As you play more and more Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online and face better and better players, you’ll notice a recurring character and kart combination in online races: Waluigi using the Wild Wiggler bike. At first you might be wondering if it’s some sort of sick joke…but the truth is much worse.
It turns out there is a very valid reason for players picking this combination. A quick dive will show why this build is so popular.
Waluigi Wild Wiggler Build in MK8DX
In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, there are a plethora of characters, karts and wheels to choose from, each with their own stats. The stats you see in-game are: speed, acceleration, weight, handling and traction.
Each stat serves an important function, but as players get more and more experienced in MK8DX, certain stats become more of a priority to get an edge in the competition. For example, players who are more comfortable with drifting and turns may forgo higher stats in handling and traction in favor of speed and acceleration, and let their skill as a driver make up for the lost stats in the former.
Additionally, there are some stats that exist in the game that are “hidden” (i.e: they don’t appear in the game screen but they are real and important to the gameplay.) One of these is mini-turbo, the boost you get from completing a successful drift. Because of the abundant amount of turns in MK8D tracks, having solid mini-turbo allows you to get the most out of every turn. The mini-turbo stat is very closely aligned with the acceleration stat, so anything you use to boost acceleration will have a similar effect on the mini-turbo.
As you get to higher and higher levels, where players are more familiar with tracks and efficient with their drifting and driving skills, the stats that you’ll see prioritized are speed and acceleration. It allows for most speed off drifts, quicker acceleration at the beginning of races or when you’ve been hit/fallen off the track and a general higher top speed.
The build that prioritizes these stats looks like:
- Waluigi (character)
- Wild Wiggler (bike)
- Roller (wheels)
- Paper glider
And there’s more! In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, characters and their builds have “hitboxes” which determine how easy they are to be hit by items, how easy it is to fall off the track, and basically determine where they are on the track. The Waluigi Wiggler build provides the smallest hitboxes for the player, making it harder to be hit by items and easier to stay on the good parts of the road.
It’s important to note that the Waluigi Wiggler Build is not an auto-win combination; it helps maximize the stats that experienced Mario Kart 8 Deluxe players need to take their game to the next level. But the build relies on solid fundamentals to work efficiently; if you don’t know your tracks by heart, can’t drift reliably and don’t have a solid grasp of how to race, the build won’t solve any of your problems.
And while the Waluigi Wiggler build can help maximize an efficient player’s skills, at the end of the day, it is Mario Kart; anything can happen.