You can Mushroom dodge Blue Shells in Mario Kart 8! <(^_^<)

[famousringo]

HylianSwordsman said:
Mushroom dodging too? First they create an item that destroys them, now you can dodge them? Slowly but surely, they're getting the balance with blue shells right. Blue shells are a very needed item, and I hope they never totally get rid of them, but having some defenses against them leaves little room to complain. Where as before there was no strategy involved, just the luck of staying in first place long enough to finish before you're blue shelled, now there's strategy, with a fairly common item in the horn that provides a great defense, and a very common item in the mushroom that provides a good defense, so you just need to find one of those and save the item. Items add another layer of strategy to the game, and are a huge part of what makes me like Mario Kart over other racing games.

While your point that item strategy becomes more important is valid, staying in the lead isn't about luck. It's about being skilled enough to use all the advantages of being first to pile on more lead time while everybody else fights amongst themselves. The best players can build up enough of a lead that it takes a streak of blue shells to dethrone them.

@Einsam

If the blue shell is essential for balance as one of the few weapons that can attack the leader, I don't see how nerfing that weapon's effect on the leader and adding it as yet another hazard for everybody else improves balance. Getting into second or third is almost always one or two lucky items away. It's the leader who can build an insurmountable lead.

Reviews are of course complaining about too many blue shells now, because the only balanced responses to a weaker blue shell is to either add more weapons that target the leader (which would only get vilified as much as the blue shell), nullify some of the leader's many advantages, or simply make the blue shell more common.