit, she has abilities that move enemies around and stun them, and giving her too much damage would make her toxic, then she's gotta become a tank.

Darius and Scarner would like to have a word with you.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted}\

Darius and Scarner would like to have a word with you.

Dude, what? Darius and Skarner get heavy damage nerfs whenever they start to become oppressive and generally always get forced into building at least half tanky.

MasterSomething6 votes

Let me say it like this:

  1. Kit was beyond toxic, needed outright cleansing
  2. Really boring audio lines with little emotion
  3. Pathetic animations and well, interaction

Besides, they'd rather please a huge crowd than serve the 11 Poppy mains out there.

OddOstrich1 votes

{quoted}

Let me say it like this:

  1. Kit was beyond toxic, needed outright cleansing
  2. Really boring audio lines with little emotion
  3. Pathetic animations and well, interaction

Besides, they'd rather please a huge crowd than serve the 11 Poppy mains out there.

  1. No one is arguing that. Read whole post.
  2. Agreed, glad it's gone. Comparatively, this new one is annoying to me.
  3. Agreed, glad they redid it.

That's perfectly fine to cater to the majority of your player base, it's a legitimate business model. But it doesn't help customer relationships to those who are loyal, which is also very important. It also sort of makes super popular champions untouchable or at least harder to mess with than the least popular one because if they really are going for the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

But that's an entirely different discussion, I'm trying to get a discussion going on the change of her role and playstyle. Thoughts?

MasterSomething3 votes

That first point was for anyone else looking, probably shoulda omitted that.

Currently, her role is perfect as a utility tank. She's unique, as she's a barrier to those stupid assasins who can ram in to your group, and has a strong as hell disengage. She is also played as an on-hit proc machine, because her buckler procs everything. Give it time, people will find even more ways to play her. She's being used Top, Jungle, and Support, so there's a lot of diversity there.

And one more thing: Riot will gladly screw around with a champion if it is something that is toxic to the game no matter how many people like it. Think about Fiora- People hated her old kit, and the reworked one had a shitty start until people learned how to play her and against her. By shitty start, I mean that people wanted her old kit back, Fiora mains left (thank god) and people considered her weak. Now look at her. Riot itself enjoys taking huge risks, looking to see the end reward rather than the problems on the way there. This has made its fanbase a bunch of toxic babies, because they don't know how to adapt like Riot wants them to.

Now I'm just rambling, my bad.

OddOstrich2 votes

{quoted}

That first point was for anyone else looking, probably shoulda omitted that.

Currently, her role is perfect as a utility tank. She's unique, as she's a barrier to those stupid assasins who can ram in to your group, and has a strong as hell disengage. She is also played as an on-hit proc machine, because her buckler procs everything. Give it time, people will find even more ways to play her. She's being used Top, Jungle, and Support, so there's a lot of diversity there.

And one more thing: Riot will gladly screw around with a champion if it is something that is toxic to the game no matter how many people like it. Think about Fiora- People hated her old kit, and the reworked one had a shitty start until people learned how to play her and against her. By shitty start, I mean that people wanted her old kit back, Fiora mains left (thank god) and people considered her weak. Now look at her. Riot itself enjoys taking huge risks, looking to see the end reward rather than the problems on the way there. This has made its fanbase a bunch of toxic babies, because they don't know how to adapt like Riot wants them to.

Now I'm just rambling, my bad.

Well I understand that she's perfect for a utility tank. What I'm wondering is why they made her fit into the role and not change her but keep her as a fighter/assassin. Or even just a fighter.

I would hardly consider this a risk, it was probably the safest rework you could have done. Her kit was broken or "toxic" and she was unpopular. And sure, I never seen it personally but I'll take your word that people who want a complete reversal on reworks are babies.

And I think people are misunderstanding me...I DON'T WANT THE OLD POPPY BACK, I COMPLETELY AGREE SHE NEEDED A REWORK! I get she had a bad kit, no one would argue against changing her abilities back! I'm just trying to figure out why they changed her role.

MasterSomething2 votes

I keep putting that there, don't I? Really shouldn't ramble when I'm half asleep.

And for your role thing, I think they wanted her to be more unique than just a simple Yordle fighter. Other than Mega Gnar, the Yordles didn't have anyone to represent as a tank. This might have been a factor in her rework. Besides that, if you are defending something, you want to be powerful, be able to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, etc. Ryze guards an arcane scroll, and uses powerful magic to defend the scroll from those who would take it. Poppy carries the hammer, and she's not going to hand it over to some thug. She uses incredible will and tenacity to stop her opponents from doing so.

But that's just my theory. Besides, I think they wanted to remove Assassin Poppy from the game. You know how bad that was.

OddOstrich1 votes

{quoted}

I keep putting that there, don't I? Really shouldn't ramble when I'm half asleep.

And for your role thing, I think they wanted her to be more unique than just a simple Yordle fighter. Other than Mega Gnar, the Yordles didn't have anyone to represent as a tank. This might have been a factor in her rework. Besides that, if you are defending something, you want to be powerful, be able to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, etc. Ryze guards an arcane scroll, and uses powerful magic to defend the scroll from those who would take it. Poppy carries the hammer, and she's not going to hand it over to some thug. She uses incredible will and tenacity to stop her opponents from doing so.

But that's just my theory. Besides, I think they wanted to remove Assassin Poppy from the game. You know how bad that was.

Being the only Yordle that fights melee? And you do not need defense to defend something, you can do it just as well with offense. In that comic Riot released she is even shown going on the offense and ripping apart a monster. An interesting theory nonetheless, I'll keep thinking on it.

Yeah it was bad, but instead of changing her completely, I wish they would have just made her easier to play against by removing the ult. The Q and W are way better now than ever I think.

BastionKross4 votes

I feel the same way. I'm used to a Poppy that gave exactly 0 shits as she dived into the enemy backline and murdered carries while being very difficult to bring down herself. And it's not like this playstyle is toxic, DrMundo and Garen are designed for that. I don't see any good reason why Poppy couldn't join those ranks of diving juggernauts.

Instead, Riot made her into a bodyguard tank; a playstyle pretty much the opposite of every Poppy build ever. Now she's more of a Braum or a Taric. Which isn't a bad niche to be, but it's not what Poppy players wanted for her future, and it frustrates and confuses me personally as to why Riot would take the tank route over the bruiser route.

Luckily, there's still time for Riot to adjust her numbers that diving juggernaut Poppy can still be a reality for players who want to play her that way instead of as a bodyguard. These next few weeks are key, especially when certain players stop playing her specifically because she's the hot, new thing on the block and more data is gathered by people who actually want to main her for the long haul.

TheDevice5 votes

{quoted}

I feel the same way. I'm used to a Poppy that gave exactly 0 shits as she dived into the enemy backline and murdered carries while being very difficult to bring down herself. And it's not like this playstyle is toxic, DrMundo and Garen are designed for that. I don't see any good reason why Poppy couldn't join those ranks of diving juggernauts.

Instead, Riot made her into a bodyguard tank; a playstyle pretty much the opposite of every Poppy build ever. Now she's more of a Braum or a Taric. Which isn't a bad niche to be, but it's not what Poppy players wanted for her future, and it frustrates and confuses me personally as to why Riot would take the tank route over the bruiser route.

Luckily, there's still time for Riot to adjust her numbers that diving juggernaut Poppy can still be a reality for players who want to play her that way instead of as a bodyguard. These next few weeks are key, especially when certain players stop playing her specifically because she's the hot, new thing on the block and more data is gathered by people who actually want to main her for the long haul.

Tryndamere Would have been a better example. The problem is that poppy could do what trynd does but even better. She had hard cc, tankyness, assassin (burst) damage, and mobility. Tryn is at least very susceptible to cc and grevious wounds. He has clear weaknesses unlike old poppy.

BastionKross1 votes

That's a good point, but I don't know what it has to do with my post exactly.

I'm all for old Poppy to stay gone, but her playstyle could have been preserved with the new kit. I wasn't advocating we return to her old, unhealthy kit with invulnerability and free tankiness.

TheDevice2 votes

{quoted}

That's a good point, but I don't know what it has to do with my post exactly.

I'm all for old Poppy to stay gone, but her playstyle could have been preserved with the new kit. I wasn't advocating we return to her old, unhealthy kit with invulnerability and free tankiness.

Then what are you advocating for? Thats the question. Poppy did too much. You're saying you don't want her to do as much as she did but still want her to play the same way. It makes no sense.

You'd have to cut SOMETHING out. So now (if im understanding you right) you want poppy to be more like the currently consistently banned mundo? The mundo whos been getting nerfs? Or garen? So, remove any hard cc from poppy, make her more susceptible to cc, and just give her the burst damage. Is that what you mean? I'm really asking im not being a dick or anything.

It comes down to what part of old poppy you want to be more pronounced. Riot chose to go with her tanky/cc teamfight oriented style rather than her one-enemy nuke assassin type gameplay. Garen has no cc... none, unless you count his silence as cc. Even garen is not what the old poppy was. So you dont want poppy to have any real cc, do damage to the backline while soaking up damage?

My issue is you'll still have people complaining that poppy isn't what she was. Somebody will find something lacking from the new poppy becuase the old poppy had too much. thats my point.

Sire Hippington4 votes

He means the core playstyle. That of a diving fighter, trying to get into the enemie backline and kill the carry. Think of irelia, garen or xin. Just a champ with the means to get into the opposing backline and survive there long enough to take down a carry if the fight goes your way. That does not mean a champ that gets totally imune to cc and damage of 4 people and kinda instakills her priority target once come to lategame.

And i which world was Poppy ever cc/teamfight oriented? She never was a 'tank' she was tanky, that is a big difference in this game, as one is an atribute, the other a role.

TheDevice2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Don Pavoni,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=KO2p2kbp,comment-id=00090000000000000000,timestamp=2015-12-16T04:40:17.693+0000)

He means the core playstyle. That of a diving fighter, trying to get into the enemie backline and kill the carry. Think of irelia, garen or xin. Just a champ with the means to get into the opposing backline and survive there long enough to take down a carry if the fight goes your way. That does not mean a champ that gets totally imune to cc and damage of 4 people and kinda instakills her priority target once come to lategame.

And i which world was Poppy ever cc/teamfight oriented? She never was a 'tank' she was tanky, that is a big difference in this game, as one is an atribute, the other a role.

Old poppy could be tankier than the new poppy. Idk what you mean by that. The thing is people didn't build her that way becuase they found out she can still be tanky while building mostly damage. So yeah, nobody built her tanky because they didn't need to.

You say a diving fighter like Xin Zhao. Xin is an attackspeed oriented champ, has a targetable dash, and is able to cc/ split up the enemy from a single target. The new poppy can do every single thing xin does except for having built-in attack speed but poppy was never an attack speed oriented champ anyways.

Poppy has a movement speed buff to get to the back line. She can even dash if she's close then ult the rest of their team to separate them and continue focusing on the backline carry.

The new poppy is just not as straight forward selfish as she used to be but just offers more to teamfights.

Renekton is also a backline fighter who can dash to the enemy and stun them and deal a fair amount of damage. He has far less cc though.

Maybe you're right but at the same time I dont think people have given poppy enough time in the game to bring out her true potental. Poppy does very decent damage, is tanky, and can reach the back line quite easily. She can do the things you're talking about. The problem is she just doesnt do it all as well as she used to which is the idea.

TL;DR: poppy can still do what you guys are complaining she cant do. What I think the problem might be is she doesn't do it as good as she used to and thats where the toxic gameplay argument crops up.

My suggestion: try building and playing poppy in the way you want and envisioned her to be as but know that she's not going to be as good as before at it.

Sire Hippington2 votes

Old poppy could be tankier than the new poppy. Idk what you mean by that.

Beeing tanky does not mean your a tank. Tanks are a class that while beeing tanky is defined by the cc they bring to the fights instead of raw damage. Juggernauts usually are more tanky than tanks, so are many bruisers, and most fighters are also rather tanky. So just beeing tanky does not make a champion a tank. And old poppy did bring next to no cc to teamfights, as all she had was one conditional hard cc with medium cd. She was never about cc, but about dealing high singletarget damage while beeing had to peel against and hard to bring down.

Poppy has a movement speed buff to get to the back line. She can even dash if she's close then ult the rest of their team to separate them and continue focusing on the backline carry.

Her ms boost is pretty short on a high cd, same goes for the dash. Unless you get a great flank or your ult removes evry potential peeler while your target is bad at kiteing, she does struggle to reach and stick to the backline. She also can't output similar damage to xin or irelia while beeing tanky. If she builts agressive, she stays squishy as her tank-steroids are all %scaleing. If she goes tanky, her damage isn't big enough to kill targets fast enough for the job.

She can do the things you're talking about. The problem is she just doesnt do it all as well as she used to which is the idea.

The problem isn't that she doesn't do it as well as befor, but that she doesn't do it as well as other dive champs. And with her current kit, she also can't be allowed to be an as strong dive champ. If she could effectivly dive while providing all the potential peeling her kit offeres, she would just be superior to all the dive champs that do not have the tools for peeling and thus mostlikely get nerfed.

My suggestion: try building and playing poppy in the way you want and envisioned her to be as but know that she's not going to be as good as before at it.

i've played her as bruiser and full ad assasin back on PBE, and i've seen alot of them on live. It works good in the early, and if you start to snowball you can be strong midgame, espcially in small fights and within the jungle, as you often find isolated targets near walls. However, later in the game in real teamfights, it just doesn't work at all as she has trouble getting on top of important targets and killing them befor dieing herself.

The peel-tank poppys i've seen worked out all game perfectly fine and really made it hard to touch her backline. From my experience, peeling-poppy works great, while assasin/bruiser poppy mostly works by early cheese and snowbaling from their, and under that condition full ap Leona works aswell... And even if she would work great as a diving bruiser, u doubt that it would stay this way givin her huge peeling and teamutillity. if she could dive as effective as an irelia or jax, she would be plain superior as a champ.

OddOstrich1 votes

{quoted}

It comes down to what part of old poppy you want to be more pronounced. Riot chose to go with her tanky/cc teamfight oriented style rather than her one-enemy nuke assassin type gameplay. Garen has no cc... none, unless you count his silence as cc. Even garen is not what the old poppy was. So you dont want poppy to have any real cc, do damage to the backline while soaking up damage?

My issue is you'll still have people complaining that poppy isn't what she was. Somebody will find something lacking from the new poppy becuase the old poppy had too much. thats my point.

But here's a question then, why decide to go to the tanky route instead of the assassin route? Nobody played her as a tank, it wasn't as fun and because of her design, it was a waste to build health and a waste not to capitalize on her damage potential. I think most what we want is a more assassin type playstyle or at least a bruiser type playstyle, not a tank. I'm not sure if it'd be a good idea, but I'd be fine with out the CC from Q. I'd like to keep the dash of course, that's kind of her thing.

And I can see where you're coming from, it sounds like you've been hearing a lot of the guys who are calling for a revert to the old, but try and see it from our side. There is ALOT lacking from the new Poppy comparatively, but the ones we really care about is her play style and role. And like I said before, almost nobody played her tanky with great success, her design, while meant for it, didn't work at all for primary tanking(Which shows just how bad her design was), so if you have to take something out of Poppy, take the little tankiness that she had then.

Cdore4 votes

This is a lie. Poppy cannot waveclear like crazy, solo baron, or take turrets within seconds. That was her one big weakness and was why she could not close games, which is a natural weakness to have. But I suppose people forgot the common sense of a character have a definite weakness compared to their strength.

Mobrex3 votes

I as well have wrote on other threads concerning this topic. I am an X-poppy main as of the rework. I played her for three seasons as my go to and favorite champ. I could not agree with you more when how you said "I feel Let down" and "she is a shadow of herself."

I would not say she needed massive rework. Maybe only an update to her ult, but that is all debatable which I am not here to do. I am here to write that poppy is not poppy any more shes a completely new and different champ. She plays different, she acts different, she builds different. If you are going to gut a champs identity, why not just make a new champ riot? I get you were under pressure to get this done by the end of the year because you announced it long ago, but if this is all you could come up with someone at riot should have had the balls to call out this failed rework before it got out the door. It would be as if you turned Master Yi into Braun or Jax into Sion.

You removed her identity as an assassin and replaced it with a shitty utility tank, who is struggling to get over a 40% win percentage. Pretty soon she will be forgotten, but unlike before she will not have a loyal die hard group of players that mained and loved her all in play style. Now she will have nothing and will you do anything about it? At least when you reworked Fiora you kept her a duelist. Reworks are meant to enhance a champion not destroy it. I could write all day but lets just say I couldn't be more disappointed. Pre-patch release I, just like many poppy mains, was optimistic of the rework, but deep down we all knew you would f- it up.

Mobrex7 votes

This rework was made for the players that never gave her the time of day pre-rework and not the people that actually played her.

TheDevice14 votes

{quoted}

This rework was made for the players that never gave her for the time of day pre-rework and not the people that actually played her.

I played poppy quite a bit. Poppy was a mis-mash of roles. She was a tanky assassin who could blow up the back line, not take any damage, and even after ult was gone she could still take hits as good as any pure tank.

They had to decide what role poppy should play. Should they have gone pure assassin with low health and weak to cc? or make emphasize her tanky cc role (which is what they went for).

I think the update was good. She doesn't feel that weak but she's definately not the poppy she was where she had assassin damage on top of her tanky/cc role.

MasterSomething7 votes

She's at 40% win rate because no one knows how to play her, she's very new. Her identity was never supposed to be an assassin- It was supposed to be that Yordle fighting you to the death with a freaking awesome hammer, not someone BSing you to death. She has way too much visual detail to be forgotten, and she is already getting buffs. They did not fuck it up. You guys are just salty.

Salzigorimando2 votes

I don't agree with this. Poppy was clearly an assassin. She had three single target abilities and a less than reliable cc. She had one actual combo, and her whole kit was built for the dash-in. W>R>E>Q. Boost, Tune out the riffraff, Dive for the target, and Nail it to a wall if you can. It's not her fault real tanks drool over the tank-ish abilities she only had so she didn't need a blink/gapcloser like most other assassins have. She even had the ability to build damage against enemies on the fly because of her odd ratios. Making her an apparent off-tank like this (haven't brought myself to put her through her paces yet) is definitely pulling a gameplay 180. I can't judge how effective she is yet, and I doubt she'll actually be bad, but I get the feeling we've lost another unique playstyle.

Beldori5 votes

Her kit actually was that of a bruiser, tanky with a lot of damage, but her ult and Q made her so broken in what she could do that she came off as a assassin so they shifted her back to tanky with decent damage

Salzigorimando1 votes

I see. I never considered her a bruiser because they usually need to build health or survivability, and building those on her kinda undermined her passive and stole the item slots she needed so bad early. I try to ignore her ult as a factor, because its ridiculous, but I can see what you mean about it factoring in that way, especially with her Q potential. I kind of always assumed E was her signature move myself, and my understanding of her built up around it. E sets up Q, W sets up E, Passive gets her out alive after E, Ult is, well, ugh, the source of the problem.

Beldori1 votes

she never used to have a bad earlier, riot put her like that cause people figured out to play her like a tankassassin so they wreaked her early game out of viability,she was also removed from free week rotation same with yorick

MasterSomething8 votes

Your "unique" style was beyond broken, stupid, and toxic. Free immunity for 6 seconds that prevents CC and damage from everything BUT your target? That wasn't nearly old Fiora levels of toxicity, which was point and click untargetability. This is a new Unique playstyle- one about being an iron wall for your allies and controlling the motion of the battlefield.

Salzigorimando4 votes

I don't see this wall your talking about. I'm not trying to be difficult or anything, but Poppy couldn't really block or control anything. She had one displacement/difficult cc on a moderate cd. Aside from that she was super kiteable. Her ult was ridiculous of course, but that was mostly because it didn't stick the "duel" theme it really should have had. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it negated her damage to non-targeted champs.

And I'm not sure you can blame her if the enemy team decides to blow cd's on her when she's a glowing bowling ball anyway. Yes it forced an unhealthy decision, yes it needed to be scrapped, but even without it she still played more assassin than tank, albeit a scrappier assassin than most people are used to.

MasterSomething2 votes

Read Deveyes post above mine, he explained it better than I could.

Salzigorimando2 votes

I see the point there, its not so much what she was made for as what she could be made to do.....hmmm. Maybe I'm stuck seeing her as a ssin because I used to hate playing fighters and tanks so much. I've never been very good in beefstick roles so I tend to feel subpar to me. That makes a lot of sense.Thanks for being patient with me

Spaceman5pff2 votes

I was just posting about this in a different thread! -I really miss all these ratios that were all wacky and out of place (usually they were AP ratios). So yeah, I understand that poppy had a totally toxic ult. And yeah, her Q was too high damage for how easy it was to hit. So change her ult, make her Q what it is now.. that is all well and fine! But WHY do we need to kill these off builds?

Do we honestly think AP Poppy would be op without the safety of her ult? I don't think so! They could have kept the AP scaling on her Q and E, and just divided the ratio for Q into two parts. BOOM! Tanky new poppy still works the same and now you have a less toxic AP Poppy.

Same goes for MF, Gangplank, and Tristana. I don't like losing all of these choices...

Quepha2 votes

{quoted} Do we honestly think AP Poppy would be op without the safety of her ult? I don't think so! They could have kept the AP scaling on her Q and E, and just divided the ratio for Q into two parts. BOOM! Tanky new poppy still works the same and now you have a less toxic AP Poppy.

Her ult was a problem for assassin poppy, but another big problem is killing her opponent before the duration of her stun was even up. Most assassins don't have much hard cc (or any at all) so the opponent at least has a chance to use a QSS or zhonya's or their own damage or ANYTHING AT ALL before the assassin unloads their combo. Plus having a massive length knockup on her ult so she can recharge her cooldowns for another round increases that risk even more and is arguably getting to a degree of toxic that is still beyond what Riot would like to have.

Spaceman5pff5 votes

Well the thing is, Elise and Syndra are mages who can burst you down before their stun ends. Riven can one-shot you during her 2 CC's (only one of which is removable) Malzahar can 100 to 0 squishies in his suppress. Annie can kill you within her stun. Fiddlesticks can one-shot you during his fear, and gets a multi-target silence to boot!

You have a point about buying time for cooldown resets, but i would like to help you understand that without the old ult, AP poppy had no higher assassination potential than other assassins. and even with her ult as it is now, she has a harder time getting onto her target to begin with, meaning she is less effective than other assassins. What is the point of being able to buy time for your 2nd round of cooldowns if you didn't make it to the carry alive anyway?

Quepha2 votes

{quoted}

Well the thing is, Elise and Syndra are mages who can burst you down before their stun ends. Riven can one-shot you during her 2 CC's (only one of which is removable) Malzahar can 100 to 0 squishies in his suppress. Annie can kill you within her stun. Fiddlesticks can one-shot you during his fear, and gets a multi-target silence to boot!

You have a point about buying time for cooldown resets, but i would like to help you understand that without the old ult, AP poppy had no higher assassination potential than other assassins. and even with her ult as it is now, she has a harder time getting onto her target to begin with, meaning she is less effective than other assassins. What is the point of being able to buy time for your 2nd round of cooldowns if you didn't make it to the carry alive anyway?

Elise definitely cannot, Syndra needs her ult to do it and needs to land a skillshot, Riven usually can't do that unless she's way up in gold, Malzahar needs his ult and this is one of the reasons riot makes sure to keep him from being competitive.

Yes, 100-0 champions happen and there are some of them still in the game, but Riot doesn't like to make them and when they become a problem they usually get reworked so that isn't possible or just generally nerfed to be subpar in general. They definitely aren't going to go out of their way to make another champion capable of doing that in a normal situation.

Sure, Poppy couldn't do much in a team fight without her ult, but with her ult she had the single greatest 1v5 potential in the game for the least amount of effort and with the least opportunity for counterplay because she merely picks the champion on the enemy team least capable of doing something about her. To counterpick a Poppy you needed to counterpick her 5 times so she has no good targets.

MasterSomething2 votes

Fiddlesticks can one-shot you during his fear

Please tell me where his one shotting comes from.

Sire Hippington1 votes

if he gets the ult of and follows with e+q+w, he often enough wll kill a squishy befor the fear ends.

Cdore2 votes

"Toxic." "Unfun." "Stupid kit." I love how all the Poppy haters parrot these words from the typical bloggers across the realm of the net, and don't realize what they are saying.

Do not feel like you have to appeal to the people who said Riot did a good job. They did not. They outright deleted old Poppy. This is as similar to Poppy as a cat to a dog. Her personality is gone in both her characterization and her gameplay. The justification behind her new kit being similar to her old kit is garbage and a lie. This was all just a way for Riot to take care of an old problem and take care of it for good. As a support tank, they put her into one of the weakest roles in the game so they never have to care for her again. Who else occupy these roles? Braum, Taric, characters that hardly get adjustments because they're not too game changing to have to nerf or buff. They're simply there to fill a niche, and Poppy has now joined them on this bench of death.

It's a damn shame really. Poppy was a unique character, and with her removal, it's basically Riot giving the official note that they have completely abandoned their old game design, which I was a native of, and replaced it with this new age of casual gameplay featuring ugly terms like "counterplay," "toxic," and "outplaying." We use to call these something else: common sense. If I know a champion has an ability that can stun me in place if I get into a certain distance of it, ala Annie or Ryze, I know to play safer from this distance if I don't want to deal with the inevitable burst. It's called playing smart, and Riot has made it too easy for people so they can have an easier time to deal with such things, such as making many skills into skillshots over the years and away from targeted abilities. It's surprising new Poppy's dash was a targeted ability, though its weakness still stands that you can interrupt it or flash away from it with ease. But that's more the fault of Riot's bad game coding than anything.

This rework was a failure. Complete unnecessary. The visual update could stay, but everything else about her was a complete failure. This should have just been a new yordle because nothing about the new Poppy says old Poppy. And you're right, they outright deleted a character we learned for years, and we won't get any refunds on it. A scummy practice if you ask me, but Riot has the support of the millions behind them. No matter how much we whine about it, we'll get silenced by their loyal followers. I'm not afraid to say that Riot made a mistake and you shouldn't either. Let people say whatever they want. Who cares for downvotes and being blasted for speaking your mind. Screw them.

I am disappointed in this rework. And as a paying customer, I assume my opinion is worth as much as anyone else's. That's that.

TheDevice2 votes

{quoted}

"Toxic." "Unfun." "Stupid kit." I love how all the Poppy haters parrot these words from the typical bloggers across the realm of the net, and don't realize what they are saying.

I think most people here have played long enough to understand the truth behind poppy's old kit and apparently Riot (who made the game) understood it as well.

I know to play safer from this distance if I don't want to deal with the inevitable burst. It's called playing smart, and Riot has made it too easy for people so they can have an easier time to deal with such things, such as making many skills into skillshots over the years and away from targeted abilities.

How is making skills into skillshots easier? That doesn't make any sense at all. It makes the game/champion harder to play. Your idea of distance /playing safe still remains.

and we won't get any refunds on it.

It costs nothing to play the game nor play poppy herself.

Skias4 votes

{quoted}

"Toxic." "Unfun." "Stupid kit." I love how all the Poppy haters parrot these words from the typical bloggers across the realm of the net, and don't realize what they are saying.

Do not feel like you have to appeal to the people who said Riot did a good job. They did not. They outright deleted old Poppy. This is as similar to Poppy as a cat to a dog. Her personality is gone in both her characterization and her gameplay. The justification behind her new kit being similar to her old kit is garbage and a lie. This was all just a way for Riot to take care of an old problem and take care of it for good. As a support tank, they put her into one of the weakest roles in the game so they never have to care for her again. Who else occupy these roles? Braum, Taric, characters that hardly get adjustments because they're not too game changing to have to nerf or buff. They're simply there to fill a niche, and Poppy has now joined them on this bench of death.

It's a damn shame really. Poppy was a unique character, and with her removal, it's basically Riot giving the official note that they have completely abandoned their old game design, which I was a native of, and replaced it with this new age of casual gameplay featuring ugly terms like "counterplay," "toxic," and "outplaying." We use to call these something else: common sense. If I know a champion has an ability that can stun me in place if I get into a certain distance of it, ala Annie or Ryze, I know to play safer from this distance if I don't want to deal with the inevitable burst. It's called playing smart, and Riot has made it too easy for people so they can have an easier time to deal with such things, such as making many skills into skillshots over the years and away from targeted abilities. It's surprising new Poppy's dash was a targeted ability, though its weakness still stands that you can interrupt it or flash away from it with ease. But that's more the fault of Riot's bad game coding than anything.

This rework was a failure. Complete unnecessary. The visual update could stay, but everything else about her was a complete failure. This should have just been a new yordle because nothing about the new Poppy says old Poppy. And you're right, they outright deleted a character we learned for years, and we won't get any refunds on it. A scummy practice if you ask me, but Riot has the support of the millions behind them. No matter how much we whine about it, we'll get silenced by their loyal followers. I'm not afraid to say that Riot made a mistake and you shouldn't either. Let people say whatever they want. Who cares for downvotes and being blasted for speaking your mind. Screw them.

I am disappointed in this rework. And as a paying customer, I assume my opinion is worth as much as anyone else's. That's that.

Old poppy was a pain in the dick to fight. Maybe you enjoyed abusing players with her, but she needed a rework. I hated her beforehand but I actually enjoy her new kit.

Holgranth1 votes

Dude I am sorry but as someone who has played for 5 years you are dead wrong. Except that they deleted old Poppy you are 100% right about that. But that is a good thing. I will make this really simple for you. Shitting on helpless people and winning games is fun for the person doing it. Watching helplessly, completely unable to act while Poppy destroys your back line is not fun.

You can take or leave all the buzzwords; the truth remains, having a champion that will (depending on Meta, itemization and the other champions involved) become an unstoppable death machine at three, four or five items is not good design. Riot may be 4 years late on Deleting Poppy and I agree it is unfair for long term Poppy players but she was a relic from when Riot had no idea how to make League the game they wanted it to be that needed to go.

Cdore1 votes

"Winning games." Poppy didn't win games except for when the enemy team is dumb and her team is built around her. Until then, having an anti carry on your team always meant you were sacrificing a lane to give you more carry lockdown strategically. This was the old way of League. It's gone now and replaced with a game where everyone should be happy and should have a chance to shine, even if they are doing poorly in lane. Her win rate compared to the rest of the cast is enough to show she was never a threat and everything said about her was simply common casual players whining about a character they hardly took the time to study.

Holgranth1 votes

The fun of Poppy was when you got to late game you shit on the enemy team with no recourse for them. The fact that many games ended before Poppy went Poppy mode is irrelevant. She was still a terrible design. She was never supposed to exist in the state she did. Riot had no idea what they were accidentally making when they created her. Riot left her because they had no idea how to fix her in season 1-2, were content to leave her as a legacy character (to be nerfed into the ground if she ever got picked in pro play) for season 3-4 and finally saw the light and realized that the (comparatively) tiny number of games ruined by Poppy were still too many in season 5.

Stop trying to defend the indefensible. Stop trying to pretend Poppy added decision making or strategy to the game. New league is a game were champions are more than a big pile of + stats may the biggest pile of stats win. Removing virtually all decision making from the enemy team is not good game design.

As far as your self serving assertion that it was casuals that did all the whining clearly you do not watch many twitch streams by pro players, it was common opinion among the best of the best that Poppy was broken as all hell with 4-5 items but because she was so inconsistent and gold reliant she was not worth using (to most people). As a general rule the more skilled the player the more they loath the abomination that was her ult.

Those that claim it was good are generally completely unaware of teamwork or Poppy mains in denial.

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