Wood Man was part of the original group of 8 robots created by Dr. Wily to defeat Mega Man. His weapon, the Leaf Shield, is notorious for being incredibly finicky. While it's very useful for Wood Man himself, as he can cause several leaves to fly up and attack Mega Man while he remains in a perfect defense, Mega Man is forced to watch it fly away every time he takes a step. Wood Man is weak to the Atomic Fire in Mega Man 2, which makes him have a 0/100 matchup against MYM5 Heat Man.
Statistics
Power: 10
Speed: 4
Height: 7
Jump: 5
Second Jump: 4
Weight: 9
Fall Speed: 7
Specials
Neutral Special ~ Leaf Shield
I'm going to make the assumption here that you've all played Mega Man 2, and know basically what I'm talking about here. When you press B, four leaves begin to circle around Wood Man, slightly beyond the borders of a regular shield. They'll continue to circle Wood Man as long as he remains completely motionless. This serves as basically an automatic counter a la Marth, but doesn't actually deal the damage. Nope, it just blows the foe away with a wind effect. Unfortunately, it'll only be able to ward off one attack before disappearing, and consecutive uses will decrease the number of leaves present, until you're completely out after four uses. They'll come back eventually, 30 seconds for each to respawn, although another use will reset the timer. Yes, that means that if you only wait 29 seconds before using it again, you'll be down to two leaves on your next use and you'll have to wait 30 seconds to get three.
Also! Remember how I said you had to stay still? Well, if you try to move in any direction, your shield will fly away... it's basically a flying wind hitbox. You could probably gimp with it, but its effect isn't that strong, even if the shield itself is a giant obstacle. And as another note, two moves actually won't make the shield fly away... both the Down Special and the Up Smash allow for continual charging while defended.
Side Special ~ Leaf Blower
Here's a fun move. Wood Man flings his hand forwards and scatters leaves over a wide area, covering about 1.5 SB blocks worth of land when they settle. Like the last move, this is a weak gimp, slowing upwards momentum by about a quarter. No, this is not going to become a gimping moveset, gimme a couple of moves.
Now, if you spread these leaves over the brambles from your DTilt, they'll actually cover them up. The brambles are still there, but they won't have any affect on you or your enemies. If you try to grow a tree in the middle of a patch of leaves, it'll grow, but it won't actually rise up to its height until the leaves are removed. An image would work better to explain, I think.
Oh yeah, prob'ly should've mentioned that the Leaf Shield's wind hitbox is what's blowing the leaves away. I kinda jumped the gun on that. Yeah, launching the Leaf Shield can turn seemingly innocuous ground into a bramble-infested wasteland! And since the wind hitbox still exists even when all you're doing is standing still, you could probably stand on top of your hidden tree, use it, and find yourself somewhere off of the blast area. There are plenty, TONS of applications involving linking these together, and I'll give them their own seperate section in the playstyle.
Down Special ~ Nature's Will
You already saw mention of this attack in the above move, so hopefully you're all good and warmed up! With an input of the Down Special, Wood Man squats down to the ground, grabs a hold of it with both hands, and begins pulling upwards, straining as he does so. I hate to give you this visual, but it almost looks like he's taking a dump. With that out of the way, you'll notice that as long as you keep holding, Wood Man will actually start to pull himself upwards. About every second and a half, another stagebuilder block of height will be smoothly added to the tree. Here's another image as a visual.
Except, actually, not like this. It's going way faster than I made it go in GIMP. Baah. Just... like that, but slower. The 1 SB block per 1.5 seconds thing I mentioned earlier, go with that.
The tree serves just like a wall. Effectively, you can block off opponents from your side of the stage while you set up. Well... you could, but it's not like it's made out of iron. If the tree takes 40% of damage to any segment, it will fall over at that joint, turning into an absolutely massive hitbox as it falls. As powerful as a fully-charged Dedede Front Smash, with potentially infinite range, your opponent would be an idiot to let you continue to grow it. You've got a couple tricks to help it survive though, which I'll once again touch on in the playstyle section.
Up Special ~ Autumn Breeze
And then there's the Up Special which really isn't that interesting at all. A giant leaf mysteriously forms under Wood Man, which he uses like a surfboard through the air like the one in Yoshi's Story. Unfortunately, Wood Man's a big lug, hardly the gossamer type. He's gonna fall. In essence, this is a glide recovery similar to, but worse than, Charizard's.
Note that, like the Neutral Special, two moves are available to use while on the leaf. These moves are your Up and Back Aerials. Oh, and you can jump off of the leaf at any time to extend your recovery, assuming you haven't already used your midair jump. Probably should've mentioned that.
Standards
Neutral A~ Tarzan
I've always wondered why exactly Wood Man saw it necessary to beat on his chest. He's a robot! What kind of primal urges could a robot possibly have? Anyways, Wood Man uses his infamous Tarzan imitation for his Neutral A. As you continue to press the button more often associated with jumping, Wood Man keeps beating on himself, forming a very short-range hitbox. Pounds on the left bounce foes to the right, and vice-versa. While it seems to be the ultimate juggling move, it actually suffers from something called "reverse move decay," a term I created during one of my particularly creative bursts of genious. In essence, the longer you hold this attack out, the stronger it becomes, culminating in the strength of a tipped Marth FTilt after eight consecutive hits.
Front Tilt~ Back it Up
And speaking of FTilts, here's Wood Man's! Maybe someday I'll come up with an FTilt that isn't a generic punch, or a generic punch with a twist, but not today! At least this one has flow. Anyway, Wood Man's FTilt is very similar to Sheep Man's in execution; he gives a quick shove with an open palm. This knocks opponents about a battlefield platform backward along the ground, dealing 6%. As it sounds like, this is a combo move. It pushes enemies back the perfect distance to get them with your grab without any trouble.
Up Tilt~ Snare
An UTilt in an Agi moveset that doesn't revolve around the mechanic? What is this I don't even
Oh, quiet, you. Me. Move time. Wood Man flicks his wrist upward, sending two creeper vines spinning to reach overhead opponents. The range is about the same as Ivysaur's Vine Whip, but on a perfectly upward trajectory. If you manage to hit a foe towards the end of the vine, their feet will become... snared! Wood Man then snaps the vine back down bringing him face to face with the opponent. At this point, the ending lag is nonexistant, so you can follow up with an FTilt. Once again, this is really just a combo starter.
Right, if you don't manage to grab onto the foe at the end of the vine, they'll just take 8% with light vertical knockback, and you can't chain this knockback into the snare effect. If you don't snare them, you'll have a bit of ending lag, like Lucas after a missed Rope Snake.
Down Tilt~ Bramble
To get the ball rolling, Wood Man flings out his arms lengthwise, as if he's preparing to give the foe a giant bear hug. Well, he's not, but this will do 9% with light horizontal knockback, comparable to Sheik's FAir. But what you're really after is the aftereffect. See, when Wood Man made that motion, many hundreds of seeds were scattered around his general area, spreading out over about half Battlefield's length with his position as the center. A few seconds after setting, deep tangles of brambles will spawn, up to about Kirby's height. These brambles are the bread and butter of your stalling game.
Not only is it impossible to run while inside of them, walking itself becomes incredibly time consuming. You know when you had to sneak up on that Pirahna Plant in Super Mario 64? Yeah, that's the speed that opponents inside will have to walk. Crazy, I know. And don't think that they can just jump out of the brambles! If they try, they'll be snapped right back to their original position... in the TRIPPED phase! I'm so devious! Rolling to dodge is simply not an option, but spotdodging and any attack that doesn't involve motion of the legs is still possible.
Now, the brambles do have some shortcomings. If they take three hits of 8% or more, the part that was attacked will be destroyed. Yes, you read that right, you can't just do 24% and be done with it. However, sufficiently tangled undergrowth should hamper the foe's movement enough to give you plenty of time to grow a tree and fall it on them. And don't forget that you can hide the brambles with leaves from your Side Special until you've set up enough for your liking!
Of course, Wood Man is also affected by the brambles. He does, however, have a little trick that the foe doesn't. If you pull up on the ground with your Down Special, you'll be able to pull yourself up and out of the mess you've found yourself in, and jump and glide to safety.
Dash Attack~ Take Down
You know, Wood Man would probably be good at football. At least, he shows his tackling prowess in this move. By using the Dash Attack, Wood Man will jump into the air, and continue flying somewhat like Superman slightly above the ground. (Most characters could dodge this by ducking.) If he crashes into anyone, they'll be blasted backward with good knockback and take 11%, landing in their tripped animation. There's no limit to how far Wood Man can jump in this manner, but you need to cancel it by either pressing A or moving the control stick in the opposite direction, otherwise he'll fly offscreen.
But there's gotta be more to it than that, right? Right? Right. This is Wood Man's quickest way to take down a tree, hence the move title. If he crashes into it, his head actually becomes imbedded in the tree, a la Luigi's Green Missile. He'll be stuck inside, trying to pull himself out while the tree falls, only freeing himself after it lands. Obviously, this gives him incredible ending lag.
Smashes
Front Smash~ Razor Leaf
Do I feel bad about stealing another Pokemon move name? No, I don't. That shouldn't be your concern, anyway.
While Wood Man charges the famous 60 PWR attack, leaves of all shapes and sizes (okay, only orange oak leaves) will fly out from around him, and hover in midair. 4-8 will appear depending on charge. When the attack is released, they'll all fly straight forwards, traveling rather quickly. Although they disappear after 1/3 Battlefield's length, they'll do a lot of damage on their way, depending on the foe's... height? Well, yes. Each leaf is successively higher than the last, meaning that while Ganondorf takes the brunt force of the attack, Kirby is only going to get hit by a leaf or two. For each leaf which passes through the opponent, they'll take 4%, with weak horizontal knockback. This is a pretty good damaging move, even if it does have substantial ending lag.
Up Smash~ Falling Leaves
Once again, I'm kindasorta hoping that you've at least seen Wood Man's boss fight, if you haven't actually fought against him. It'll help with visualization.
Anyways, this is Wood Man's main attack from the actual battle. While he charges, he beats on his chest in a manner unlike his Neutral A. I don't know how the guys down in Graphics will pull this off, maybe add little blue flashes for the Neutral A and take them out here, but it'll work. Anyways, four leaves will fly upwards while he charges, culminating in height about 4 SB blocks overhead. They will then proceed to spread out, about an SB block distance in between each, and drift slowly down. The general effect is that of a giant spiked ceiling slowly falling down on the opponent, albeit one that doesn't actually do knockback and only 16% per leaf touched.
Down Smash~ Sapling
Considering that my first draft of this move was over 1000 words, let's try to tone down the detail, shall we? The move itself really isn't that complicated. Upon input, Wood Man plunges a hand into the ground, and pulls upwards while he charges. A thin sapling rises up out of the ground along with his hand, reaching captain Falcon's height at full charge. As it sounds, this isn't an actual attack, thus it doesn't have noticeable lag on either side. You can't hide it with brambles, in case you were wondering.
So, what's the point? Well, if you walk over to a grown sapling and grab it with A, (or, y'know, a grab,) you can walk backwards while holding it, and release it. Subsequently, it will crack forward and deal damage and knockback. This behaves like a smash, taking the same amount of time to reach maximum charge and increasing in damage and knockback with more time invested. Power varies from 3% and flinch to 28% with the strength of Marth's untipped FSmash. Of course, your opponent can use the sapling as well, so be wary.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial~ Darwin
It was the firm belief of Charles Darwin that, over millions of years, small mutations in DNA add up, eventually creating an entirely new species.
What a quack. Still, it's a cool idea. Let's see what we can get out of it, shall we?
For his Neutral Aerial, Wood Man turns towards the ground at a light angle, and spins around a few times. Fascinating, not even Sakurai could've thought of that! This is a multiple-hit hitbox basically identical to Sonic's FAir. However, as he spins, a light powder forms and slowly drifts down. What possible use could it have?
If the powder works its way down to settle on some exposed (not hidden by leaves or whatnot) brambles, they will undergo a slight mutation. Tiny thorns form over any affected brambles, turning them into (gasp of all gasps) traps! Now, whenever the opponent finds themselves stuck inside, they'll take 2% per second (pps) standing still, 4pps walking, an additional 5% for any attempts to jump out, and 2% for attacking! Now, even if they ARE able to dodge the falling tree, they'll still have to deal with the extra damage.
Front Aerial~ Swing
You know, sometimes you just get moves that serve their purpose, and little else. This is one of 'em. Wood Man extends his hands out in a grab hitbox for this move, and holds them out there as a sex kick of sorts. The grab hitbox is only out there on the first couple of frames, and the move decays to a 4% flinching hitbox afterward. If you grab the foe, Wood Man will quickly fling them forward Mario-style for 8% and a bit of distance, but it's not worth writing home about.
If you use this move on one of your trees, however, (you knew it was coming,) Wood Man will grab onto the tree and swing around to the other side. Basically, you can run away from your foe, jump towards the tree, and swing around to the other side with ease. What's your next plan? Drop the tree on them? Keep setting up? It's all up to you.
Up Aerial~ Spin
Most creative name ever. The title's about right, all Wood Man does for this move is hold his arms above his head and quickly rotate 360 degrees, on a vertical axis. This low-lag, low-knockback maneuver deals 6% and has no place in competitive play whatsoever.
Unless, of course, you're in the middle of using your Up Special. (That's a plot twist, people!) In that case, your spinning motion is translated into the leaf's trajectory, and the pair of you will begin a nosedive downward. You and the leaf together are a powerful duo, pulling enemies down along with you and dealing 12% a second while you fall, potentially leading to a Woodicide.
Now, remember that you can jump off the leaf at any time. If you do so after using this move, the leaf will continue spinning down, but the damage will drop to 4% and will have an extremely weak pull, halting the 'cide altogether.
Down Aerial~ Cover
Continuing with the generally-accepted idea that Wood Man has an infinite number of leaves and other things to throw at the opponent, here's the Down Air.
Wood Man waves his hand downward once along an arc, in a somewhat laggy motion. No damage is dealt, but we're all really here for the side effects amirite? A blanket of leaves is released from Wood Man's arms along with this motion, forming a thick, slowly-falling arc of... well, of leaves. I should probably think about reworking my sentence structure. Anyways, this has about the same effect as your Side Special, and you can even drop the leaves on the ground in the same way. Considering your Side Special is faster and covers more area, I'd advise against it. No, this is a recovery move. Your downwards descent will be halved while you move through the leaves, giving you an alternative to that god-awful Up Special. And hey, you might even be able to gimp with this, since it also slows upward movement by half. That is, assuming that it was the same attack which blasted you and your opponent away... and that you somehow ended up above them... and that they're slower than you in the air... erm, maybe gimping isn't the best idea after all.
Back Aerial~ Deku Leaf
Wood Man's BAir is unnervingly similar to DK's FAir in appearance and use, but it only does 12% and has less of a spike. Once again, it's side effects to the rescue! If you use your BAir while using your Up Special, he'll do the same overhead motion... while holding the leaf as a fan with both hands. In effect, the giant gust of wind he makes (which doubles as a gimp, by the way) blows him backwards and upwards a good distance, say Marth's Up Special on a 45 degree angle. Use this to buff up your otherwise pitiful recovery. Oh! I forgot to mention, if you use this move so that the gust of wind blows through a cloud of leaves from your DAir, the gimp will also deal 10%! It's not worth actually setting up, but if you happen to see the chance, take it.
Right right, the gimp's strength... it's about as powerful as half a second's blast from the FLUDD.
Throws
Grab~ Root
Wood Man has a bit of a twist on the standard ranged grab. About a battlefield's platform away from where Wood Man is facing, (remember that FTilt? =O) several small roots will pop out of the ground. If an opponent is standing there, their feet will become entangled, completing the grab. This move, of course, suffers from the usual horrendous lag of ranged grabs.
Pummel~ Constrict
I've been meaning to use this pummel title for a while. Or did I already use it? And why the heck am I introducing a PUMMEL for Christ's sake?
The roots around the opponent feet quickly tighten and release their grip, doing about 2% damage at a speed comparable to Wolf's pummel.
Front Throw~ Sitting Duck
What's this? A move with actual knockback? Agi, how could you?
Wood Man rediscovers his penchant for pigskins with this attack. With the opponent standing tantalizingly in front of him and running out of canonical nature-based attacks to use, he's going to have to result to using brute force. Basically, he runs forward and slams into the foe, dealing 12% with moderate diagonal knockback. He has a bit of ending lag as he slows himself down, giving passers-by an opportunity to retaliate.
Up Throw~ Hangman
Hangman indeed. This attack really doesn't make much sense, considering that the opponent was grabbed by the roots of some arbitrary tree, but I'm gonna work with it.
The roots that were grabbing the opponent suddenly disappear when you input this throw, and for all intensive purposes, it looks like they escaped. But of course they didn't! While they're still in shock from being released, (you know what I'm talking about,) a small tree (two SB blocks high) suddenly shoots up from underneath them, and suspends them in midair! They'll dangle from the top branch by their shirt collar if they have one, or maybe long hair or a tail. The point is, they'll be stuck in midair for two seconds, less if they can button mash out.
Wheee arbitrarily creative moves which stun the opponent giving you a chance to set up. Did I say that?
Down Throw~ Plant/Transplant
Maybe the UThrow wasn't enough for you. It's a good enough stall, but it's true that it lacks in areas. Thankfully, the DThrow is a bit better when it comes to holding foes in place. To start the move off, the many roots entangling the foe's feet begin to writhe after a point in their direction from Wood Man. After a short period of time, during which your victim looks down concernedly, the roots will pull down on their feet, releasing a large cloud of dust which obscures their descent into the ground. When the cloud settles, they will be trapped with only their head sticking out of the ground for about four seconds. This is more than enough time to set up some brambles, get a head-start on a tree, or topple one down on them.
Broken, you say? Well... maybe. The balance of any stunning move is hard to gauge, and this one is certainly no exception. There are some aspects of Wood Man's moveset itself that work against this particular trap. Being trapped down to the the head will cover them from all but a single leaf from your FSmash, making it difficult for you to deal damage. It also prevents them from taking any knockback until they squirm their way out, even if you topple the tallest tree on them.
As is this move description wasn't long enough already, here's another idea. Say you walk up right next to the foe and use a grab. Wood Man will rest his palm on top of their head, and close his eyes. Pummeling here will cause him to give the foe a noogie for 4%, but their retaliation (varying by character, Pikachu will flash with lightning, ROB will overheat, Ganondorf will actually try to bite Wood Man's hand) will cause Wood Man to back off, making this process ridiculously slow. No, try throwing them. Inputting left or right will cause Wood Man to push his hapless opponent into the ground. This looks particularly cool on fall-through platforms. Now, about half a second later, they'll pop back out (unharmed) about battlefield's radius in the direction you specified, on their feet and ready to run. Away. From the tree that you should have falling towards them right about now.
Back Throw~ Nettles
Once again running out of ideas and unwilling to give Wood Man yet another stunning/slow down move, our hero decides to use the crowd favorite... a constant-damage move! Wood Man's BThrow causes the roots around the foes' feet to do something funky that I can't quite visualize, resulting in your opponent's fall toward Wood Man, which ends in a faceplant. Directly beneath them now lies a bed of nettles, which somehow appeared! They're going to have to get off of the 1.5x Battlefield Platform-wide bed of nettles quickly... they'll take 5% per second as long as they stand on it. Not too difficult under normal circumstances, but let's say that they were standing in some brambles when they got grabbed. Anyways, the bed will disappear as soon as the opponent escapes its grasp. You might almost think it was disappointed that it let its prey go.
Final Smash
It pains me to be almost done with this set, check Wood Man's bio on the Megaman wiki, and discover that his main dislike is harm to nature. So I'll just pretend that I never read that and continue with the Final Smash I'd already planned.
When Wood Man uses his Final Smash, there's no close-up, no special animation, nothing besides the disappearance of the glow in his eyes and an extremely loud sawing noise that even suggests that he used it. Wait, sawing noise?
About a second and a half after inputting the attack, a creaking, groaning sound is heard. And a second after that, the first sign of doom is revealed... a giant redwood in the process of falling sneaks in towards the top of the screen. It'll fall through the whole playing field, and disappear off the bottom of the screen, finally crashing to the ground with a massive thump about two seconds after passing through. Unless an opponent has the incredible timing to spotdodge it, they'll take a hefty 50% and become grounded or spiked, giving you time to set up further. (y)
Playstyle
Wood Man. Yet another set-up moveset from the one-track mind of agidius. With so many moves to hinder the foe's movement, and one glaringly obvious finishing attack, this playstyle is basically going to write itself. Let's start with setup.
Set-up
The wisest and safest course of action at the beginning of the match is to throw down some brambles. They'll grow over the next couple of seconds to give you something like a base of operations. If you're on a larger course, continue to spread them all around without worrying about finesse, but on a smaller course it would be a good idea to break out your Leaf Blower. Cover a good amount of the playing field with leaves, using the pushing effect from the attack to keep your distance. Continue to spread brambles underneath the leaves. They'll keep growing, hidden, but ready when you need them.
Once you get a satisfactory area covered, you may want to start growing a tree, whether it's hidden until the leaves or out in the open. This will be the most defensive, stally part of the match, so you've gotta have some tools to keep the foe at bay. Fortunately, you have plenty. If you take your attention away from the tree for a while, your UTilt->FTilt->Throw chain will give you plenty of uninterrupted time to keep building. The huge tangles of brambles are a basic, but still very effective tool that you can use if the foe has a particularly poor horizontal recovery. It'll be up to you to find the opponents' myriad weaknesses and exploit them to your benefit.
On the Offensive
Toppling your tree while the opponent is vulnerable before they can get it it themselves can be a significant challenge. As mentioned several times throughout the set, finding the combination of stunning throws and brambles which works for you is absolutely essential.
More often than not, you'll find yourself in a little predicament... you're on the same side of the tree that your foe is! It's a simple fix, though. Your FAir comes to the rescue. If you jump towards the tree and use it, ol' Woody will swing around to the other side, free to inflict nature's wrath without fear for his own welfare. Now, apart from this problem, your UTilt->FTilt->UThrow with brambles at the base will probably see some good use. But that's just one sort of attack, what else does Wood Man have up his sleeve?
The gimp from the DAir is actually a lot more useful than I made it out to be in the description. Double jump offstage, using DAirs along the way, and surf back to the stage with your Up Special. When you get close to your starting position, a BAir will get Wood Man back onstage and simultaneously blow leaves and foe away! There are plenty of other combinations out there, too. For example, after setting up and hiding thorny brambles using your DTilt, NAir, and FSpecial in tandem, you can ground opponents with a DThrow, get out of the way, and blow the leaves away with a Neutral Special. While they panic and attempt to fight their way out of the brambles, taking damage with every false move, knock over a tree on top of them for the grand finale. There are plenty more interactions that would make this playstyle section even longer, but it's up to you to find them as after completing a moveset I become a lazy jerk.
