I am astounded at the amount of people that think Woodie's rework is bad, and after reading a vast majority of threads about the bad things about Woodie's refresh, I see that no one is pointing out the downright amazing things about his rework, and that is what I'm going to be advocating for in this thread.
Conceptually -
First of all, the idea behind this rework is amazing. Woodie is meant to be a cliche Canadian dude, and adding more Canadian things to the character such as a hockey skin, and two new Canadian-based animals to his curse really pushes that image. He is also much more refined in this update, every refresh so far has shown that the character has grasped their abilities and found new ways to use them, and this refresh reflects the exact same thing. Now I am going to go into each form and also a few arguments as well as provide some tips and tricks that I have discovered in the first few of hours that I've played.
BEAVER FORM-
The beaver form hasn't changed, but HAS been affected positively by the new addition of the were-meter, now you can cut down tons of trees and dig up stumps in no time at the cost of logs and a few monster meat, in comparison to a golden ax and shovel that other characters would have to use, or nightmare fuel along with tools and time that maxwell would need for minions to chop and dig, this is a significantly faster and more material efficient method to tree chopping.
GOOSE FORM-
I cannot fathom why people do not like this change. Making lots of idols to become a goose is easy, and they are an AMAZING tool for scouting out the caves, traveling long distances, and just getting around in general, while yes you do get an empty stomach after using one, you can plan to use these as you were going hungry, and eat after you finish your journey, just make sure to use multiple in one go and plan out where you want to go. This isn't really made for walking around, this is made for scouting, long trips and having night vision while going very fast. The goose form also completely IGNORES the sandstorms in the oasis desert so it's an amazing way to get in and out of an oasis base or find the antlion/go to it if you don't have goggles or simply just don't want to use them.
MOOSE FORM-
This is the form people complain about the most and I cannot understand why. I have also not seen a single thread that points out all of the insanely amazing uses for it's charge ability. You can farm herds of splumonkeys, spiders, frogs, bees, and many other basic and aggressive mobs alike with this ability with an incredible amount of ease, I would even go as to say that his ability to farm in moose form makes Wendy and Webber obsolete, but I would need to test more (and obviously this is potentially bound to change when they are refreshed). And not only can you farm all of these things amazingly, you can do it with just a few grass and some monster meat, no tools, nothing. You MIGHT get a little banged up depending on what you farm, but all you have to do afterwards is heal. The moose form is an incredibly efficient method for farming mass amounts of mob drops. And as for combat, it can take on anything that isn't a boss with absolutely no problem. I have fought almost everything so far that was just an aggressive mob and it worked out just fine, and I didn't have to have a log suit or football helmet, nor did I have to craft any weapons. Woodie is an incredibly efficient combatant now. I'm also going to add this in tips, but I'm guessing since this is what most people will probably read I will put this here; WOODIE CAN EAT JELLY BEANS AND THEN RAPIDLY HEAL WHILE IN MOOSE FORM, THIS IS INCREDIBLY EFFICIENT FOR FIGHTING IN MOOSE FORM IN RISKY FIGHTS OR IN GENERAL. I also saw someone wanting the charge ability to be removed, DO NOT REMOVE IT, IT IS INSANELY USEFUL IN TOO MANY WAYS TO COUNT.
WOODIE FORM-
Woodie is a pretty basic man outside of his main abilities, as are pretty much every single character in the game. One argument I saw is that Woodie outside of his forms doesn't have much to his character, that is a pointless argument because the forms are A PART of his character and are to be utilized just as you would use Maxwell's book, or Abigail's flower, or Wickerbottom's books, and so on. And considering the forms are apart of his character and not an external factor, it is arguable that his forms are a part of his core character which makes his "Woodie form" more complex than any other character in the game. But take away all of the forms and here are the things he can do-
Have followers longer
Chop trees incredibly fast
Have a 50% higher chance to spawn tree guards
Own an infinite, talking axe that is unique to him
Have the ability to craft 3 unique idols
The things REMOVED from this form are-
The log meter
Sanity gain from planting pine cones
These were his most unpredictable and unappealing features, and it was an extremely healthy change to remove them. People who are experienced often do not appreciate the unwanted sanity regeneration or the constant chore of having to eat wood. The changes to his basic form are incredibly nice and good for his character.
MY THOUGHTS-
I really think that the expectations for this character are way overboard, he has gotten completely overhauled for the better and excels in a potentially endless amount of tasks, his downsides lay in the fact that he loses health and sanity from going into forms, but as with any character, experience with them will show ways to negate these downsides. Woodie is downright the most practical character in this game now, the ability to do just about any task without tools or armor is invaluable. I'm glad they added so much to this character, he now truly feels like a cursed Canadian lumberjack that has learned how to harness his abilities. As for late game usefulness, a lot of abilities get negated by having everything no matter which character you're playing, but his effectiveness with farming due to the moose form's charge ability will always work no matter what point in the game you're at, along with his higher change to spawn tree guards, which will always be useful, he will always be able to level forests in a moment's notice without any preparation, and will always be able to have fun and refreshing abilities to use in just about any situation. As a person who has mained Woodie since I started playing, I can say that for now, the road to figuring out every use of this refresh looks good, as does the character refresh as a whole. He has just become a significantly better and more practical version of himself and I love that. The ONLY thing I would change would be that the goose can swim, and that is definitely something I agree with everyone else on, other than that I have no complaints about this guy, he's not perfect nor will he ever be but that isn't the reason I main him, and I'm excited to push all of his new abilities to their limits as I continue playing. Now I will go into tips and tricks that I have discovered while testing and playing him today.
TIPS AND TRICKS-
Moose form can use charge to farm a long list of mobs, use this to your advantage when fighting groups of them or when wanting to farm in general as Woodie.
Moose form can rapidly heal from jelly beans, this is really useful in fights where you will inevitably take damage such as with bosses.
Moose form can utilize Warly's spices to give him more damage and damage resistance, this really helps with their synergy.
All of Woodie's forms can run through a sandstorm in the oasis desert without any movement penalties, this is best utilized with goose form. This small trick can be used to find the antlion very fast.
The moose form can be used for a quick and easy solution to a hound wave, out of all my tests it is nearly impossibly to be overwhelmed if you are actively fighting in moose form and using his charge ability to take out groups if they start to cluster together.
The goose form can be used to map out caves very early in the game and very well, all you need is a good amount of idols, a bit of food to negate the afterward effects, and a torch to use outside of form transformations.
Moose form can still receive Wortox heals while fighting, this means he is practically invincible if he has a wortox to heal him while tanking a mob, due to not having any amount of armor durability.
Use charge to quickly get away from a mob you're fighting before transforming back, this should give you a good amount of time to prepare to fight without the form or go back into the form, depending on what mob you're fighting. It's best to use your own discretion on when to use the form or not, but the usefulness of the moose form's charge ability should be factored into whatever plans you make.
YOU CAN NOW OPEN YOUR MAP NO MATTER WHAT FORM YOU ARE IN.
Lore and animation-
I personally do not have an issue with the animation they made, however I feel like the fact that he didn't have a backstory is significant and I've thought about it a lot, and I have only come up with one solution. He just DOESN'T have one. It simply does not make sense that they wouldn't have a backstory for him when they have for EVERY OTHER character they've refreshed, and the only thing I can come up with is that he was created by Maxwell to BE his silly, twisted interpretation of a Canadian guy, and while he does have a few quotes that talk about things that he did in his past, I think they are just a fake memory that Maxwell planted in his head. This is the only thing that makes sense to me, and would explain why he has so many cliche's, and why he is so awkwardly supernatural in comparison to the rest of the cast, the log meter doesn't make sense, the were meter doesn't make sense, eating logs doesn't make sense, a talking axe doesn't make sense, he's just simply was created that way. It would also explain why his wereforms have night vision just like the rest of the mobs in the game, and why he has a curse in the first place. This also explains his reactions to just about every crazy thing in the game, he never really has a surprised reaction to anything, just talks about it like he doesn't know anything else. Anyway, that's just my take on it, but as I said it could be very wrong, I just feel like there's a reason he doesn't have a clear true backstory.
Conclusion-
There's probably a bit I left out here, but all in all I think that this refresh isn't nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be, and his farming potential makes him a very useful character. He's super fun and unique and I'm going to very much enjoy all of the new things he can do as I play him. Let me know what you guys think and anything I may have left out, and any other tips and tricks you've discovered! And a huge thanks to Klei for constantly giving us amazing content! Although there are things that not everyone agrees with, this company really knows how to find a middle ground and listen and work correctly, and I am very happy that they've put so much into this game over the last year. I look forward to the future of Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together!