Rocket League Top 10 Pro Skills (Mechanics) You Need To Master For Ranking Top

Want to rank up to Grand Champion? Want go to be Pro in Rocket League? In this guide, we introduce the 10 Rocket League Mechanics you'll need to master before going Pro!

Top 10 - Double Jump Aerials

Despite the name, the double jump aerial is so much more than just pressing X twice before . It is in fact a fundamental mechanic if you want to play Rocket League to any sort of un-trocious standard. If you’re the only player in a match who can’t double jump aerial, you’ll be slowest to every ball. You’ll also use the most , and statistically have the least impressive genitalia out of anyone on the pitch.

How to do Double Jump Aerial? All you've got to do, is jump, then hold during your second jump, this means that you'll never stop , as your car ascends. You’ll launch into the air, at great speed, using only a fraction of the , it would otherwise take to reach such a majestic height. Amazingly, this even makes reverse aerials slightly less redundant. At lower levels, this’ll have you beating your opponents to almost every ball - even if they jump first.

Note: you may initially find yourself backflipping like a gnarly snowboarder, to fix this, take extra care to completely let go of the analogue stick before jumping the second time.

Top 9 - How and When to Take a First Touch

Knowing how and when to take a first touch can swing a game’s momentum in your favour. If your defence is being peppered and the ball drops your way, you must sometimes resist that temptation to just thwack it back in the opposition’s general direction. In 1s and 2s, you'll notice this happening all the time, that's because each car is blessed with an entire nebula of personal space around the pitch, it happens much more rarely in 3s though, because it's so much more rushed. Mostly, when your opponents are awaiting your next hit, like they're a bunch of desperate junkies on a porch, a first touch also prevents those moments where the ball will bounce off the wall and straight back into your danger zone. Just taking a touch here and dribbling into the corner can give your teammates the time they need to rotate back to defence, grab themselves some . Watch the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy and reset their positioning, Even if you do end up just getting tackled when you’re on the wall, even if you do end up just getting tackled when you’re on the wall. If, on the other hand, you are one of the offensive pepperers, a controlled first touch can give you an angle to shoot that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. To risk a first touch, you need to have situational awareness, choosing the wrong moment can lead to your opponents swarming you like attractive girls swarm me in a nightclub, so just clear those lines if there's any uncertainty.

Top 8 - Half Flip

The half flip’s great for defending counter-attacks, e.g. when you’re the third man and you’ve over-committed. With the half-flip, you can dodge back to your own goal, gain speed as usual and simultaneously rotate your car 180 degrees. If the ball's directly behind you, half flipping lets you hit it with power as you turn your car.

How to do Half Flip? The mechanics are simple. When reversing, dodge with your analogue stick held about one or two degrees left or right of directly downwards. You need your stick to be fractionally left or right of 180 degrees. If you’re dead central, this move will not work. When your car’s upside down, quickly flick your analogue stick directly upwards. As soon as you land, dodge forwards to keep momentum. We recommend taking to free play, to experiment with your timing.

Top 7 - Forcing a Pinch

Pinching is great. If you’re in a defensive, Pinch! But how do you replicate this when you're away from the wall? When two teammates are surfin' the same wavelength, they can force a pinch by driving into the ball at the same time. This is more opportunist than pre-planned, but a high level defence is always ready for the fallback.  When you're in that nasty situation where any aerial will rebound the ball into your own danger zone, you can force a wall pinch. Just follow the ball after making contact, and smoosh it against the wall in mid-air. Even if you can’t get a proper pinch, you can still block the ball as it rebounds. At the very least, this slows the game down enough that your teammates have more chance to recover. This also works in attack, and according to top mathematicians makes the ball 111.3% more difficult to read for the poor goalkeeper. Now, all you have to do is spam "Great pass!" until you get timed out from chat and/or abused over Steam messaging.

Top 6 - Doinks

The doink is the single most glorious Rocket League move in existence. The doink, in its infinite, glorious wisdom massages away the uncertainty of whether to redirect a goalbound ball or let it run. It’s a move so satisfying that even relatively tame ones lead to reactions as unashamedly lame as this.

How to do Doinks? To replicate this masterpiece, drive to where the ball’s gonna land and position yourself so it’ll hit the far edge of your car. As soon as ball and car connect, the split second they finally first touch, jump. Notice how your car barely leaves the ground, that's because all its momentum has been transferred to the ball which you can now admire, from afar, as it arcs deliciously into the goal. A true doinker can even doink in the air. No unsubtle dodging or ugly freestyling is necessary, just a simple, sophisticated single or double jump. After you make contact, the ball will level out horizontally, taking it over your opponents and into the back of the net.

Top 5 - Backflip Shot

Backflips are bloody fantastic at hitting the ball backwards, also comes in useful when shooting forwards. As redundant as this might sound, it actually provides a pretty neat advantage over a forward dodge: Instead of following the ball towards your opponent's goal, backflipping keeps your car exactly where it currently is.

How to do Backflip Shot?Just jump before you hit the ball, then backflip straight after you connect. You can then continue to apply pressure, take a stab at your own rebound or be ready to defend if your shots are as terrible as mine tend to be. It's also useful when hitting the ball towards the wall, as it stops your car landing awkwardly on its angle. If you really wanna get schwifty, dodge sideways or diagonally instead of backwards.

Top 4 - Air Dribble

There’s nothing we can say about air dribble mechanics that other YouTubers haven’t already explained a hundred and splargteen times. If you want to learn how to do air dribble, we recommend MasonRL’s excellent tutorial. Here, though, we're going to discuss some of the mind games at play when pro players get the chance to dribble balls down upon each other from the sky:

1) If you’re in the middle of an air dribble and your teammate flies towards you with an angle for goal, don’t be selfish. The defenders are likely to be keeping a close eye on you, meaning your teammate can ghost in relatively unnoticed and line themselves up for a shot. The pro player knows when to pull out and let their teammate take over.

2) If you are that teammate, consider whether the dribbler is more or less likely to score than you are. If they’re going to be taken the f-word out, go for it. Be wary, though: if you choose poorly and inadvertently tackle your teammate, they go be p-worded. To put any defenders off, you can even go for a fake.

3) If someone turns on the air dribs when you're in goal, stay patient. They're usually scored because the defender dives in early, while the dribbler still has plenty of . The longer they're airborne, the more the ball drops, and the less they can manipulate its flight. If you do feel you have to go early, aerial slightly higher than normal, because they're delaying the speed at which the ball falls. Of course, this then invites them to fake you, so prepare to nosedive at any moment.

Saying all that, staying in goal makes it more likely for the dribbler’s teammate to get a clear shot. Point being, when to stay and when to go relies on knowing the position of every player on the pitch, and making a decision based on this information. This decision-making is one of the things that separates the mechanically capable ‘keepers from the truly talented.

Top 3 - Aerial Backboard Self-Assist

This combines the beauty of the air dribble with the unpredictability of the backboard. After taking one or more aerial touches, power the ball over the goal, follow it up, and score the rebound yourself. It’s worth mentioning here that the backboard plays a huge role in high level Rocket League in general. As pro keepers are so good, strikers purposely aim certain shots above the goal. This slowly but surely draws the defence out of position, eventually leading to what can be considered an easy chance at that level.

Top 2 - Fakes A.K.A ‘Fooling With Style’

Pro Rocket Leaguers are a deceptive bunch of bastards. One minute you’re sure you’ve got the block on them, the next minute: this happens! The mechanics behind this fakery are simple: Look like you'll hit the ball, then Surprise! Fakes work because Rocket League is based so heavily on prediction. By faking, you use your opponent's own reading of the game against them. To practice dribbling fakes, do something I'm too perma-tilted to do and play 1v1s. See if you can goad your opponent into prematurely dodging by wiggle in your car, without ever actually hitting the ball. As mentioned earlier, another way to fake is to pull out of a redirect. This can leave the poor old keeper unsure where they should wait in the goal, as they don't know which angle the shot’s gonna come in from. Some pro teams even fake certain kick offs. The kicker offer misses on purpose, the ball then rolls towards their keeper, who can pick out a teammate for a counter-attack. If you're gonna try out the dumb kick off thing, we recommend you avoid doing so in Standard Solo. This is because your keeper will probably be off somewhere in Outer Narnia collecting a canister.

Top 1 - Wall > Backboard > Aerial

Just titling this move was almost as tricky as actually performing it. The mechanics behind this are simple! Unless you’re a noob. How to do this mechanics?

Step 1: Wait for the ball to roll up the side wall. Ideally, it should be about halfway up the pitch, and halfway up the wall. Drive into it at a slight upwards angle as fast as your little wheels will carry you. You must be Supersonic when you reach the ball, so until the last possible moment.

Step 2: Let go of and instantly dodge. Dodge too early and you’ll knock the ball forwards instead of outwards. You can also double jump here, but for now, we'll talk about dodging. If the ball's a few feet away from the wall, you’ll need to delay your dodge. Jump nice and early, then aileron roll. So your car is horizontal, at the last second, dodge forwards, however you hit the ball, make sure you aim above the goal.

Step 3: Instantly predict the ball’s bounce, and aerial in that direction. You need perfect wall reads to even connect with the rebound, let alone score from it

Step 4: Reach the ball before your opponents. If they beat you to it, you can still get a decent dunk. No one's gonna put your crappy dunks in a montage though, now are they.

Step 5: Pray you don’t disconnect before the match ends. Then save your replay - you’ve earnt it.

Now, don't expect to go out and do these moves with ease, no matter how simple pro players can make this look.  Remember, you need to practice these moves before perform them smoothly in gaming.