@Riot, Results of a Survey gathering PoppyMains Opinions

tl;dr at the bottom  

  Recently, the following Poppy changes arrived on the Public Beta Environment:

Poppy:

• Movespeed lowered from 345 to 340
• Steadfast Presence (W) Movement speed lowered from 32/34/36/38/40% to 30% at all ranks Armor and MR lowered from 15% to (8%) now 10%
• Heroic Charge (E) Cast range increased from 425 to 475 (push range unchanged) Initial damage lowered from 60/80/100/120/140 to 50/70/90/110/130 Terrain hit damage lowered from 60/80/100/120/140 to 50/70/90/110/130 - Removed now
• Keeper's Verdict (R) [Effect Changed] Uncharged Keeper's Verdict knockup duration now .75 seconds at all ranks [Tooltip Changed] Now notes: "Enemies hit with a charged Keeper's Verdict are untargetable." [this means uncharged targets hit are no longer untargetable!]

The response from the community was extremely negative. I had never seen the PoppyMains Discord so active before: although some accepted the changes and thought they were good or went in the right direction, others basically had mental breakdowns, repeatedly typing “WHY” in all caps and going through the usual insults to the Riot balancing team that I’m sure you’re quite intimate with. The negative reactions weren’t just limited to the PoppyMains. Other members of the community on Boards and on Reddit stood up for our little Hero, asking why on earth a champion who was already leaning towards being underpowered was being nerfed. Posts were downvoted into oblivion and knee-jerk reaction posts were spammed everywhere. Chaos reigned. Seeing this mass of information, most of it unconstructive, hateful and otherwise unusable, I decided to try and gather some opinions from the people who would be most affected by the changes, the PoppyMains, and order them into a well constructed post for ease of access. I do this in the hopes that this will help these voices to be heard and at least taken into account either before the PBE changes go live or so Riot can look at them when discussing her again the next time. Getting these opinions wouldn’t work on Discord (everyone was still flailing around like a bronze Yasuo), so I decided to do a survey. This survey would obviously not be able to get any statistically relevant data, since only the vocal minority on Discord and Reddit would take part, and I only had access to 100 responses without paying for the survey, so I instead focused on text answers to get the general gist of what the community thought: the more something came up in the text answers, the more I weighted it. It should be noted that I myself am a Poppy main, and am thus slightly biased. I have attempted to remain as objective as possible, though. So, with the intro out of the way, here are my findings:  

 

#Question 1: What is Poppy in your opinion/what do you want Poppy to be?

What is Poppy? A tank? A fighter? An assassin? One thing that I have learned over my time with the PoppyMains, is that there are a surprising amount of different playstyles for Poppy. We have players who play her as a full-tank (full defensive items), while others play her as a bruiser (Black Cleaver/Ice Born Gauntlet). We even have some mad players who go full-lethality or full-crit, with surprising success! Because of this, many different keystones are viable on her: Everything from Grasp, to Electrocute, to Conqueror, to Aftershock gets played (we don’t talk about the Aery players). This diversity keeps the champion fresh, and is in my opinion a good thing which should be preserved. It does however split the community somewhat, which will become apparent later. What is Poppy according to Riot? According to the Champion Update Page, she’s supposed to be more of a bruiser, purchasing at least one offensive item, who then “smoothly swaps roles to take on the responsibility of keeping her friends alive”, becoming a tanky warden. This is why she does such a large amount of damage for a tank if she can get in your face. PoppyMains is split pretty evenly on what they think Poppy is/should be: about 60% say tank, 50% say bruiser and 10% say assassin (choosing multiple was an option, hence the 120%). This should be kept in mind going onwards.  

 

#Question 2: For what reason(s) do you pick Poppy over other champions? #and #Question 3: What do you enjoy about Poppy?

A surprisingly large amount of players answered that they simply liked Poppy’s lore and aesthetics. While it speaks volumes about the champion design team that players will play a champion simply because they like her story, it’s not exactly useful when gathering information on her gameplay. After having filtered out the “she’s so CUTE” (it’s a universal constant that she’s cute, we know) and the “she’s just fun to play” answers, I managed to filter out why our Keeper of the Hammer is so fun to play: The two most commonly spoken about reasons are, rather unsurprisingly, her W (Steadfast Presence) and E (Heroic Charge), both because they are extremely satisfying to use, as well as being good ways of expressing skill. Specifically the anti-mobility of W, coupled with the lockdown from E seems to be something which all Poppy players, whether bruisers or tanks, enjoy greatly, many going so far as to say it “un-tilts” them. Poppy’s high damage and tankiness is highly valued as well, and they’re rarely mentioned without the other. Poppy wouldn’t be the same without either. Her peel was also mentioned often, showing that Riot’s aim of making a (half) Warden was well executed. The next three values I believe fit well together and are core to the Poppy experience™: Punishing mistakes, being underestimated, and out-playing your opponent. Poppy’s kit is practically built around being underestimated, becoming harder to kill by gaining extra resistances once below 40%, and surprising opponents that underestimate her with the iconic wall-slam that can turn a fight in an instant. These high moments, fighting against the odds, feel like an integral part of playing Poppy and should be strengthened if anything. Speed came up, usually referring to the speed boost our Heroine gains with her W active. In fact, it came up surprisingly often, given that this speed boost is active very rarely and comes at the cost of a pretty hefty cooldown that is coupled to a very important effect in some matchups. This shows how vital this seemingly unimportant part of her kit is to the players: not only is the speed-boost critical in repositioning for a wall-slam, but players seem to enjoy simply running around with the boost greatly. Whether it is to dodge skillshots, running to save an ally or just passively running to lane, her W Speed-boost is well liked among tank, bruiser and assassin players alike. Keeper’s Verdict is up next, specifically the charged version: it is extremely satisfying to use, and it feels like, and of course is, a game-changing ability. It’s one of the most versatile ults in the game, and figuring out when and how to use it is a learning process all on its own. And lastly, Poppy’s dueling and 1v1 strength, as well as her relatively strong laning phase, was mentioned quite often, as is to be expected from a top-laner. Not just the bruisers, but the tanks also valued her ability to duke it out with an opponent. The fact that Poppy’s skills are comparatively unreliable doesn’t seem to phase them, quite the contrary in fact. It increases skill expression, and it’s quite easy to see when you misplay. Shieldy as an auto attack came up multiple times, usually mentioned together with her strong laning phase. Somewhat surprisingly, the actual shield was barely mentioned. I’m pretty sure this does not mean PoppyMains do not value it, simply that other parts of her kit are in the foreground. Shieldy, as well as Poppy’s Q, make the kit work, and it wouldn’t be the same without them.

Special Mention: the words Tiny Powerhouse and Raid Boss came up a lot!

Here’s a short list of the other things which not many wrote about, but are important to the players nonetheless:

• All-ins
• Versatility (Building damage or tank both works)
• Towerdiving
• Disengages
• Teamfighting
• Utility
• E-Q combo
• Skins

Response examples: _- “She is a blast to play -- deals decent damage, has great movespeed boost, and can tank like a boss + protect the team.”

• “She is extremely adaptable. She can build any resistances, health, and damage. She can gear towards engage or peel depending on how the game goes. She has damage if she gets ahead, but utility if she falls behind. She's the jack-of-all-trades tank.”
• “I feel like she's a mechanically interesting character. Being able to punish people for poor positioning really forces you to analyze situations and make split second decisions
• “Her burst potential early game and her ability to protect late game. I mainly play her in the support role, trying to shut down the enemy adc early game and protecting mine late game. You can't be that threatening to the adc early and that tanky late game with any other champion.”_  

---

 

#Question 4: What is the state of Poppy’s balance currently, in your opinion?

I did not ask this question because I wanted to know how PoppyMains perceived her balance. I was more interested in their reasoning. There was, of course, quite a bit of sifting to do, filtering out all the “she’s sh*t” answers that didn’t really help, but in the end some positions came up often enough to crystalise what players thought of Poppy in the current Meta. The top reason why PoppyMains think she isn’t played is because she is outclassed in everything she does by other champions. Maokai has better sustain, more reliable CC and damage, as well as better pushing power. Galio does more damage, disrupts better than Poppy, has quite good ranged poke and clear and a semi-global ultimate. Sion and Ornn are also similar, but have better numbers. This would be fixed if Poppy had something she shines in, compared to the other tanks. The next thought is that she can be picked, but only as a counterpick, specifically against dash champions and Camille. This, in itself, isn’t bad. Poppy should be stronger against some champions, however they should still stand a chance against her, as she should stand a chance against champions she doesn’t counter. Most players who mentioned Poppy as a counterpick thought this was healthy. Other thoughts that came up that should be mentioned:

• Poppy has been nerfed a lot
• Poppy is weak against meta picks
• Poppy has a highly conditional and unreliable kit (which, as mentioned in Question 2 and 3, some players find good)
• Poppy’s problems generally stem from systematic problems toplane has.

Despite this, many, even those who think she is underpowered, say she is still fun and rewarding to play, which just shows how well designed her kit is. A comment which popped up only once, but I think is quite important, is that there’s a dissonance between her two identities, Warden and Bruiser, and that Riot needs to keep both in mind when balancing Poppy, so as to keep both viable, ideally in the same way as was declared on the Champion Update Page. It is at this point that I think it is worth reminding you that these statements are not facts, but simply what the PoppyMains believe to be true. This does not make them any less important!

Response Examples: _- “Fairly weak. I play a lot of Poppy, and some games I just lack the stats to feel relevant. Unless an enemy champion keeps standing next to a wall, it feels as though many of the in-meta top laners provide you with very little ability to trade efficiently.”

• “I think her laning is really hard right now, being she is extremely short ranged. Her 1v1 is decent, its harder against players who know not to stand next to a wall though. Her cc isn't as reliable as a lot of other tanks, and neither is her damage output.”
• “She is balanced. She should never be first pick material. her proper place is as a counter pick to teams with many or with important dashes.”
• “A little on the weak side but not so weak that shes impossible to climb with”_  

---

 

#Question 5: Keeper's Verdict's snapcast is being changed from a 1-second knockup with untargetability to a simple 0.75-second knockup. What do you like about this change, and what do you dislike about it?

The Keeper’s Verdict change had PoppyMains split: Some said it was a straight buff, whilst the others proclaimed it was a straight nerf (along with more “WHY”s and insults towards the balance team). Since people were getting quite emotional on Discord and it was difficult to get a well constructed argument out of them, I wanted to find out people’s reasoning through the survey. The results were in favour of the players who liked the change, although those who were against it often had very good points. The ease of use when fighting with allies, as well as teamfight potential was well welcomed. Dueling would apparently be easier, since Hammer Shock (Q) didn’t have to be awkwardly timed to not lose damage, and the ability would generally just be more intuitive to use, which is always a big plus design wise. However, the anti-change group pointed out a couple of losses which would come from this change. Due to Keeper’s Verdict turning into a 0.75 second knockup, and the channel time for the Ult being un-cancelable (we tried using tiamat, it didn’t work), the enemy would land almost immediately after Poppy could move again. This removes the ability to snapcast R to reposition for a wall-slam, which many found was important for the lane as well as for skill expression. The skill cap for the ult in general would decline, and the identity of it being a “utility/disengage” ult would be lost. Niche cases (temporarily making enemies who would bodyblock a skillshot untargetable, or denying redemption to a target) would also be lost, although I personally believe the clarity gains from removing the untargetability here are greater than the loss of these niche cases. Then of course there is the argument that 0.75 seconds is ridiculously short for an Ult knockup with an Ult cooldown. Not only that, but using the snapcast version means you’re giving up on the charged Keeper’s Verdict as well. A few players predicted that the use of charged Keeper’s Verdict would go down in favour of the snapcast knockup, and since charged Keeper’s Verdict is seen as an extremely interesting and versatile ability that tests both player skill and game knowledge, this is seen as a negative. And lastly, one thing many PoppyMains said was good was that Yasuo could now ult off of Keeper’s Verdict. However as many others pointed out, this is also a bad thing, since this means more Yasuos will be on your team. :^)

Response examples: _- “It's nice, because it makes a better engage because now teammates can target enemies that are knocked up. Only problem is, there's a lot less time to re-position to follow up with a well-placed E”

• “I do like that the untargetability was removed. It was not really nessecary to give the enemy untargetable in the first place. I dislike that the CC reduction is going down. Poppy ult s snapcastis something I don't use that much currently as is, but 0.75 second CC seems really low CC duration for a tanks ultimate.”_

 

  #Question 6: Do these changes otherwise affect your playstyle in a significant way? If yes, please specify how.

Aside from the Keeper’s Verdict change, there were also range buffs to Poppy’s passive (Iron Ambassador) and Heroic Charge, nerfs to her base movement speed and nerfs to Steadfast Presence’s Passive bonus resistances and active speed boost on the PBE (this was after the revert of the damage nerfs and the 2% increase in the Steadfast Presence resistance bonus). With this question, I wanted to see how the PoppyMains are responding to those changes. The response which came up most frequently showed how attached players are to the Steadfast Presence speed boost. Many said the W was used to engage, disengage, escape ganks as well as reposition for wall-slams, and that the loss of mobility from both the W and base MS will reduce the success of these maneuvers. As mentioned before in Question 2 & 3, the speed boost is well loved by the players for many reasons, and they seem to have a large aversion to the thought of being slow. PoppyMains want their Heroine to be nimble, not a hulking sluggish being. The next most common response was that the Steadfast Presence passive resistances going down would be a big hit to Poppy’s survivability. This conclusion is, I think, quite obvious: tank stats go down, tankiness goes down. Both tank players as well as bruiser players agree that it will reduce her effectiveness in fights, whether it be to soak up damage for the team or dueling enemies in lane, some tanks even saying that they would convert to bruiser Poppy, assumedly because the defensive items are now less efficient. Also mentioned was that this nerf reduces her staying-alive-at-low-health capability, which, as mentioned before, is core to the Poppy Experience™. With the % resistance numbers going down, her low health survivability ability becomes both less visible and less feelable. What PoppyMains was again split up over, was whether due to the Heroic Charge range buffs and the MS nerfs the wall-slam would be easier or more difficult to land. On the one hand, it would be more difficult to position for the slam, but on the other its cast range was increased. Depending on which side of the argument players were on, they either said there would be less picks and aggression (especially with the resistance nerfs) or more picks and aggression (punishing enemy mistakes more) respectively. Lastly, there was a small complaint that Heroic Charge range change meant that the charge range and the push range weren’t the same any more.

It is important to remember that players are - usually - human and so are affected by loss aversion, the tendency to value not losing what you have over gaining something of equal value (look it up). As such, any nerf will generally feel worse than a buff of the same strength. This is why I believe many Poppy players immediately felt the loss of value of Steadfast Presence’ movement speed nerfs, which for most of the game is only 2% less(!). This does not make their opinions any less meaningful, it’s just an effect that should be kept in mind when talking about nerfs or shifts of power.

Response examples: _- “Yes in that I have to be careful of my positioning options because Poppy is now slower overall and that she has a longer dash range. Her instant release ulti knockup duration is now shorter, so I need to be more careful of when I want to apply it. She cannot get as tanky as before so I need to take that into consideration when building her and getting into fights.”

• “I don't rely on the E stun as much as I do getting around with W and being really tanky. I mean 15-10% isn't the /worst/ as far as stats go, but the movement nerf REALLY SUCKS.”
• “I think there will be more value to not charging the ultimate”_

 

  #Question 7: Let’s say Poppy is overpowered (regardless of whether she currently is or not). You are tasked with nerfing her. Where would you shave off power and why?

This question was only added later on to the survey, so I sadly couldn’t get many responses to it. The idea was to see what PoppyMains think is unrightfully strong about the Keeper, and what they would be willing to give up or are least attached to. Of course, when nerfing any overpowered champion it is important to figure out why a champion is overpowered, and whether they are doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing (recent example being Zoe: She was good at waveclear even though that’s supposed to be one of her weaknesses) to nerf accordingly. The idea sadly backfired, since the PoppyMains who play tank said they would nerf her damages, whilst the PoppyMains who play bruiser said to nerf her resistance bonuses. In hindsight, it was obvious that players would give up on the aspect they use less. There were a couple of interesting thoughts though. One person suggested shifting damage from the Q (Hammer Shock) slam to the Q rupture. This would keep her wall-slam combo at the same strength, and add more urgency to the counterplay on her non-wall all-ins, all while reducing her poke in-lane. A similar approach could be done with Heroic Charge, making non-wall all-ins less powerful. Another person suggested nerfing her base MS but in turn buffing the Steadfast Presence speed buff. This takes away more invisible, yet still impactful, power and concentrates it into a more tangible effect. And lastly, reducing the resistances gained passively but increasing the multiplier when low (for example 15% -> 7.5% bonus resistances, but quadrupled instead of doubled below 40% maximum health), would nerf her effective survivability whilst enhancing the feel of the low-health bonus, even though it has the same value as before.

Response examples: _- “Hard to answer this because it depends on how she is OP how to nerf her. I'd probably nerf the % heath damage on her Q if she did too much damage and her W resistance or base stats if she was too tanky. The ult is probably something that could stand to have a complete redesign like Zac's and Maokai's ults did. It arguable that it gives her too much safety from ganks so giving her something else that fits her chaarcter better may be a good idea.”

• “It depends on what was making her feel oppressive. I believe that nerfing Q damage would be a good place to take power away. Removing resistances from W is a good general nerf, but it is certainly not needed right now.”_  

---

 

#A short Comment on Riots response

Shortly after the changes were released to the public (and after some very confused and outraged players started asking), Riot Endstep responded with this:

“I can give some context about Poppy. Over time as she's been nerfed/buffed since release, she's generally had her utility stripped in favor of straight numbers buffs in terms of durability, speed, and damage. This has led to her being a stat-checking tank that doesn't really have the tools to support the play pattern of a stat-checking toplaner - the best tank example of that is Ornn, who (like Poppy) has some windowed damage but has enough consistent threat/uptime to back up that pattern, whereas Poppy's damage is more contextual/unreliable and she's much more limited in her ability to win battles of attrition.”

This text has been posted so often on the PoppyMains Discord that it has basically become a meme. The PoppyMains would just like to say that we don’t understand how Poppy’s all in would be considered stat-checky since it has quite a lot of counterplay to it (moving out of Q2, not standing between Poppy and a wall, stepping on the buckler, playing around Steadfast Presence, etc.). The damage being unreliable should allow it to be high, exactly so she can duel other top laners as she should be able to.  

 

#PoppyMains, anything else you want to say? _- “I'm not all doom and gloom with these changes. I do tink Riot is making a mistake by hurting her mobility, but if she falls in terms of winrate I think they'll buff her back up. Movespeed (and auto atatck range) is really a stat that Riot should look at in total. There are many champions that have uneeded and undeserved base stats, such as Nasus being the 3rd fastest champion in the game with the best slow.”

• “I think these changes are really good overall, I do wish her movement speed and/or her movement speed buff on her W was faster though.”
• “The E range change is nice, but it's more of a quality of life change. What Poppy needs more of is opportunities for skill expression; her movespeed buff enabled that kind of expression more than a range increase.”
• “take down the tankiness if needed, but don't affect her mobility all her CC is super conditional.”
• “pls rito, donut ship these changes >`,^[“
• “Whyyyyyyyyyyyy”
• “Dreadnova poppy”
• “Poppy best girl”_

While I have your attention, may I just mention that Keeper’s Verdict goes on full cooldown if Poppy is killed in the 0.25 seconds between releasing her Ult and it having an effect. This feels absolutely terrible, and Riot used to put some emphasis on getting the cooldown to start after the ability has fired to avoid exactly this (of the top of my head, both jinx and nami got this treatment). Maybe it’s fair to put Keeper’s Verdict on a 30 second cooldown, as if it was channeled but not activated. Still, a change like this would definitely be welcome.  

---

 

#Tl;dr, conclusion, and appeal to Riot Poppy is an outplaying deceptively tanky bruiserish warden who thrives on opponents underestimating her power. Able to go toe to toe with some of the meanest of top-laners, especially those who rely heavily on their mobility spells, the pintsized Hero of Demacia can hold her own until the mid-lategame where she can utilise her anti-mobility and lockdown skills to keep her carries alive. At least, that’s what Poppy is supposed to be. Riot, please keep these thoughts in mind as you talk about Poppy. She isn’t a full-tank. She isn’t a bruiser. She is a beautiful mix of both, and we love her that way. Don’t force her into either one or the other. I and the other PoppyMains would gladly discuss our heroine with you more on our Discord (or through other means).

Thank you for reading

A devout Poppy Main