Why Woodie=Best Tank/Runner

[Tumalu]

Woodie's got 200 hp for tanking, high dps when not running (because he has fast attack speed and Lucy inflicts def debuffs for the team), and Lucy has BASICALLY NO COOLDOWN on the throw... and the throw ALWAYS ALWAYS grabs aggro as far as I can tell. This makes him an incredibly consistent runner, and a really effective tank once you're done running the boarillas around, and he even contributes to dps with debuffs. The key here is the lucy toss having no cd, pulling aggro, AND stunning- in addition to woodie's 200 hp.

If something goes wrong and a bunch of people die vs. Boarrior, Woodie can just toss Lucy and run the boarrior off at ANY TIME so the whole team can res eachother, and can live through many hits via 85% armor doing it whilst people res. (Do not use the 10% speed boost armor vs. boarrior imo; it's not worth it. Drop it after boarillas if the party will let you use 85% armor) I can't even count how many close calls there was during my last run with 4 people dead and we still came back from it- running with okay-ish random teams can be a trip. Wes CAN'T do this because he cannot consistently steal aggro fast, nor is it easy for him to survive long doing it vs. boarrior.

"Well yeah, but he's still just running. And why should we give him tank armor?" It's not only for pulling aggro and running away; vs. boarrior, even with the entire party wailing on him, a Woodie throwing lucy over and over will almost always be the focus of the boarrior's attacks. Woodie can drag him into a corner and take most of the hits whilst the rest of the party smashes on him from the other side in comparative safety. Woodie will die now and then, but he lasts long enough this will generally match up with sleep field time and Wilson can have him back up and raring to go.

Once you really know what you're doing, you can even toss Lucy at correct intervals to stun him out of a lot of his attacks, (my friend does this while running, it's crazy) and that's when Woodie just gets downright silly. Kinda blows Wes out of the water- he can't run crowds of mobs around the map but it makes boarrior so much more consistent.

 

Some food for thought on the side; Winona healer is pretty popular for more sleep, but Wicker's ability makes her heals a lot stronger and she has petrification on the side instead of sliiiightly more sleeping casts. Even if you prefer the CD, if you're one of the winonas who takes the +20% healing crown... now you have the same CD as Wickerbottom with 2 cd items, your heal is STILL weaker than hers is due to her ability, AND she gets petrification. Yep. Winona's got more HP but the healer should not be dying unless the boarrior aggro'd onto them, in which case, oh crud. (I like wilson healer too just because I think 2 wilsons is -really- nice to have)

[RancorSnp]

As a Woodie main I confirm everything said in this thread is absolutely correct. 
However I will mention one occasion when Lucy throw wouldn't grab attention of a monster, One of the boss monsters was chasing Winona (probably healer Winona) so of course as Woodie my job is to shove Lucy at him and save distressed player.  But he ignored it, twice.

This is however the only time ever Lucy didn't take aggro, and I have no idea what was going on in that once instance.

[Reagle]

While I certainly agree that Woodie is probably the best character in the Forge (as well as having the highest skillcap with Lucy's throw interrupting most enemy attacks including Boarrior's whip), I personally prefer Wes as runner due to his aggro-pulling abilities. Also I'm probably not as good with timing Lucy as OP, so overall Wes is easier for me lol. But yeah, Woodie is soooooooo good in The Forge, I just don't have the skill to pull him off consistently.