Welcome back to another guide detailing how the game should be played if you care about optimization! It's been two years in the making, having been announced on an anniversary showcase video on Glowstick's Youtube channel, but the day has finally arrived. Poppy Playtime is officially in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals...albeit in a rushed state...

...look, there were zero warnings prior to the company deciding to update the game with new assets and pushing the DLC out, so chances are the DLC got rushed out before Epic Games shut down for the holidays. It shows in-game as well if I'm gonna be real for a sec, as the map layout, while not terrible, could be put in the oven a bit more, same with the Cat Bee trap time and Huggy Wuggy boss time, and they're both overtuned and undertuned respectively. However, we're not here to discuss rushed content, we're here to discuss the character included, Kissy Missy!

Kissy Missy is a female counterpart of Huggy Wuggy that was created for the purpose to appeal to young girls due to Huggy Wuggy being a commercial success in the Poppy universe. In the game itself, while Huggy was monstrous and vicious, Kissy has shown to be different, being a lot kinder and actually helping the player out in chapter 2 by opening a gate, albeit with some trouble thanks to her noodle arms. As of writing, she is set to return as a supporting character in chapter 3 in some way along with Poppy herself. Kissy Missy hasn't really had a monstrous appearance in Poppy Playtime, but one was given to her in Monsters and Mortals since she was included in the roster before Chapter 2 even released, hence why she's considered a Monster class and not a Mortal despite not being dangerous in her base game. Regardless, let's take a look at this giant noodle-limbed doll and see if she has the potential to be an actual threat or not!

Penny is to Hanako as Kissy Missy is to Cybil. What do I mean by this? Well, Kissy Missy is a Monster belonged to the Ranged class of characters. This allows Kissy to hit from incredible range at the trade-off of having low damage output even for Monster standards. Just like Penny, Kissy has above average speed and absurd health to combo with, allowing her to collect shards and survive for an incredibly long time. However, unlike Penny, Kissy Missy is actually good! While Kissy does not have a projectile, she does has incredibly long arms, allowing her heavy attack's hitbox to reach an absurd range without the need of a projectile. This is where the beginning of this discussion's phrasing comes from; Penny and Hanako are both Ranged in the sense of utilizing projectiles, while Cybil and Kissy use very long hitboxes from their heavy attacks to hit from a limited, but still sizable distance from them. Kissy's heavy attack is a bit delayed though, resulting in timing and precision to be important when utilizing her. Her light attack is quicker to use, but it only does a measly 10 damage per hit, making it useless in most cases unless the opponent is 10 hp or less away from dying. On top of this, Kissy's heavy attack is able to break bananas, which makes her a LOT less map dependent than Penny, giving her more consistency overall. Speaking of bananas and stuns in general, Kissy has a unique trait exclusive to her currently due to most likely having been neglected due to the rushed nature of the Poppy Playtime DLC, Kissy Missy does NOT have a stun animation. This is extremely useful (for now), as it can allow Kissy to mindgame with bananas by pretending she was stunned via staying motionless, allowing her to cheese for free hits if the opponent isn't careful. Finally, thanks to her absurd health pool, Kissy is able to last an annoyingly long time in combat since she can have an easy time getting medkits from portal boxes, being able to recover 100+ health per medkit.

Kissy Missy has a lot of strengths, allowing her to make Penny completely obsolete by comparison. However, she is actually pretty balanced all things considered, and she does have a couple weaknesses. The first and most impactful one is that Kissy's damage output is embarrassingly low for Monster standards, doing even less than the Monster Support and Speed classes. For context, Speed Monsters do 18/36 damage on their attacks, and Supports do 22/44 on their attacks. Ranged Monsters, not counting the 25 damage projectiles in the case of Penny, do 10/21 damage on their light and heavy attacks, making them the lowest damaging Monster types in the game. This makes complete sense, given that they also get above average speed, extreme range, and absurd health to compensate for it. Regardless, given the fact that characters like Malak, Fiend, Lucky, and especially Ayano exist, this means Kissy has to work harder for her kills, especially in Shard Mayhem, where the Monster stats are higher overall compared to Mortals. The other big weakness is that Kissy is extremely loud, making it super easy to figure out where she is. Due to her slow attacking speed and low damage, Kissy is vulnerable to being rushed by multiple players, not being able to handle group fights very well without outside help or her Ult. Finally, while her Ult is devastating when used properly, it is fairly predictable due to working similarly to Hanako's ult. Speaking of the Ult, lets talk about it now.

Get ready for another copy/paste Ult that has some minor changes! Kissy Missy's Ultimate Ability is referred to in-game as "Toy Tornado." When it is activated, Kissy Missy will spin and fire Cat Bee toys in four directions, while damaging anyone caught in the spin itself for 21 damage. When the projectiles connect with another opponent, they will deal 50 damage, then apply the Bleeding status for 6 seconds, totaling to 110 damage from the Ranged part of the Ult, which will result in major damage to any target that is unfortunate enough to get hit by both. However, the Ult this is based off of, Hanako's "Fangirling" Ult, has the difference of it NOT healing Kissy as well, making this strictly a more offensive damage dealing move or a "get off me" tool on defense. Toy Tornado is at its most effective when swarmed by multiple players at once, as they can take massive damage and allow Kissy to potentially make a comeback against them.

Overall, this Ult is pretty nice, but fairly predictable due to how to use it optimally and its slow traveling speed. As a result, Kissy needs to be mindful of her positioning before activation in order to get the most out of it.


Note: As of writing, Toy Tornado's spin attack currently hits everyone on the map regardless of if they were in-range or not. This is a bug and may/may not get patched in the future. As of right now, hope you have 21 or more hp!

Kissy Missy is fairly strong in Maze Escape due to the combination of her range and her lower damage output not being as bad thanks to Mortals having overall lower stats than Monsters. This can easily be made up in the form of the second Monster teammate able to make up in the damage department. Her speed being above average allows her to keep up with most Mortals in the game as well, being able to outrun all the Balance classes, the Powers by a landslide, the Ranged classes, and the Supports by a hair. These traits along with not needing to rely on a projectile allow Kissy to be very dangerous, yet balanced at the same time in Maze Escape when mastered. Her health pool of 400 hp also makes her very hard to kill, allowing her to take quite a bit of punishment. However, a big weakness she has in Maze Escape are the Power classes; while she does have the advantage of being able to outrange them, she has to worry about all three of the Powers currently thanks to their Ults shutting down her defining traits in some way. Overall, Kissy is a very solid choice for Maze Escape, but not overbearing like many Monsters we've been getting lately.

In terms of maps, she's not overly map dependent, allowing her to shine on pretty much any of them. As a result, the maps won't be covered here this time.


PvP Matchups
Performs Well Against: Doug, Evans, SuperHorrorBro, PenPen, Nikson, Cybil, Hanako, Salim
Performs Okay Against: Bierce, Heather, Dawko, Senpai, Info-Chan, Jason
Performs Poorly Against: Vince, Borisov, 8-BitRyan

The Support classes and Senpai, while they are outranged by Kissy, are still able to hold their own due to them being able to attack faster than she can and all of them have Ults that can make Kissy waste more time on them due to her low damage output. Dawko in particular is annoying to deal with in general (especially if there's multiple), but can give Kissy a lot of problems since unlike Penny, Kissy cannot hit Dawko with her attacks at all during Darkest Desire's duration, meaning she either has to burn Toy Tornado or wait it out. As stated above, all the Power classes are dangerous for Kissy since they can shred her health quickly with a variety of methods (Vince can Ult and render her attacks and Toy Tornado obsolete, Borisov can remove her speed and wail on her, and 8-BitRyan can instantly delete over 50% of her health with one press of a button).

In Shard Mayhem, Kissy Missy is still a solid pick, but a bit less effective on the offense side of things due to higher stats. Her above average speed and insane health allows Kissy to tank some pretty outrageous Ults the Monsters tend to have similarly to Penny, and still be able to collect shards pretty well. Although also similarly to Penny, she has a bit of a struggle on offense thanks to the aforementioned increase in stat product, but it is nowhere near as bad as Penny's offense game. As a result, Kissy remains a solid pick in the mode and can be very effective when mastered, but some skill is needed to get the most out of her.

Maps still apply.

PvP Matchups
Performs Well Against: Murder Monkey, Agatha, Hangry, Penny, Nurse, Robbie
Performs Decently Against: Brute, Gold Watcher, Clown Gremlin, Fiend, Lucky, Kissy Missy, Infected Clarice, Dread Ducky
Performs Poorly Against: Malak, Reaper Nurse, Ayano, Infected Balathu

Kissy Missy performs decently well against much of the Monster roster, but they can still hold their own as well, leading her matchup spread to be more skill expressive as a result. However, Malak and Ayano's Ults are infamous for shredding everything in their way regardless of health, making them not suitable for Kissy to take on safely. This also applies to Infected Balathu if he has good aim with Flaming Spear, but he's one of the few characters in this game that actually requires decent skill to play effectively. Ducky and Lucky are also in this category, but she can actually take them on if at high health since she not only outruns them normally, but she also has enough health to survive with a sizable amount of health left if she isn't weakened prior. While she can handle Speed classes decently, she is vulnerable to being rushed by them if they play well due to her slow attacking speed. This is especially the case with Fiend and Reaper Nurse, as Fiend can disorient her with his heavy attack, while Reaper Nurse becomes an absolute menace under Vaccination Time, the latter being the more dangerous of the two as a result.

Unlike the past couple Monsters that have been added to the game, Kissy Missy is a welcome and balanced new addition to the character roster, being very rewarding with a moderate/moderately high skill ceiling to get the most out of. She has obscene health and range, as well as above average speed at the cost of having low dps to compensate for it. This makes her quite balanced on a variety of maps and gamemodes as a result, allowing her to be a pretty safe pick in a game full of overtuned things and copious amounts of RNG variance to be worried about. While the DLC may be rushed, Kissy is thankfully not one of the problems with it! Now for an announcement:

I have over 700 hours on this game and I love it dearly, I really do. However, with the current state of the game and how the devs are treating it, I am considering leaving the game for good, as my hope for better things here is quickly dwindling. I will still update the guides and tier list with new content for the Poppy DLC, but I am debating discontinuing anything further unless a miracle happens. I haven't made my choice yet, as saying and doing are two different things entirely, especially for 700+ hours of playtime. However, if the guides suddenly have a "Discontinued" mark added to the titles, that will let you guys know I have left. A bit of a downer of an ending to this guide, but I felt the need to express how I'm feeling currently with this game, and am debating leaving for good. On that note, hope you all have a good day and have fun with Kissy!