Remakes are a great way to address design issues in a champion. They also make them feel refreshing, hopefully something more enjoyable to play as and against. For example, Evelynn and Twitch were just remade to address a lot of fundamental design issues revolving around strategic stealth, while also touching up some other areas of concern. A few champions still come to mind in needing a remake, such as Karma and Sion. However, one champion that has some incredibly frustrating design is Poppy.
What's wrong with Poppy?
Poppy has two major problems with her kit. Her passive and her ultimate. Both of these abilities have a heavy burden of knowledge for new players and create a frustrating experience for players. Fortunately, Poppy doesn't seem to be a very popular champion, so running into Poppy, or Poppy running into you, isn't a frequent pleasure.
The Passive
Valiant Fighter is one of the most frustrating and invisible abilities in the game. Judging how much damage you'll do to Poppy is a mental strain every time you attack her, since it decreases as her own health decreases, or is mitigated more as your damage increases. You can find yourself dealing anywhere between 50-100% of your damage depending on your own damage relative to her current health. It's an over-complicated passive whose very design encourages a frustrating experience for the enemy team, where an ability you'd expect to overkill an enemy takes them down to a sliver of health as they run away.
This passive's effect is also very invisible to players who don't know what it is. Most people assume that abilities that reduce damage are either a flat amount or a flat percentage of the total damage. I even find myself always underestimating the damage reduction from her passive. When I see an AP Poppy with a third of her health as Veigar, I find myself firing my Primordial Burst at her thinking it'd kill her, only to see it chip away a quarter of her health, when it would normally hit most champions for half of theirs. Sufficient particles to communicate the damage reduction are lacking, leaving anyone newly exposed to her to question why they dealt 350 damage instead of 500.
The only strong benefit her passive brings are the high moments of narrow escapes for the Poppy player and her team, but those same highs could be achieved in a much less frustrating and confusing way. An example of other survivability mechanics that provide those highs are Blitzcrank's Mana Barrier (which communicates very clearly what is happening), and even Pantheon's Aegis Protection (an ability with a different set of oddities and frustrations, but still much better communicated and less frustrating).
The Ultimate
Diplomatic Immunity is one of the most toxic mechanics in League of Legends. The entire premise of the ability is to allow Poppy to remove all counter-play from her enemies. Not only can she not be hurt, but she can't be CC'ed either, yet she can still be targeted, which allows the enemy to waste time and abilities on her. It's better to create rewarding gameplay by encouraging creative play, rather than removing counter-play, or even standard play. There is nothing more frustrating than being absolutely helpless against your opponent, considering the only way to escape a Poppy is to out-run her, since you can't even fight back.
Even playing as Poppy, the ability feels counter-intuitive to use optimally at times. It isn't normally a person's first thought to use their ultimate, that amplifies damage received to the target, on the least-threatening champion on the enemy team who you don't intend to attack, just so you can ignore everyone else. Similarly, this highly offensive ability is also ridiculously powerful defensively, since it allows Poppy to ignore nearly all damage and CC's while escaping a fight.
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