Mario Kart's Lightweight Problem... 

Waluigi on the flame rider is fun. I don’t even care about the stat decrease he has always been my favorite. Starting all the way back on the WiiU

Now I actually feel bad for lightweights. Toadette's my number one main and Isabelle is my number two. I tend to go casual play with Toadette on the Cat Cruiser. Come on, look at that combination and tell me it's not cute. I bet you can't. My friend even plays Dry Bones. He doesn't even care how much his lead *falls apart,* he's able to *put himself back together,* for the most part (get it? 'cause Dry Bones falls apart and puts himself back together? Okay, I'll leave now). Point being: Lightweights need more love. At least increase their speed to a two for some of them (like Toadette. How dare you take away some of her I-frames. The heck did she do to hurt you, Nintendo? I really don't get the nerf for a character that wasn't competetively viable. In fact, that contradicts your entire philosophy of giving less fortunate charachters a fighing chance- *dies from sheer confusion*).

As a King Boo main I respect lightweights and wish a saw more character varaity than 11 Yoshis per race

This is a very good video. Us lightweight mains live a struggle everytime we play online, but we hang in there lol. Top-tier thumbnail as well.

I don’t care what the meta tells me, I’m still gonna use my lil’ buddy Toad on Mr. Scooty with Rollers, and I’m still able to beat all of the Yoshi Teddybuggy users.

As a shyguy main, im glad to see our representation, lightweigjt mains say strong

THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!! I never understood why lightweights didn’t do well competitively besides getting bumped around so much. This helps a lot, but it won’t ever stop me from maiming the lightweights It also makes me incredibly happy to see someone love my girl Toadette as much as I do.

After wave 6 update it's sad Nintendo kept neglecting lightweight characters. I know they're meant to be slow while having their strong points on other things like handling or MT, but having so low speed can't make up for those lukewarm "advantages". I'm gonna still maining ma' boy Toad till the end of the days, but I don't like being punished in exchange for nothing because I'm not maining a Yoshi class who has the same MT but way more speed But I think the solution is simple (also Nintendo can't buff MT because lightweights have already the maximun allowed): -Toad class: +1 (+0.25) Speed, -1 (-0.25) Invincibility; to give a disadvantage compared to Cat Peach class -Toadette class: +1 (+0.25) Speed, +1 (+0.25) Traction -Koopa class: +1 (+0.25) Speed -Babies/Dry Bones class: +1 (+0.25) Speed -Baby princesses/Lemmy classes: +2 (+0.5) Speed With that they can be a little bit more viable and not overlap their own advantages compared to other lightweights (princesses having the highest handling, Koopa the highest traction, etc). Even if the BCP is over I think Nintendo can keep releasing balance updates once in a while, and I really hope they put an eye on lightweights, they sure deserve more love

At least the Baby Princesses are meta in Battle Mode considering their super small hitboxes

I am so happy RU-vid recommended me this video! I've been a toadette main since 2017 and I play the game quite competitively (Online and in person tournaments and stuff) . I only know a handful of competitve players who play with lightweights but I totally agree winning with lightweights when no one expects you to is super satisfying. Most people in the competitive community just know me for playing with toad and toadette lol. I do unfortunately have to agree that there's no reason to actually use a lightweight if all you care about it stats and I would love to see a some buffs for our girl! But at the end of the day who cares about stats when you have cute pigtails and a funny voice am I right. Lovely video thanks for making it.

I honestly hope we get a speed buff for the lightweights

I'm one of the very few small mii mains that I see in the higher VR lobbies. Really hope we can see more lightweights in the future, because as it is I can only see so many yoshis in the same kart combo before I am driven mad

As a toad main I feel this. In my esports matches anytime got hit I pretty much knew it was all joever.

I switched from Dry Bones Biddybuggy to Yoshi Teddybuggy and instantly improved my times on Mario Kart Stadium and Water Park by 3 seconds and 4 seconds respectively. It’s crazy how much time you save over lightweights, and that’s with no one bumping you around, hitting you with items, and knocking you off the map, just pure stats.

Toad is the OG lightweight character and you can't argue with the fact 😅

My problem is how the medium class outclasses the light weight class in mini turbo! The female alts, light-medium class and male alts outclass half of the light class other than the baby class and the light mii class. Before wave 4 ,female alts, light-medium class and male alts had 3.50 mini turbo and when wave 4 came out they increased the mini turbo by 0.25 for the light-medium class because of birdo because they wanted to see use in her. As of now only the Mario class and Luigi class have 3.50 mini turbo which light-medium class had pre wave 4. My hopes for wave 6 balance patch changes. Female lights invincibility increase from 3.25 to 3.50 Female Alts, Light-Medium class and Male Alts Mini turbo decrease from 3.75 to 3.50 Light-Medium Class and Male Alts Invincibility increase from 2.75 to 3.00 Mario Class and Luigi Class Mini turbo decrease from 3.50 to 3.25 Invincibility increase from 3.25 to 3.50 Light Cruiser Invincibility decrease from 3.50 to 3.25 Metal Class Invincibility increase from 3.25 to 3.50 With these changes this would fix the hole medium characters class not outclassing the light weight class in mini turbo, and would maybe give a lot more variety online in again.

Wow this video is actually rlly informative. nice job!

Hey. This is a great video. I can see that you are a smaller channel and are trying hard to grow. I just want to say that this video was excellent, from the scripting to the transitions it was great. Keep it up bud

My mains are toad and toadette and I use the city tripper and I have a lot of fun with it. In stuff like worldwides, I still find great success at 12K vr range, and counting. Personally, I hope that lightweights get bonus off road stats, to the point of being able to drift off road for longer than say, Yoshi, basically making shroomless shortcuts far easier. I hope toadette gets the most of this, as it would be a nice callback to Mario Kart Wii and toadette having an off road stat in that game One thing I would like to add however, is about what you said about time trials. Sure they’re different, but they have helped me a lot in races. Dk Summit in particular is one of my best tracks and I can’t think of the last time I haven’t gotten first on there Subscribed for maining toadette :)

Being a Lemmy main, I can say that this is pretty accurate. I usually dominate on tour tracks and others, but tracks like moon view highway and rock rock mountain is where I get destroyed due to having harder areas to do mini turbos. Good video btw, really well done

great video! it's great to see people touch on lightweights, barely anyone seems to play them nowadays

i usually just use koopalings + bowser jr. ludwig/iggy/wendy for competitive (i used roy exclusively before wave 4 & morton on blue falcon for wii u) and larry/lemmy/bowser jr for time trials also switch playback speed to 1.25x for actual normal talking speed

I have a feeling Nintendo will buff the mini turbo on most lightweights in the next dlc update. Yoshi now has the second best mt stat for a medium weight, so it makes sense for characters like shy guy, toadette and lakitu to get a mt buff since they all have the same mt stat as Yoshi. If this does happen it will make light weights very viable for competitive play. For vehicle parts, if they want to "nerf" roller tires, the best they can do is buff the mt stat on the leaf tires. And of course, the fastest vehicles will probably get another mt buff.

Despite the uphill battles for us lightweight mains, it just makes winning all the more satisfying. Over the past few years, I have grown towards playing as Baby Rosalina, and she's continued to be my main ever since.

Yea I totally agree with this. My mains are baby Luigi and sometimes toad and shy guy and it does feel a bit more hard to win, but the are super cute and it feels better when I win with them. Great vid!

I’ve been a Dry Bones main since MK-DS and MK-WII all because I love them to bits and Toadette was my second favourite character I enjoyed using but dang lightweights getting done dirty in online play like damn 😔

From how I personally see it, Light Weights tend might be seen as "Crutch Characters". Character's that are really great to use for newer players but fall off more and more as the competition gets tighter. Meanwhile heavy characters like say Bowser seem to be more "Risk vs Reward" where they sacrifice handling and acceleration for more Speed and Weight. You can mitigate some weaknesses with specific combinations or you could try to make Handling a more important stat, like say it makes it much harder to take sharper corners but I feel that speed will always be an important stat, so heavy weights may always have that advantage over Light Weights but I could be wrong on that. I don't play Mario Kart super competitively but from my own experience, even your playing with the character and combination that gives you "Optimum Performance", the player is the one to make it work. I did try Waluigi, Wiggler Bike and while I can see the advantages, I never got used to playing it despite it being the meta at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if their were people who know Yoshi is dominant at the moment online but simply don't like using them, even if they attempted to make them work multiple times. I feel the best way to play the game is finding what character and kart combo works for you and making use of the advantages that combination has. I personally use Toadette and tend to go with more balanced vehicles with a focus on speed since she has naturally high acceleration and handling. I've had match's where I've been screwed and matches where I have nothing go my way and matches where I've completely dominated. I could very well be wrong but I feel that's a good way to get better at the game while having a comfortable time playing.

watch, wave 6 you're gonna see dry bones and shy guys filling every single lobby

Playback speed x1.5 is a godsend here.

Toadette main here. I agree with this. Also lightweights all go: Balls to the wall in favor of Mini-turbo over speed!

Nice video man! I find myself using the baby princesses and sometimes other lightweights 95% of my games, it's rough being a lightweight main but damn does it feel good to get first in a lobby full of yoshi teddybuggys lol

It's funny that lightweight drivers are meta in Tour's multiplayer. However the single player modes rely on heavyweights and Miis (which are always mediumweight in Tour).

Great video! And thanks for featuring my comment. (14:18)

I've always been a lightweight or small character user in pretty much any game, even outside racing, so it's always gonna be my thing no matter what

The meta is always going to be one specific combo with only slight variants in pretty much any racing game. The reasons to pick non-meta combos is their safety and ease of use, as meta combos tend to be hard to use. The difference between the lowest and highest speed in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is only about 6 percent, which is about the same difference between lowest and highest coins. Picking middle weights get through the course the fastest, but has a medium amount of risk. Picking lightweights get through a little slower, but are easier to use and have less risk. Wanna know what heavy weights have? They get through courses the slowest and are the riskiest to play thanks to their large hitboxes and terrible acceleration/handling. The only advantage they have is weight, but the weight stat is so subtle in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, combined with dragged items being overpowered (as well as lag trailing), meaning the weight stat is pretty much useless. In older versions, heavy characters were good, but heavy kart parts sucked, meaning the meta was still midweight combos. (Waluigi is heavy, but Wild Wiggler and Roller Wheels are light). Even when I play 5 weights, I get rammed off like seen on the SNES Rainbow Road clip all the time if I don't have a dragged item. If heavy characters can't get though the course the fastest and get messed up by items and driving mistakes the most, I at least think they should have some advantage , like being able to hit racers really far out with weight, and more powerful attack items, like their shells are bigger and faster. (and finally nerf dragged items, it's been a broken mechanic since Mario Kart 64 (except Double Dash. One way could be to slow down the racer if they drag an item for more than a second or two.)

I originally used DK + Standard Bike when I got into MK8DX online, to use a version of the meta that I liked more, as a DK fan and liking bikes more than ATVs. When Wave 4 came out, I was ecstatic that Link became the meta, and used him with Teddy Buggy. I heard it had shifted by the time Wave 5 came out though, and I tried using Yoshi + Teddy Buggy to keep up with the meta. I didn’t like it though, and after some experimentation, landed on Link + Mr. Scooty as my personal ideal set up. Uses my favorite character while retaining excellent stats but giving me slightly more control and mini turbo than the Teddy Buggy, as well as being a bike, which I perform best with. I tried using King Boo to switch things up, but something about his model throws me off, so Link remains my boy. Now I’m just waiting for Wave 6 to force me to start using Pink Gold Peach or something 🗿

As a KoopaTroopa and Dry bones main i can agree it's rough out here in the Mario kart streets😔✊

personally. i don't think it's the character stats that are the problem for lightweights. it's the Karts heavyweights and midweights are able to get by because the karts typically have less speed taken to add stats that heavyweights want, but the karts that add speed drastically chunk your handling and mini turbo which just makes the lightweights unable to properly use them without just being worse midweights a heavyweight character like bowser with all handling-focused parts (biddy buggy, rollers and cloud) is able to be viable but a lightweight character like shy guy with all speed-focused parts (mach 8, slick, gold) isn't. there's an imbalance of the lightweights just not being able to "spend" their points wisely enough to tussle with the best of them because there's no combinations that let them do that without the other weights just kindof being better

great video!! i think the only reason we need lightweights is because of their cuteness :3 that’s the greatest stat of them all

I main Light Blue Shy Guy on the Sport Bike and I have for years but in the past couple weeks it feels like my VR bracket has just gotten extremely aggressive. I was just getting decimated by bumps and Items so I'm on a small rebellion with Male Villager Pipe Frame because I'm not interested in the actual meta builds. I hope the next update buffs Shy Guy so I can feel safe online with my real main.

Koopa main here, with the Yoshi bike of all things. This is so true. I win with pure skill and chaining turbos like in MKDS, and also that Yoshi bike shares the same stats with teddy buggy, but it's inside drift

Crazy how in Smash bros, heavy weights are "bad" But in Mario Kart 8 its the opposite 😂

Less than 1k subs wow. Get there soon this vid is great

I don't really use Lightweights, but I main Heavyweights. SPECIFICALLY Bowser/Dry Bowser. I also *never* use Rollers, using near *exclusively* Cushion tires. I never use Biddy/Scooty. I never use Teddy (only the Comet Bike when I feel like using Inside Drift), and I never use Inkstriker (mainly Sports Coupe for that group). My favorite vehicles to use are Sports Coupe, Koopa Clown, and Master Cycle Zero at the moment. MT spam will NOT stop me from using my favorite character, and what I like.

Speed should not correlate with weight. End of story.

I used to spam shy guy pre wave 4, i had no idea about character stats back then lmao

I never use heavyweights or middle weighted due to me literally using either Toad or Toadette

My original combo was metal Mario and Flame Rider. But I switched after taking a break from the game to Dry Bones and Biddy Buggy.

I was thrown off by "this character is the meta" because online can be difficult so i wanted a fighting chance. But this makes me want to go back to my 2nd main.... Toad. We dont talk about my 1st main

After DS; the lightweights couldn’t recover from it

Ayo, where my fellow Bowser Jr. Mains at? (Fun Fact: Bowser Jr. is a meta character in Double Dash since he can climb aboard the Barrel Train!)

Maybe if Diddy K is coming as one of the last characters in the BP, Nintendo will buff lightweigh class

I'm surprised you didn't go into more detail about how Kart combos. It's really easy for heavy and mid weights to get good mini-turbo stats using Roller tires, but lightweights choosing speed builds don't get as much benefit. If Rollers were nerfed or if speed tires got another round of buffs, we might see lightweights improve.

this is a great video especially since i main a light weight mii

i’ve always used yoshi on whatever the meta kart is, in mk7, for example, that’s yoshi, b dasher, red monster. now yoshi’s the meta i’m using the real meta combo, but i’m doing it because i actually like yoshi and not just because his stats are good.

This hurts to know as a Isabelle main☹️

nice man! i wish lightweights were used more in competitive play too!

My main is Koopa Troopa in the pipe frame with standard tires and parachute. He just look very good in it.

It may be true that Lightweights can struggle in online play but unless you're me who likes to choose Koopa and Dry bones just because they're awesome, I don't see this as a big deal but it is noticeable that we can be slower than the pack

As a lightweight main (shy guy and Larry, occasionally toad) I like using prancer and rollers for mini turbo but we need a speed buff

Lightweights honestly fair better than heavyweights in this game, because they actually have a viable mode in 200CC, unlike heavyweights

i front run with toadette most games. Coming from wii, its nice not to go flying every time someone touches you at least

As a Lakitu main I feel this

a benefit to using lightweights is that they can use snaking much easier, a strategy to make up for speed by chaining blue mini-turbos together

As a previous Isabelle main, ough it’s rough out there

I'm looking forward to Diddy Kong's potential return in wace 6! I'd definitely main him!

If you use koopa/lakatu/Bowser jr on yoshi bike/comet on ancient tiers on super/hylian/waddle wing for super sharp turns similar to Mario kart Wii

Lightweights are the way to go for 200cc, because acceleration/handling is king in that game mode. And speed is often a hindrance when you're already going so fast

As someone who uses Lakitu, this is unfortunately true.

I like using Baby Mario & Red Yoshi Mr Scooty, red roller wheels and the golden glider

I main lightweights for the mini turbo, with biddybuggy and any rollers with cloud glider

i use the goofiest combos online ( the one i do the most now is Mii, comet, off road, and the peach parasol 💀) and i still win somehow so to me its weird to see people arguing abt what characters r the best

Ever since I originally got Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U I've played with Toadette whenever I play with my siblings, online, or whatever. I always have used the biddybuggy rollers, simply cause I thought it was cute and silly. To this day it's still my go to combo whenever I play Mario Kart 8.

i'm still picking pink shy guy with cat cruiser idec

I’ve been playing bowser jr with yoshi bike, standard wheels and paper glider and I feel like I keep up no problem, idk maybe I just found something that works for me being that I use inside drift bike

My favorite characters to use are Mario, Toadette, and my Mii.

I think lightweights have a place in the 200cc meta, but that’s about it.

Both > mini turbo > speed. Me personally yoshi + yoshi bike + rollers + paper is perfect

could you do a video on how they could fix bikes?

Toadette is my main too! Hopefully Wave 6 buffs her and the other lightweights.

9:33 yo I love Larry on the city tripper. I see what you are saying but I use Larry city tripper “like a said before “ with the monster wheels and always beat my family so if you use high speed combos you can get away with a lightweight

Shy guy on the streetle is so much fun!

I mostly stuck with isebelle alot otherwise would have been a yoshi still

still gonna pick dry bones anyway, has always been one of favs since ds

I won to a Waluigi Stanard Bike GLA tiers, with a Lakitu Wild Wiggler Rollers, tell me how bad light weights can be

yoshi biddybuggy was my old main same with dry bones biddybuggy before dlc

Get bumped off the track or far into the off road just like MKW it very scary and MKDS don’t count because any weight class character in that game can anything.

I main Rosalina, Baby Rosalina and Toad, so they need more love, 100%

Mi faves are Daisy, baby Daisy and Toadette and I managed to win w/ all of them at least once! To be fair I don't have many online points, and I use them w/ inside drift. Baby Daisy also has a lot of invincibility and acceleration, so it isn't as frustating playing as her lol

Don’t quote me on this, but Toad is only slower than Yoshi by 0.25, and shares the smallest hit box in the game

The only thing better than maining Luigi is maining him after wave 4. I always used him and now he's one of the top dogs in the game!

shy guy is the best character

Larry will always be my favourite. I just love his design.

baby peach gang stay based

yoshi gang is raising up

y’all MK8 players have it easy, i don’t have a switch so i play MK7 and the metal mario’s are rampant online and easily dominate the servers

I literaly main shy guy, and i can get 1 easly. The meta of this game doesnt matter

Well, i spended too loong time search for streamers and yt creators who is specislist at some light wight characters. The only that i knew the channel was 'whatjirach'. I love to see PEOPLE MASTERIZING THINGS that is not supose to 'work'. i knew a tournament that i forgot the name, where the rule is 3v3, but each player have to choose a diferent wieght character each.

Dry bones will always be my favorite

Mario kart yay