Woodie's Character Refresh(and what should be changed)

[Spiffyo™]

Woodie was a bad character, but with Winona's and Willow's refresh they have been made alot better(after some refining of course), but what's changed with Woodie, is he good or is he bad? Does anything need tweaks or bring back old features? Let's give a look into this.


The Good
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Woodie no longer transforms into Werebeaver form by chopping tree's, which honestly is more beneficial in my honest opinion since you no longer forced to transform when gathering lumber.

Reduced sanity loss from the Were-form which is definitely good since now you won't have to cram Green Mushrooms or have to constantly wear any sanity giving items(like the Tam o Shanter) as often.

Increased Treeguard spawn, this seems like something that's bad, but that's the exact opposite, this change is great since Woodie can now be the Nightmare Log farmer as one of his exclusive Niches.


The Bad
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Planting Saplings no longer gives you 5 sanity for each Pinecone placed, this change is bad but is the least of our worries with the other additions and this was probably removed due to the Wereforms reduced sanity loss.

The new Wereforms are mediocre, Goose form has a speed boost thats useless in early game since you will be starving when reverting and you can only run faster and can't swim nor glide over gaps, and the Moose form is not beneficial since you do 59.5 damage for sluggish punches and charging that stuns you, plus you will revert back and be stunned to which the enemies can benefit from and get free hits in on you.

The Were-Beaver form was nerfed, prior to the Refresh you could maintain this form for days at a time, now at you have one minute or around since you lose alot if you don't chop trees and when you do it's 1 point per second and the max is 100.

The new way to transform is bad and contradictory, the totems are easy to craft, but the effects of them are horrendous, you gain 25 hunger and transform into a specific wereform whilst losing 30 sanity and 20 health, this is absolutely bad since you use these to harvesting trees, run away, or fight and the negatives hurt everything except harvesting trees.

Overall Opinion
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Woodie was hurt badly by this refresh, since we don't know what is intentional or bugged and for the most part Woodie is now the worst character, because Wes is intentionally bad unlike Woodie.

Potential Tweaks and Reworks
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Before I talk about these, I want to say that this is entirely my opinion of what should be changed, I don't know if these would be better or worse for the fixes.

I think what should be fixed for starts is the Transformation Totems, what they take is severe for each side, The totem for the Were-Moose Totemshould have +25 Hunger -50 Sanity 0 Health while the Were-Goose Totem should have +15 Hunger -10 Sanity -35 Health(if below 35 you still have 5 Health), and the Were-Beaver totem isn't necessary for changes since I see it as a inbetween.

For tweaks to the wereforms duration is that the drain is 1 per second at the start and 1 per 3 seconds when you're doing the objective that each transformation provides with a 10 second hold period before shifting to 1 point drain per second, I.E you have a 1:40 minutes worth of time at worst and 5:00 minutes at best for the duration. and for the hunger bar, I think Were-Beaver will leave you with 33% of your hunger that you had prior to transforming, 50% for Were-Goose, and 10% for Were-Moose.

Were-Moose's changes is a +5% base movement speed(+15% when charging), 68.5 Damage on charging, and you have an added 50 max health in this form; added downsides are that the hoof attacks only deal 42.5 damage, 3 hits to break down boulders, and reduce armor from 80% to 65%. Meanwhile the Were-Goose form will allow swimming, 5 seconds of gliding over pits, and gives you +60% base movement speed when transformed instead of +40%, no real downsides since this is just to make the Were-Goose viable.

[Richard Roe]

goose needs buff badly

I can live with current mechanics even if annoying
but goose it just too little for so much

[OH! MY CAR]

Yeah, refresh sounds lame.

Woodie was cool for living forever in caves with the sanity from planting trees.

[Amplifier]

Why on god's green earth your hunger drops to 0 after a transformation I haven't got a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue. Even with the health and sanity damage that the totems cause Woodie would at least have some use as a Maxwell resource gatherer that uses less expensive resources and is more capable of fighting than Maxwell. But the fact that your hunger drops to zero means that Woodie is pretty much permanently required to play with a Warly and Wickerbottom and hoover up all food in a 10 mile radius every time he does literally anything.

Goose form is worthless. You shoot yourself in the foot to get a cheap walking cane combined with a torch. This would be useful in the early game if not for the fact that your hunger drops to 0. Also why the hell can't a goose swim?
Moose form is also pretty bad. You're essentially playing a worse Wigfrid who literally can't kite due to your piss poor movement speed. Which is to say nothing of the fact that, you know, you stun yourself and reduce your hunger to 0 when your transformation wears off.

Woodie only has very, very niche use for teams that want to speedrun and get Living Logs fast, and even then you're honestly better off with a Wormwood cutting himself to give you Living Logs. Other than that he's a pure liability that's more useless than Wes. (At least Wes has balloons!)
For a start I really hope they remove the hunger drain after transforming. This penalty is beyond unnecessary and it makes what could be an interesting risk / reward into a pure penalty. Goose should also really be able to swim, as this would solidify Woodie's role with the goose form as an exploration character. Moose needs way more damage absorption (possibly just a flat 100% damage absorption, with the damage taken going to the Transformation meter instead of your health bar) as well as more movement speed, though I honestly think Ham Bat damage is fine. I do also think that the pinecone sanity should come back for a character who inherently drains sanity by existing but that's another discussion entirely.

I think Woodie could easily fit into a more nomadic playstyle with the changes he received. He has the ability to quickly gather resources in an area and also survive the night without dealing with Charlie due to his night vision. He even has moose as a sort of "I don't have to craft weapons" button to deal with any dangers that might come his way. But the hunger drain when you transform is the biggest problem with this strategy and other problems come to mind as well. I think if goose could swim Woodie would have a firm role as the party member who goes off and does their own thing to then come back from time to time with buckets of resources. But as it is now transforming is a quick way to force everyone to deal with you dying, and there's little reason to play beyond being Maxwell with a built-in Shadow Clone.