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Reworking Poppy With Respect to League's Design Values (Refined)

JCross·9/18/2014, 10:37:26 PM·1 votes·1,235 views

I made a post a few days ago on some possible solutions to Poppy's problems and ways to rework her. I had some bad ideas as well as some good ones, but the changes still didn't feel right, so I kept thinking of ways to fix her. I've come up with a kit I think I can really get behind this time, and I've also updated my formatting to best convey this information without having to bore anyone with my walls of text. Again, these changes come from the game's Design Values, which have recently been nailed down for all to see. Without further ado, here are my final thoughts:

  1. Heroic Charge (E):

Problem: Poppy's kit as a whole lacks Counterplay on any of her abilities. They are all single-target or passive bonus abilities that, when combined with her ult, make it impossible to stop her combos.

Fix: Instead of being a single-target ability, change so that it's a skillshot and can hit multiple targets. Damage increase with more targets hit, when hit against terrain, etc. Change numbers accordingly.

  • Counterplay: Can now be dodged completely with well-timed abilities or side steps.

  • Mastery: Just like any skillshot, this ability will require a certain amount of skill and practice to hit and be effective with, in addition to the positioning to get the stun off on your target or targets.

  • Meaningful Choices: With the added effect to hit multiple targets, it becomes more important when, where, and on whom you are using this ability.

  • Teamplay: Being an AoE ability with the chance of crowd control gives you a greater opportunity for teamplay, and allows more combos with different champion abilities. To be fair, a lot of these things were possible before, but now they are possible to a greater degree.

  1. Diplomatic Immunity (R):

Problem: Lacks any form of Counterplay, used counter-intuitively, is hard to read and lacks Clarity. Being completely invulnerable to everything except from one champion means that there is no chance for a teammate to stop Poppy from walking in and killing someone. People choose to target one champion with low damage and minimal crowd control and attack a different champion, ignoring the damage increase on the targeted champion. The visuals for this ult are confusing, putting the target in a cage, which visually cues some sort of reduction of power or movement restriction.

Fix: Now grants bonus armor and massive, decaying tenacity. Also grants a percent damage reduction from and a percent damage increase to the targeted champion only. In addition, grants increased movement speed to Poppy when she is moving toward the targeted champion. Changed visuals for the targeted champion as well as Poppy herself. Name change since the immunity has been removed.

  • Clarity: New visuals that are less confusing and better showcase what the ability is doing.

  • Counterplay: Removing the complete immunity to enemy abilities, Poppy is no longer a completely unstoppable force, and is susceptible to various forms of Counterplay.

  • Teamplay: This change puts more emphasis on Teamplay, since Poppy can no longer run through an enemy team and ignore everyone on her own.

  1. Paragon of Demacia (W):

Problem: This ability is underwhelming and counter-intuitive as well as hard to read. This ability does not have any interaction with Poppy's other abilities, nor does it interact with other champion's abilities. A good champion's kit will have abilities that inherently work well together. It is also unclear just by looking at Poppy what this ability is doing, which is bad for the other players in the game.

Fix: Now passively grants Poppy bonus armor and magic resistance for each consecutive basic attack (stacking up to 10). At 10 stacks, creates a shield around Poppy that can block a spell. If activated while below 10 stacks, Poppy will gain the missing stacks to equal 10, and create the shield. At full stacks, the ability can then be activated to release the shield, dealing damage in an area around Poppy. The shield only lasts for as long as Poppy is at max stacks, otherwise it will simply disappear, dealing no damage. Visual changes to display new effects.

  • Clarity: New visual effects that will appropriately showcase the ability.

  • Mastery: Well-timed shields can make or break a fight, as well as combining your damage with allied abilities at the right moment.

  • Meaningful Choices: This ability allows you to chose between offensive and defensive effects based on the situation. Sometimes It'll be better to use it one way while some situations may call from the other.

  • Teamplay: With these changes, the ability can now be used in combination with allied abilities in some pretty cool interactions, instead of being solely beneficial to Poppy.

Final Thoughts & Reasoning:

These changes fix Poppy's problems and make her overall more enjoyable to play with and against. Poppy's abilities now have better interactions not only with each other but also with other champions'. I've kept her core identity in tact as a tanky champion who runs face-first into enemy champions (and improved it in my opinion). I've toned down her ridiculous ult and added some power from it to her W, opening up new interactions and leveling the playing field. With the new AoE effects on her abilities, Poppy will also have a much easier time waveclearing. I would put larger AD scaling on her Q and E while higher AP scaling on her W. I believe in this way, she could be played as either AP or AD. I firmly believe that Poppy would begin to see more play with these changes. Let me know what you guys think.

4 Comments

Elesys9/18/2014, 11:10:49 PM1 votes

Hmm, your new W is overloaded. Still grants bonus stats (still "hard" to read, as it was the only "hard" part in this skill)... Now what was changed: after 10 consecutive basic attacks (not too good on a burst oriented champ, since you removed the stack gain upon being hit), it creates a spellshield... then the active is now variable, instantly giving 10 stacks like it does now (and repeating that it creates a spellshield), BUT if the 10 stacks were already there, it makes the spellshield explode to deal damage like Sion's... All of this to replace: gives max stacks and an MS buff.

The ult isn't bad because of that. It's because people have to know that they can't do a thing to her. One simple change to fix everything: making her untargettable to the others, except her target. Suddenly becomes easy to read, doesn't it? Now it's also bad because the other targets have no counterplay... But then, Poppy could simply have the other 4 champions be untargettable to her, and problem solved. It's meant as a duelling ult, not as a "will ult their weakest, then ravage their strongest" one. Her target becomes the team's target, or the other way around: team's target becomes her own.

Finally, her E... I'm not too sure about that. She already has an MS buff on her W, so giving her a dash on top of that may give her quite a lot of mobility for someone so tanky Besides, it HAS counterplay in spades. Short range, requires a wall behind you, Poppy's vulnerable to slows as it's her only "gap closer"... You would only make it even weaker as an agressive skill, while giving her lots of mobility in exchange. And with her Diplomatic Immunity going on, I'm not too happy with that.

Also, most importantly, you're missing the elephant in the room: her problem is being "feast or famine" + burden of knowledge, NOT having no counterplay.

It's her snowballing so hard that isn't healthy. Making so that her R only allows her to attack R's target severely reduces her snowballing potential by a LOT already. Add to this that her target needs only kite and her team disengage and you've got yourself plenty of counterplay. So much that she would actually NEED something to reliably do her job of crushing someone really hard when she has her hands on them, to prevent the "famine" case. And that would require testing to see if it cannot be reached by simple number tweaks, for instance.

Elesys9/19/2014, 3:04:53 PM1 votes

Which is why she should NOT be allowed to OHKO someone, especially under her ult. Right now, she functions as an assassin with a tank/fighter identity, and it's just not good.

If her kit/power prevented her from bursting someone down, nailing them down instead or being a constant threat to the enemy team (much like every tank/fighter), then her ult WOULD be part of the teamplay. It would only serve her to do her job efficiently, just like Galio taunts EVERYONE or Amumu snares EVERYONE around them.

I mean, when you have a Rammus on you, you should NOT focus him, just CC him but even that is what he wants! Same for Galio, he WANTS to be hit, and forces you to do so!

Poppy just takes a different approach, where she forces everyone to NOT focus her when she does not want them to, disturbing the usual focus process while being a serious threat to a particular target. She disrupts the fight thanks to it. Now sure, being allowed to hit everyone added even more to the disruption, but with no target, she would have just been doing her own thing. This is why her ult needs a target: to enforce teamplay. Sadly, her "feast or famine" + assassin playstyle problems come back again, ruining what she was intended to do.

Oh and, I know your W was a complete overhaul. I'm in no way confused about that. It does function similarly, though you added a nice touch upon reaching max stacks! But afterwards, you made it unnecessarily complex, which is a shame. Anyway, hers wasn't as underwhelming as you might think. It gave her tanking power and a meaningful threat on her attacks - hence why both attacking and being attacked gave stacks (btw, yours giving DEFENSIVE stacks when going OFFENSIVE is quite counter-intuitive). What IS true is that, being completely passive, it was hardly felt by the players. Only the active was actually truly visible.