My thoughts on Poppy

Hi summoners, Isajohoff here. I'm a Poppy main. I fell in love with the champ when I went on a 10 win streak in pvp and have played her ever since. If it's one thing I know a lot about, it's Poppy. One of the things I know about her is that she is extremely toxic for game-health: she has little to no counterplay when she has her ult on, boring w, the passive is something which can save you without you having to do anything and it's more frustrating for the enemy than it feels good for you. Plus she has an insane identity crisis, ingame and lore wise (sooo, I'm a tank/bruiser/assassin who is a yordle blacksmiths daughter and a diplomat who fights with a hammer? Wut?) So, I heard my Poppy is in for a rework quite soon and I wanted to just post my thoughts which I had written down a while ago. Who knows, you guys might find it interesting.

Poppy is the yordle who fights for peace, with her only unnatural weapon being pure determination.

Think about it. No other champion doesn't have a reason to be in the league (if the league existed). They all are either magical (ahri, syndra, karma, vlad), are a mystic being (alistar, fiddle, nocturne, maokai, soraka)(yordles are commonplace on valoran), have some sort of special fighting technique (the ninjas, master yi, lee sin), want to test their experiments (heimer, victor, singed), or are in the military (J4, Garen, darius, kat). I probably forgot some champs, but the thing is, Poppy doesn't know how to exactly fight. She just knows how to hammer steel properly which could be useful, but not in battle. She doesn't belong there. But through her will to do good things and sheer determination, she can stand up against the likes of sion. She is THE underdog. There are so many stories (animes, movies, etc.) with the protagonist being the guy/girl who no one expects anything from. I'm not quite sure why that is (you guys probably know), but I know that it is an emotionally powerful position. Add to that the fact that she has a traumatic past, and you already have a pretty rounded character.

Here are my thoughts on possible abilities. The important thing is that it feels like the archetype, whilst also being good for game-health (include counterplay, meaningful choices, etc). I brainstormed a bit and came up with this.

• the E can stay. (Wall-slam)
• some sort of cc-breaking/immunity (just fits to the archetype: breaking through with determination)
• should become defensively more powerful at lower health, not offensively (the more dire the situation, the more determined to succeed poppy becomes. This shouldn't really increase her offense, because then we'd get a masochistic yordle, and that's not what she is)
• the ability to do big damage to bad guys (smashing a hammer in someones face who deserves it feels sooooo good)
• maybe a new mechanic which lets her choose her aim (after all, the archetype of the underdog would not be fulfilled without something to strive for). This could be anything from protecting an ally to taking revenge on someone (possibility of being a support?) (Maybe too similar to Kalista's bond?). Might change the effectiveness of her skill-set depending on her aim.
• ult could be her going "super-sayan". The underdog, having run out of tricks, when the situation is most dire, will in most stories come up with something amazing, usually ending with the opponent lying on the ground with his ass firmly kicked and the underdog, exhausted, probably on the brink of death, and maybe slightly confused about what just happened being nearby.

Bearing this in mind, I've thought of a ability which might work:

W: Poppy dashes/leaps in target direction holding her shield up, breaking out of cc / ignoring incoming cc. Takes %# reduced damage from that direction while dashing (# increases with less health).

Reasoning: This would be Poppy's "activate determination" button, breaking through anything which would stop her from fulfilling her aim. Also replaces her little movement-speed-boost as setup for her E.

Theoretical add ons:

• since this ability doesn't have much counterplay apart from waiting for cooldowns, maybe knock poppy back if she gets too much damage while dashing?
• little add-on might be adding a "knock aside anything in the way" component.

Thank you for reading!