Dribbling (And How To ACTUALLY Do It Well)

Many people want to know how to dribble and only have an extremely basic understanding of it: Ball on car, car move = ball move, the end.

When I started, that's all I knew. I sucked. After a month of dribbling practice I completed dribbling challenges and then managed to win games solely off of my dribbling skills.

What I'm going to share with you is what I would have wanted my beginner dribbling self to know.

Here is a Chart that I Made: https://imgur.com/a/KwF6e This shows you where to hit the ball when you are dribbling to get it to move the direction you want.

I put that chart there because when I first began juggling I would use 4 or 5 (On the chart, look at it) to turn the ball and I would fail miserably, losing control of the ball completely in frustration for multiple hours. I should have used 9 or 8.

Eventually I figured out how to do it, and I'm hoping I can save you the frustration by showing you what the solution is so you don't have to spend hours looking for it.

Some General Tips:

Tip One: You need boost to juggle a ball that is standing still. Hit the ball at about 25-50% of your max speed (Not including boost). The slower you hit it, the higher it pops up. Use your boost to get under the ball after you pop it up. If it is moving, the best way to juggle it is to cut it. If it is going → then you can cut it with ↑ or ↖ or ← but not ↗ or → unless the ball is going verrrry slow in which case you can assume the ball is standing still and then cut it from any direction. Summed up: Hit the ball slow, then boost to get underneath it and then begin your juggle. If it is moving, cut it instead of hitting it the same direction it is already travelling.

Tip Two: Go Sloowwww. The ball isn't going anywhere. I spend roughly 40% of my time juggling the ball NOT accelerating or boosting. The ball will travel forwards. If you do not move, the ball will overtake you and lose some speed since the Center of Mass was riding the back of your car which causes the ball to slow down. So instead of making many choppy movements to correct the ball, try instead just NOT moving. Summed up: Don't make many choppy movements. Try letting the ball go forwards and slow down instead of boosting and losing control to correct the ball's position.

Tip Three: This one may seem obvious, but you might not be thinking about it while you are dribbling. Holding the Jump button down makes you jump higher. When trying to turtle hop the ball straight up in the air, you might forget to hold the Jump button and instead try to quickly double tap the Jump button. However, that doesn't give you nearly the same amount of height or flick potential. Summed up: Hold the jump button for more ball height and flick potential when juggling

Tip Four: When the ball isn't constantly bouncing off of your car while juggling and is instead smoothly resting atop your car, the ball is in full control (Assuming the ball isn't at supersonic speed). When I started, the ball never sat still. It bounced multiple times because my movements were choppy [Tip 2]. After a while, I was doing 90 degree turns and catch n' carries with minimal bouncing. I make my old self look bad. Summed up: If the ball is not bouncing while staying on top of your car, you are dribbling with lots of control. Do that.

Tip Five: Your "Skill" of dribbling is your ability to accurately and swiftly move the ball by using its pivot point. The pivot point is the point on a car in which the ball will remain balanced and neither accelerate nor decelerate. It is the perfect balance spot for the ball on your car. Knowing where this point is, and how to move the ball around by using it, is my definition of skill for dribbling. This isn't always in the middle of the ball. It takes practice to understand where it is on a car since the hitboxes of cars are not perfect rectangular prisms. Summed up: The pivot point. This is what you should know and feel better than your mother's name if you want to be a good dribbler.

Turtle Hopping - Putting the ball directly in the middle or slightly behind the mid-line (line that runs horizontally through the middle of your car) and then jumping straight up. This puts the ball over any potential attacking rocketeers. This sets you up for a Catch n' Carry, Flick, and a Transition into an air dribble. Intermediate move.

Flicking - Putting the ball in the air using a turtle hop, then flipping your car in a way that sends the ball in a direction. My favorite is diagonal flipping to flick the ball. Lots of force and direction change. The most common type is a backwards flip which causes the ball to go very high up. Good for setting your team up for aerials or frustrating an attacking enemy. The ball also retains some of the initial speed. If you flick while near supersonic speed, the ball will go the flicked direction with such speed.

Faking - Making the opponent miss the ball in the belief that you were going to hit it but did not. Works best in 1's and in mid-high elo. (Low elo = "me hit ball" thought processes) Swerving your car works best. Go through the motion of hitting the ball then stop. Do not just stand next to the ball while hoping the opponent derps out and whiffs the ball. Watch this to see how it works well on high elo players as Squishy will embarrass his opponents: https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/70z0sl/squishy_with_the_best_fake_ive_ever_seen/

Transitioning into an air dribble - Definitely the hardest technique. You need to perform a turtle hop, then tilt your car toward the ball, then boost away while rotating your car to change the direction of the ball. If you are within 1.5 Seconds of jumping off of the ground, you can flick the ball with a dodge. Very hard to predict, Great shot. This takes some practice.

This play includes basically everything I talked about in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/6mts83/arguably_my_favorite_dribble_flick/ First, he just controls the ball. Basic skill. Second, he cuts the ball from the angles that I discussed. Third, he puts the ball on "7" which accelerates the ball very quickly. Fourth, he does a turtle hop to the ball. Fifth, he executes a transition into an air dribble. Sixth, he executes a flick in midair. This is a perfect gif that explains everything I talked about.

The Best Way to Improve? Practice!

My favorite form of practice (And Best, in My opinion) is dribbling practice levels which are downloadable in steam workshop. If you don't know how to download them, I found this helpful guy to show you how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK69QR5m3SA

Select a dribbling course practice map, download it, then launch the map in Rocket League.** I recommend Dribbling Challenge 1.2 and Dribbling Challenge 2, both by content creator French Fries.**

Practice as much as you can and you will be a dribbling God.

Good luck Rocketeers!

Edit One: Grammar + Thanks for Gold!

Edit Two: Revised the Chart for Clarity and some type fixes. Added 5th Tip and explained the Term "Pivot Point"

Edit Three: More grammar, Addition to tips including more descriptive text and Links to examples.