Why does Riot see Poppy only as a Warden, whereas her kit lets her also be a Vanguard

Ronin Tamos··9 votes·1,028 views

I mean every time poppy appears in the patch notes they buff her W which pushes her further into Warden class, while the Rest of her Kit has quite some Vanguard potential.

Sure you can hold a kog´maws hand the whole time during a team fight popping W when someone tries to move towards him and knock them away with your ultimate.

But what about the E?

Its called heroic charge for a reason and not heroic disengage.

Besides that a hero does not only protect, they also actively fight evil.

Even in her Comic Poppy does not just lean back with her W activated and waits for someone else to destroy the evil monster attacking the village. Well actually at first she does but then he dies and she has to pick up the hammer. And engage. With a heroic charge!

You know where i want to get to.

+50 Range on her E. not 100 to make her overly oppressive. 50

If i manage to knock back the front line and run towards the enemy carry i´d like to finally smash them into a wall and not miss it by a few teemos cause the range was nerfed.

Let her be a Hero that can decide wether to engage or protect and dont limit her to being only useful as a living anti-dash wall.

35 Comments

Critmaster Garen7 votes

her ability to initiate is there, but not great.

meanwhile she sports a giant fucking disenage ult, that sends your team back to the fountain.

Ralanr1 votes

I kinda wish it actually did send them back to the fountain.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aJuOEN3B,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-09-13T18:07:52.744+0000)

her ability to initiate is there, but not great.

meanwhile she sports a giant fucking disenage ult, that sends your team back to the fountain.

that is a skill shot that is also a channel that can be canceled.

Critmaster Garen3 votes

{quoted}

that is a skill shot that is also a channel that can be canceled.

uh well. yea. and malphites ult can be flashed.

your point? the counterplay to an ability doesnt suddenly change its purpose. its still a really big teamfight changing disengage move when it hits.

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

well. its certainly no where as good as a malphite ult at 90% of situations.

Narasimha2 votes

Well yeah, obviously. It's literally the exact the opposite of a malphite ult.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

what does the fuck that even mean? its a disengage. buti t can be used as engage with the knockup. that doesn't mean its the damn opposite.

WoonStruck1 votes

You use it for the opposite effect of Nocturne, TF, shen, ryze, tahm, etc ulties too.

You can force a fight that someone engages to be a man or two down.

adidas4 votes

imo who the hell cares

Anonagon1 votes

really productive comment there, Churro

adidas2 votes

{quoted}

really productive comment there, Churro

is the idea of who's a vanguard/warden worth arguing over.

Anonagon1 votes

The idea of whether a champion should serve an offensive or defensive purpose is incredibly important, especially when that champion exists as a rework of an old champion who was very definitively one over the other

adidas2 votes

{quoted}

The idea of whether a champion should serve an offensive or defensive purpose is incredibly important, especially when that champion exists as a rework of an old champion who was very definitively one over the other

shes just a yordle with a hammer imo

WoonStruck2 votes

If they made her offensive, she'd almost certainly lose the anti-dash on her W, along with the stun/knockback on her ult.

Anonagon2 votes

I think she already is offensive in everything but her ultimate. Her W wouldn't go because its a great anti-mobility tool, and a reminder of her old ult in how it somewhat forces enemies to fight her. The existance of W compensates for the lack of reliable hard CC in the base kit.

And I'd be fine with her ult getting changed. Its unsatisfying as it is. As a straight knockup/damage tool, its a weaker Alistar Q, and as a disengage its not as reliable as something like a Janna ult or a Lee Sin ult, even if it is theoretically more impactful.

Crett1 votes

Poppy's ult when the enemy team is trying to control an objective or protect a teammate is gamechanging and worth keeping imo, even if it's not super useful for kill potential

Anonagon2 votes

I think the ultimate is certainly a unique and interesting idea, but I don't think its worth keeping on Poppy. Its certainly the kind of thing that should be on a champion in League, but it should probably be a very dedicated support character, not on a character who was traditionally offensive.

Linna Excel4 votes

Poppy should have been a juggernaut.

EndlessSorcerer5 votes

Why? She has multiple forms of CC and two mobility tools.

Anonagon1 votes

Just because that's the way Riot made her doesn't mean a juggernaut playstyle wouldn't have been more fitting to her character and more true to her past kit. Also being a juggernaut doesn't completely lock you out of having hard CC or mobility. Most juggernauts have some sort of light mobility and light CC - some even have rather strong CC effects, like Darius' pull, Nasus' Wither, or Yorick's wall.

WoonStruck1 votes

Skarner's ult/E too.


She'd probably have to lose her E and R to be a Juggernaut. Which I'd be okay with.

Currently, poppy's a bit overbearing when she's strong because of how W and E interact, and how her E and R interact. Her Q being laid down anywhere between and both hits being made reliable if utilizing her abilities properly is part of what got her near-gutted in the first place.

Just being an in-your-face juggernaut would make her aggression a little more interesting than those laid-out combos, especially since they wouldn't all be centered around walls.

Her W's MS buff would probably have to be extended, however.

Ralanr2 votes

True, Riot could have made her into a juggernaut. But they didn't and probably had reasons for it.

Tychusfindlay9191 votes

{quoted}

True, Riot could have made her into a juggernaut. But they didn't and probably had reasons for it.

We kind of have enough juggernauts in the game as it is, it just so happens to be that over half of them are freaking worthless and the current meta of mallet and rylais isn't helping the situation.

Linna Excel2 votes

I think pure tank poppy just isn't fun and frankly even when there is a meta that is friendly to her as a warden, she's still not going to be the optimal pick. Juggernaut poppy would have also given players to either go tanky or opt into a more damage oriented build like before the rework. I also think that juggernaut poppy would have ended up with a better ult and passive than what she has now.

Also, a properly balanced juggernaut still needs to build damage items to do damage. Right now poppy has decent damage without having to build damage items.

Ralanr1 votes

No, juggernauts need usually one item to do damage.

Poppy did damage because she had high bases that come from being a tank.

Only Play Darius1 votes

Agreed. The most fun part about old Poppy was the damage

Anonagon2 votes

Honestly I think the idea of Poppy being a defensive tank at all is blasphemy, especially since it is so counter to the playstyle of Old Poppy. Its a shame that Riot tries to balance her around the idea of her being a peeler when every ability except her ultimate could easily fit on a diver. Her E doesn't work at all as a defensive spell, and even the W which seems ideal as a peeling tool is almost better when used to keep a target from getting away from you. If they changed her ultimate so that it didn't always knock targets in the same direction, Poppy could be really good as an offensive character, but as it is it limits her playstyle and potential immensly. IMO her ultimate and its limited use cases keep Poppy from really feeling fun to play.

Only Play Darius1 votes

Because Riot wants her to be a warden and she's going to like it

Meep Man1 votes

Because her ultimate is the epitome of Warden

Sire Hippington1 votes

Because when she gets viable as both, vanguard and peel, she becomes more versatile, which means especially at high elo alot power, which means she would recive number nerfs till she isn't good at either cause else she's be pick/bann in proplay again.

Mojihito6661 votes

I WANT MY OLD POPPY BACK

Ralanr1 votes

Old Poppy was toxic as fuck when fed.

Mojihito6661 votes

90% of champions are toxic when fed. Thats the nature of the game.

Ralanr1 votes

But in Poppy's case it was so bad and had a large potential for toxic build up due to her ult being able to flat out ignore all but one person on the enemy team while she slaughtered them.

If you were not the target of her ult, you could do nothing against her as it happened. And since the target was usually the support, they could only watch as Poppy got a free quadra.

This isn't even counting how stupid her old passive was. Reducing all damage taken by half if it hit a certain threshold.

There is nothing that can justify old Poppy's kit.

Mojihito6661 votes

Yep, she was so broken and OP that was seen in 1 on 100 games and never banned.

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