Talk:Poppy/@comment-24203700-20150106234630/@comment-8506165-20150108004544

I normally play her jungle as I don't really like toplane all that much and jungle is my second main role. That said, I've not actually played her all that much in a while, but here's what I've seen and the little I've experienced for toplane Poppy:

"Do you start sustain items or offensive?"

DBlade can work but Doran's Shield or Cloth 5 seems better to me. Depends on opponent really, but you want something to compensate for the lack of innate sustain within your kit imo. First item I like to get is a Tear for an eventual Muramana - your Q procs the toggle damage twice and so does your E if you stun with it, so it's pretty damn strong on her, and helps to mitigate her superbly terrible mana pool. First finished item should probably be Trinity most of the time, though - the mobility is so important and your best chance at trading is with the OP Sheen'd Q damage. After that, usually some kind of sustain option - BotRK and Gunblade both work, or you can get both if you really want. BotRK's more damagey, Gunblade is better for sustain because you heal a massive chunk off every Q. Those are your core items, really, after that you just want either some more damage choices or some defenses depending on what you/your team need.

Most people I see don't go for the Muramana but I really like it and I've seen other Poppys that get it do really well, so it's up to you really. And maybe get a vamp scepter early if the enemy laner's really harassy and you need the sustain.

"Do you bully, zone, and AA or the regular trade and farm?"

Your trading is surprisingly strong early, given that your passive, armor from W and Q damage are all powerful. The problem is that it's hard to trade on your terms and going OOM is always a worry as most laners can abuse you once you run out. It's better to just farm, try and freeze lane kind of near to turret if possible and look for a wallstun you can get without using W to reposition if you're looking for damage onto them. You're pretty difficult to dive and most people don't really know this so many will try at some point if you're deceptively low. Once you have Sheen you can be a bit more aggressive. It's important to know how much damage you do because then you can figure out if you can kill people before your ult runs out - you can turn around a jungle gank that way, or just rely on the fact that most people can't duel an ulting Poppy due to the damage increase.

"Does she feel clunkier than other champs? When I play her she seems unresponsive sometimes(usually in fights). Things just don't feel smooth with her."

She can be. Lots of the older champions are. E's a lot better since they fixed the coding on that. It's partly just that Poppy's a melee champ that mostly just AAs and nothing else - no big flashy skills - and they're kind of a rarity now so they feel a bit weird. You mostly just have to get used to her and be careful with things like dodging CCs because they can really fuck you over as you lack any kind of really long range gapcloser. Might try Righteous Glory on her at some point and see how that feels, Poppy always used to like the old Shurelya's for chasing people.

I think op.gg has some replays from Poppy OP if you wanna see some toplane Poppy in action from Diamond elo. They have quite a few different builds, though usually with Muramana and Trinity, and some games in jungle - or even botlane as kill laner Poppy. Best Poppy player I know of on EUW right now. http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=Poppy+OP