A Guide to using Woodie (and kiting in general)

[Werecrowe]

 

A Semi-Complete Guide to Woodie Kiting (by Crowe)

 

I hear a lot of people saying that Woodie is a very weak character with no real perks, that he’s extremely useless and not recommended to play as. This guide on how to use him to carry your team to victory will serve as my counterargument, and I hope that this will be helpful information for whomever is attempting to play as a kiter in a Forge match. As someone who has won three Forge matches as a kiter Woodie, I am very eager to share the information I have learned. 

 

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Let’s start off with some of Woodie’s perks.

 

#1: Lucy

 

When Woodie throws his special axe, Lucy, it will instantly draw aggro onto him. This is an incredible perk of its own, and it will be very helpful in later stages.

 

When thrown, Lucy can also stop spinning Snortoises, provided that you are lucky/skillful enough to hit them. 

 

#2. Higher HP

 

While he can’t be resurrected as quickly as Wes, Woodie has relatively high health, his maximum being 200 HP. This means that, even with the lowest defense armor (60% protection), Woodie can survive 4-5 hits from the Boarilla/Grand Forge Boarrior before death. This allows a few mistakes from the player, and also increases Woodie’s survivability in difficult situations.

 

#3. Quick attack speed

 

When attacking normally with Lucy, Woodie’s attack speed is greatly increased. This isn’t as useful as his other two perks, but in a pinch, he can make short work of weaker enemies.

 

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NOTE: It is a given that Woodie will be using the feather helm (20% more movement speed) and the reed armor (10% more movement speed), but I recommend switching to a higher defense armor during the fight with the Grand Forge Boarrior (splinted mail is a great choice). 

 

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Levels:

 

1. Pit pigs

 

The first wave is relatively easy. You can chop down the lone pigs or throw Lucy from a distance as the tanks demolish them. It becomes a bit harder to use Lucy’s melee attack once there are multiple groups of pigs— hang back and throw Lucy at your discretion, making sure to keep an eye on the reviver.

 

2. Crocommanders

 

Fighting these head-on is not recommended. Use Lucy to instantly destroy the banners, and draw the fire of the Crocommanders if your health is high enough. This can help the team a lot, especially when the tanks are being attacked by multiple enemies.

 

3. Snortoises

 

This is where Woodie starts to show his usefulness. Explain to the team that you are going to distract the top group of Snortoises, and proceed to head in that direction. These top two can be kept in an endless loop of aggression until your team is ready to destroy them.

 

I have had the most success in kiting the Snortoises into the shape of an 8 (one walking behind the other). Moving in a half circle around them, you can quickly run to the top and throw Lucy at the Snortoise at the front of the pair, then circle back to throw at the bottom one. This ensures that they are constantly aggressive towards you, but their slow speed allows you to complete this process with almost 100% safety. 

 

Note: As mentioned above, the Snortoises are very slow, so make the circle you run around them extremely small— just out of the range of their “pufferfish” spike attack. This is an added measure to keep their focus on you, and not on the rest of your team. Try to keep them occupied as far away from the team as possible. 

 

Another note: Lucy’s throw has the ability to stop the spinning Snortoises in their tracks! If you can make the shot, go for it, especially if there’s a spinning Snortoise attacking your healer.

 

Scorpeons:

 

The strategy for these should be the same as the strategy for the Snortoises, but you are in a bit more danger than before, as the Scorpeons have attacks that can melt even the most armored tank. The team also may need your assistance more than before, since tanks can quickly be overwhelmed if not watched closely. While it is the healer’s job to attend to them, they may not always be nearby. 

 

Keep an eye on the health bars of your teammates on the upper left. If one of them appears to be in a bad spot, or being attacked by multiple enemies, you can use Lucy’s instant-aggro throw to make their lives a bit easier. Of course, use your own judgement as to whether or not this is necessary, since keeping two Scorpeons away from the team for the entire level is also useful.

 

Boarilla, Part One:

 

I cannot emphasize this enough— please make sure that you have healed up during the last round. It will be a lot less stressful for you to be kiting the Boarilla with 200 hp rather than 140. By now, you should have the feather hat and reed armor, so keeping out of the boss’s range is not impossibly difficult.

 

The Boarilla will spawn at the bottom right portal. Leave the smalls for the tanks and dps immediately after they spawn— you don’t want to draw their aggro at this point.

 

Camp the Boarilla’s spawn portal and throw Lucy as soon as you see him. I recommend to lead him along the outer border of the map, so that there is much less chance of the boss accidentally targeting the team. However, this is not always a good choice, as the fight with the smaller enemies doesn’t always take place in the center of the map. Once again, use your own judgement when deciding which path to lead the Boarilla on.

 

The Boarilla will take anywhere between 3-5 steps chasing you before he attacks. I suggest letting him attack at you twice, then throw Lucy to reclaim aggro, maintaining your position just outside his attack range. You can also throw Lucy after every attack, if you are more comfortable with that. You may have to slow down at times to make sure the Boarilla’s focus is on you at all times. 

 

When the team has finished off all the grunts, lead the Boarilla towards them. Hang back while they destroy it— take the time you need to heal up before the next fight, if you’ve sustained some damage.

 

Boarilla, Part Two:

 

Communicate with your team as to which Boarilla you will be kiting, top or bottom. Remind them to drag their Boarilla to the middle of the map if they can, as it will make your time a lot easier.

 

Kiting the 2nd Boarilla is more of the same; the most dangerous part of this level is when the two waves of smaller enemies appear. When you see Pugna’s warning speeches, try to avoid going near the spawning portals, but this is not always an option while dragging the Boarilla across the map. 

 

The job of the DPS and/or the tanks is to keep the smaller enemies off of you and the healer, dividing their focus between this and taking care of their own Boarilla. This can create a very tense and hectic situation, as you may lose aggro of your Boarilla during this fight. If this happens, lead it to a healing area if possible and let it sleep, then reclaim aggro after you heal yourself a bit. 

 

The Crocommanders are definitely the worst during this part of the fight. Their homing projectiles will always hit you if they lock onto you, and if you are caught by the Pit Pigs or Boarilla during the duration for which the projectile stuns you, you’re practically a goner (unless you are saved by some miracle).

 

The best advice I can give, at my current level of knowledge, is to stay as far away from the Crocommanders as possible. Be sure not to lose your focus, though— this is a crucial time for the team, so try as hard as you can to not lose the attention of your Boarilla.

 

Grand Forge Boarrior:

 

This is it, you’ve made it this far. By now, there should be one or no Boarillas left. Usually there is one left, so make sure you’ve healed up to at least 3/4 health and go to the bottom right portal to meet the Boarrior. 

 

Let your team take care of the Boarilla while you kite the Boarrior around the arena. He won’t start doing his groundpound + fire attacks until he’s lost a substantial amount of health, so you can lure him with relative ease and little danger to yourself while your team takes care of the last Boarilla.

 

Once the fight with the Grand Forge Boarrior commences, you should equip some heavier armor. Splinted mail is the best option, but wood armor is another option if someone else has equipped the splinted mail. I highly advise against standing behind or in front of other people, as the Boarrior’s ground-pound attacks may unintentionally harm you or others near you.

 

Your role becomes slightly different during this fight. The healer is often targeted by the Boarrior, especially in the later stages of the battle, and teammates are constantly dying. You MUST (and this is a big MUST) keep the Boarrior from attacking the healer while he/she is reviving or casting. Do not attack the Boarrior much during the fight; save your health for those moments when aggroing the Boarrior can buy the healer those crucial seconds to complete a revival or cast the life flowers.

 

This is especially important when the Grand Forge Boarrior summons his minions, which is announced by the Boarrior clapping his swords together, making a hollow banging sound. Take down the standards as swiftly as possible. This is the most chaotic part of the game, and many of my teams have met their demise during this time. 

 

With any luck, you will be able to keep the Boarrior off of the healer during times of misfortune, while also keeping an eye on the smaller enemies. Do not let yourself or others become swarmed, as you can be stunlocked into an instant and brutal death. Always watch your Wilsons. Take note of how much health they have in the upper left corner of the screen.

 

After the smalls have been taken care of, hang back and heal. Watch the Boarrior and try to remain at a decent amount of health so that you can distract him if need be. Don’t throw Lucy at him when the healer is casting life flowers on top of the Boarrior, as this will draw him out of the healing circle (he avoids the circles during the latter part of the fight, thus he will not sleep unless the circle is cast DIRECTLY on him). 

 

With a little luck, a little skill, and a lot of teamwork and communication…you and your team will be able to get the better of the Grand Forge Boarrior and tell Battlemaster Pugna to stick it where the sun don’t shine! Congratulations— and good luck!

[MrDeepDarkmind]

I like how woodie can be used in many ways

I just use him as fast DPS tank 

[Werecrowe]

15 minutes ago, MrDeepDarkmind said:

I like how woodie can be used in many ways

I just use him as fast DPS tank 

Yeah, that works too! He can play that role pretty well.

[Dekay]

I usually only use the speed headgear when kiting as woodie, does the speed tunic actually allow you to be better? Otherwise I guess I’d rather the healer or Wilson use it during boss rounds so they can outrun if they are targeted by a boss.

[Werecrowe]

2 hours ago, Dekay said:

I usually only use the speed headgear when kiting as woodie, does the speed tunic actually allow you to be better? Otherwise I guess I’d rather the healer or Wilson use it during boss rounds so they can outrun if they are targeted by a boss.

After testing it a lot, I determined that the speed armor was, in fact, much better to use when kiting (at least, during the Boarilla fights). One of the reasons is that some people may have lag/high ping or latency issues, and the speed armor helped during times of rubberbanding. Another reason is that when taking the Boarilla around the outskirts of the arena, it is possible that the Boarilla may sneak a hit in on you while you are running diagonally-- but this issue resolved when I switched from using splinted mail to the speed armor. 

That's not saying that it is impossible to use a heavier armor while kiting (except for the marble armor, of course). If you've had better luck using armor with more protection, go for it! Whatever's more comfortable  

 

[Laft]

I think wes is better personally (mostly bias since I main him), since wes can pick up molten darts and in turn can land WAY more damage on the boarilla. Every game I play I end up getting the boarilla to start jumping on my own, which switches up the tactic a little. 

HOWEVER

I just played a game and we went all woody, and Ive got to say he is good for dealing with smaller enemies and switching between kiting and tanking. We beat the boarrior with all woody which means he can't be all bad XD

[Cyberboy2000]

I've been playing a lot of Woodie lately and I think that's just because most people I've met suck at kiting which I don't really understand because Woodie is so good at it. Yeah I've played with Wes runners but they always die or lose aggro so that we end up losing the match.

[AarMose]

agreed! found it last night too, but the timing is tight to cancel boarilla's attack, but when done correcly, woodie can carry the team at the last spurt
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1199104777