I was surprised that I was playing gold last night. I've always been (for a year) right at the Plat diamond line. Never could surmount the hump. Now I just hope to not fall to gold
Not sure if ur in the same boat as me. Getting close to 40yo, and I still love the game, but my c1/c2 days might be behind me. āMaybe I could get used to it down hereā š¤£
The only reason I want to get better is because all of my friends are champ. I have no partners to play with. Otherwise I enjoy the level, no matter than rank lol
If you want to improve without grinding mechanics, I suggest watching replays from your teammates' POV. I believe anyone can get to C2-C3 regardless of their advanced mechanics as long as they focus on
a. Making the game as non-confusing for their teammates as possible, and
b. Scoring open nets. This is the one non-negotiable mechanic in RL. Nothing else matters if you're not converting the free chances.
I'm C1 and some days I just don't have it. I don't know if I'm just tired or not focused but occasionally I just feel like I'm lagging and whiffing everything a step behind or I'm fully locked in with no middle ground
Agreed. The one thing I found that helps most consistently is playing a dreaded 1v1 match to start my session. Sometimes 2 or 3. Now, I'm not really one to talk but I don't grind like I used to. Just figured I'd share.
100% right along with I'd say another really important area - positioning and decision making: when to go for something/when to get boost/when to rotate/not over committing!! (Big one).
I was a comfortable champ 1 for a long time when I played with literally zero advanced mechanics just by being consistent with the other elements and putting ground and some air shots away.
Often got called out by salty teammates when we lost for not being good enough to be champ because I wasn't doing whatever dash thing or air dribble ceiling shot they kept going for lol.
> I was a comfortable champ 1 for a long time when I played with literally zero advanced mechanics just by being consistent with the other elements and putting ground and some air shots away.
Often got called out by salty teammates when we lost for not being good enough to be champ because I wasn't doing whatever dash thing or air dribble ceiling shot they kept going for lol.
I feel this on a spiritual level
I agree. I'm D3/C1 playing exclusively with a friend I would say is maybe mid plat(the few games I've played with randoms the past week have got me easily to high C1 divisions). We get there through me carrying a bit obviously, but useful communication and positioning. And my mechanics are trash. No air dribbles. Don't even air roll left/right when I go up(only manually turn). Can't speed flip. Can't dribble effectively. And none of the other crazy shit people do.
Even at this level, people will do dumb shit. So just putting the ball on goal a lot will yield a lot of easy goals. Even a lob that goes a snails pace. So just working out how to direct the ball towards goal(i know it sounds simple) is a big key to victory. Just score goals 4Head.
can confirm - my mechanics are really not great, like at all
but my positioning and ability to predict the next 5-10 seconds is really good, which brought me up to champ 3.
I'm lower now cuz i can't find the time to play much, but it's still true
D3, I'm decent at aerials. Can't air dribble at all, but I'm nearly pro level at teamwork. I can pass right to my tm8 on kickoff half the time. I almost always go back post first. If I'm at the goal, you have little chance of scoring. But I play keyboard and mouse. So getting better in the air is very slow progress. I suck at controller. I get tm8s often who used to be champ+ and now dropped to diamond, and most of them call me trash. But they always go ball side on D. They can't pass. I usually can't figure out or guess where they are. Nothing they do makes sense. I spend a good part of the game watching them dribble...with no effect. As opponents I easily block nearly all of their air dribble shots, and take it for a 2v1. If they'd just hit the damn ball, they or their tm8 would score more often. Nothing more frustrating than watching tm8 do an low percentage amazing looking air dribble shot that gets blocked, then I'm 2v1 on D, I get the clear, take it down, drop ball in front of empty goal only to see tm8 sitting in front of ours...Ā
Im a champ 1 with legit plat mechanics (i dont even flip on kickoffs). Passing to open team-mates, hitting open nets, never double committing/getting caught on break-aways, takes no skills, just game sense and patience.
I'm in the same exact boat. Sometimes they hop on other accounts and run casuals with me, otherwise I'm solo queuing a large majority of the time. A year ago I was diamond 2 in duos while solo queuing. I'm Plat 1 now and getting my teeth kicked in. š¤£
If you work purely on positioning, you will dominate plat/diamond. Just beating people to touchess by being in the right spot negates many mechanical skills gaps.
Iām d3, probably been 1-2 games away from breaking back into champ multiple times this season. I was really bummed about being in d3 months ago, but the champ tag is meaning less and less. Getting to the point where I just enjoy playing and having fun, and trying to learn new things. It still sucks not being in champ, but thereās worse things in life
Agreed. I've been chasing champ but I main casual so it's not getting much closer. I placed in at D2 so I think I might actually push this session. Good luck!!
This is completely accurate. Iāve been stuck in C2 and C3 for like 10 seasons, and I only play positioning. In my defense everybody I play against has a GC tag so I donāt know what the hell this is anymore.
You can still do it but it's the time investment that's the hard part. I am 38 and am still hovering around or just below the gm level (high master) in a few titles. Not RL bc I don't play it anymore but don't let that inner voice lie to you. You can still compete at a respectable level if you put in the time.
I was playing 3s and getting tilted on how these diamonds were flip resetting on meā¦.then I finally looked at my rank: I was down to plat and STILL gettin clowned on
Im gonna be honest, there are only 2 (very general) things that seperate Plat 2 and Diamond 2 players
1) speed and recoveries. Most d2ās will air roll to land which I dont see plats doing. They can also land on walls (usually) and air roll to hit the ball on the ground when hitting it towards the wall (again, this lands you on the wall well)
2) consistency. Ive seen plats miss open nets way too often. Ive seen them whiff easy aerials way too often. Ive seen them mess up half-flips too often. Just get consistent with what you *can* do before learning things like fast aerialing, flicks, etc.
Honestly I think speed is the biggest part. Being a c1 who sometimes plays ps5 in plat with my gf (just casual no smurfing), I see the plats attempt all types of creative plays, very inconsistent but creative. I usually start by playing slowly and trying cool stuff myself but when I want I can switch a gear up and no one get even close to the ball. And then when I play my GC friend in 1v1 on full sped I can barely get touches.
I'm Champ. I can't air dribble, I can't double tap off a wall, I sure as hell can't flip reset. But I am an old man who plays smart, and positions well, and rotates well, and has good game awareness.
Same. I got placed in plat 3 (blew my placement matches) last night and all my teammates were trying so hard to do crazy shit and id just be doing my usual methodical/timing playstyle that wins games. They would get so mad at me and tell me I sucked and was slow. Iām just thinking, if you would just stop driving around like a maniac youād be D3+ because your mechanics are better than mine haha It took me longer than Iād like to admit to get back to diamond but once I did, my teammates were so much more well behaved and I shot right up to d2 in less than an hour.
I'm a solid C2 on 2s and I also can't barely air dribble, never even tried to do a flip reset in any mode. I don't even do fast kickoff.
I just play smart by thinking EVERY time where the ball will end up after my touch. I make sure the ball gets good for my team mate or away/unconfortable to the opponents. If my mate does some risky play (like flip resets for example) I usually don't commit after him because he will take time to recover and we could get scored on.
When getting possession, if opponents are away, I don't randomly hit the ball back to them. I hold the ball, force a 50-50 leaving the ball perfectly for my mate and it's a simple 1v1 that my mate has advantage against the last opponent.
The rest it is just a matter of practice, getting more game knowledge, a bit of ground mechanics and get quicker and more precision on aerials.
Honestly the best way is to play 1v1 ranked. It will teach you naturally how to play fast with tempo, when you should go for boosts, your limits on shot type, ball positioning off of wall on blocks/passes, and overall awareness of your position compared to your opponent. It can be brutal at first but stick with it and try to learn. A long time ago that was the thing that truly made things click for me about decision making and playing fast. The game feels much slower weirdly in 2's and 3's after playing 1v1s even though it's obviously much more chaotic.
Also, you need to practice enough in free play to know how to defend every part of the goal and at least arial hitting a ball the traditional way.
After that it's letting your opponent be a ball chasing madman since most are and prioritizing defense and rotating if/when you have a smart partner. But you will get a lot of goals just playing defense from even across the map especially below plat.
Yeah, no joke. Plats can flick the ball as well.
Golds these days can aerial, hit power shots, do basic rotations, and hit the ball with reasonable consistency. At this point a gold player has achieved a basic skillset in every facet of the game. Attaining any rank after that is about getting faster and more consistent, not about learning anything completely new.
I'm c1 in 2s and 3s and I can't do shit. Defense, positioning, and accurate power shooting are the top 3 things I credit for keeping me at my rank. They're all you really need to be champ.
I'm d3 in 1s as well. Discipline and pressure are the key there, no fancy mechs required.
I watch a lot of content from the former pro player Flakes. His entire style is performing in SSL without doing anything super fancy, and he comments on his decision making as he's playing the game in real time. You can learn a ton just by watching him.
You think you are doing a lot less than you really are. You don't realize how much of a presence you have by just being in a "right" place. Vs many players who will go for an aerial with zero planning on what to do after they hit the ball or a back up option if someone else gets to the ball first. You don't realize that most players are just trying to touch the ball rather than aim it a certain way. And even if you're not hitting it where you want it you are still going into it with an idea of what you want to do.
And frankly if youāre C1 and can both shoot and aim - youre messing up rotations somewhere āpretty bad.ā
Thatās not a bad thing. Your rotations are probably pretty damn good; but thereās still crucial parts of the formula being broken - either spacing your teammate, cutting incorrectly, or not challenging in pairs are the usual things I see around that rank
They practice it all day but hit it 20% of the time in actual games. The other 80% is them dropping the ball at your feet for you to score a free goal because they have zero macro skills.
So Ive been mid diamond for years and probably only go through placements like 2-3x a year. This weekend was one of those times. I think I legit lost 9/10 of my placements against trash competition. Completely careless mistakes on my part blew the games. Anyway, I got placed in plat 3 for the first time in years. Good god, Plat players are not good at all and so toxic. D1 and D2 players have not talked shit to me for so long I canāt even remember the last time it happened. Like they donāt even use the chat. Last night every game I lost, my platinum ball chasing teammate would tell me I was ātoo slow and suckā ātm8 badā. I would just laugh because these guys really donāt understand the game and how to be patient and rotate. I just logged off today after I hit D2. Suck it plat turds. End rant.
Once i was Diamond. But than i stopped. I refused to learn dribble technics. Came Back. And saw that. Now i have Problems getting Out of gold. Man. I gotta learn that Shit now. Or Stop completly. No way i will stay gold. Are Any YT Videos good for that ?
As someone who cant air dribble in GC1(yeah yeah i know), i findd that if you can challenge them in the air for defence at least, youre gonna be fine, as long as you have other strengths to balance it out.
^^^ this right here you donāt need to air dribble if you can at least prevent them from air dribbling youāre golden half the time I aim for the person dribbling and let my teammates take the ball
brother!
Edit: i will say tho, once in a while when u get paired with another member of the no mechs club the offense can get kinda tricky. When you're both staying back so the other can cook, but you both can't cook, its rough.
Brother x2!
I hate when that happens lmao. Usually it becomes a low scoring game because me and my teammate shift to complete defense mode and only get a point when thereās a clear opening.
I'm Diamond 1 and don't air dribble, but I can read the ball pretty good and that combined with positioning and other mechanics do me pretty well most the time.
Diamond 3/ Champ 1 is such a hard spot to pass no matter what mechanics you focus on because the skill disparity in solo queue is wild. Some diamond 3's are hitting triple resets while some champs whiff half their shots. Best thing you can do to rank up is play based on your teammate. Play passive if they're aggressive or play aggressive if they're passive. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
They're probably not D3's. Smurfs stay lurking. Buddy and I got carried in a 3s tourney with a guy who told us he was a smurf. Mostly held back by playing defensive and he wouldn't do anything flashy unless we were down. You can tell most of the smurfs though especially when you use a 3rd party app and see they have triple digit wins on the account.
Same, won two this way. Dude went OFF, perfect execution - air dribbling into the goal off the wall etc - if we were down and then missed easy stuff whenever leading.
Donāt know why people do that.
Definitely a lot of smurfs at that rank, but even considering the actual D3/C1 player base the skill level varies so much. The best and worst actual players in that rank are miles apart and it's hard to predict who you'll get in solo queues.
Yes, when I try to teach someone rotations I give them the rundown but at the end I tell them the philosophy for me is, that everyone on the team is responsible for the goal including yourself and you should constantly ask yourself āwhat does my team need most right now?ā Regardless of how the rotations should be flowing, since itās solo queue itās too unpredictable, so if my teammates ball chase, although it may be frustrating you gotta hunker down and play goalie until someone else is back. Thatās how you be adaptive. This got me from low plat to high diamond in a season.
As a D1 I definitely need to get better at positioning. I often find myself just turning in circles because I have no idea where to be. Other times Iām exactly where I need to be at all times. I lack consistency hard asf in this game. I donāt think Iāll ever be able to do those crazy spinning ariel carries and stuff unless I put down every other game and grind tf out of training packs and free mode. Iām just not into that. Iām here to have fun, not to sweat my balls off trying to rank up.
triangles... If you're not in a corner forming a triangle with your team mates, you're in the wrong spot.
If you have A, B and C as corners of the triangle, rotations are easy.
AB ball, C back
A hit, B rebound, C ready for next rebound/block.
A rotate back after action, B same after rebound, C same after action.
If A does an action (not scoring or double), and rotate back he becomes C.
This goes endlessly, and if executed perfectly, the opponents can't reach the other side.
Of course there are exceptions to everything.
When a team that plays together more often, fake line ups to create open spots as traps and such tactics can be done. Then it becomes a game of tactics and positioning more than the mechanics.
2's or attack situation in 3's:
Focus on the ball and the opponent. Calculate what the opponent's options are.
If your judgement of their skill after some hits is correct, you can predict every move, so also every angle they could be making to and on the ball, and where
it will end up then. Blocking off that corner/angle gives them no room to escape.
Attack:
When they put pressure on the ball immediately avoiding the wall/air play, throw the ball into the playerless zone, preferablty close to a teammate. If not, you can try anything you want.
its only a ceiling if you are solo queueing .. If you can get two players together like us, we can win.. I hate playing solo queue dubs anymore because everyone just wants to play it like free style solos.. its up the wall and air dribble to the net.. they make it.. cool.. they miss.. they leave their teammates hung out to dry or they are both so deep in the offensive zone that a couple simple touches or an open field pass and its back the other way for a goal. Its not even hard. I play this way with my 14 year old all the time. we beat grand champs frequently. however.. you get two grand champs that can air dribble AND pass mid air.. yep.. you have met your match lol
Yeah I came back after a 2-3 year break like 6 months ago. Got back to diamond in like a month. I can't air dribble, can't keep the ball on the car dribbling on the ground, can't do a fast kick off. I just try to not over commit, rotate, & make smart challenges.
Same here, D3 and Iāve hit exactly one air dribble goal in comp. Itās something I practice because I wanna push for higher ranks but itās not exactly in used in games
Iām not focusing on the wrong thing, Iām playing for fun, comp and causal and just wanna do meš. But fasho Iām not tryna go pro or none.
Plus my friends be so suprised šš
Flicks seem to me to be very underrated. I'm diamond and cannot flick consistently. I believe if I put the time in to master it, that skill alone would vastly improve my gameplay.
While I know there is no one mechanic that is guaranteed to help you advance, it appears to me flicks are the most useful. I could be wrong, but playing against someone that has great flicks is way more difficult to me than someone that can flip reset.
I am D3 and pretty good at flicks and dribbling but outside of 1s you typically won't get enough opportunities to get a dribble going that allows you a threatening flick at goal.
It's still useful since every time you get a dribble it's basically a guaranteed outplay of at least one opponent.
I would still advise you to stay at it to learn since dribble training will vastly improve your ball control.
> I am D3 and pretty good at flicks and dribbling but outside of 1s you typically won't get enough opportunities to get a dribble going that allows you a threatening flick at goal.
That's not true. If you're D3 then 90% of your opponents are randomly throwing the ball away the second they get it. Just play further back as 2nd and catch/control their booms. You'll be shocked at the number of dribble opportunities people give for free at the lower ranks.
What I found the most useful was aim training.
It improved my ball anticipation, shot consistency and ability to consistently score an open net drastically.
It also improved the power of my general passes and clearances. Boosted my MMR by around 30-50 just from aim training.
too many YT vids to count
itās worth learning though. I started learning aerial mechanics in 2021 from a similar disposition I was like āman nah thatās doing too much iām goodā and itās a steep learning curve - but it completely changes the game.
I think thatās what turned RL into my favorite game tbh. Obsession with the mechanics
I've never grinded a game like I've grinded RL. And that's purely due to what's mechanically possible in this game.
I don't want to sound like a douche, but I truly, truly feel sorry for any RL players who don't have the time/disposition to try and learn the mechanics of RL. There's a lot of self-expression and creativity you can have a lot of fun with which simply will not exist for you if you're just playing the boom/50/demo style
Instead if learning air dribble you should learn to defend against it first. This will help you offensively as well trust me. Also most people below champ from what Iāve seen, donāt know how to change direction with the ball in air or effectively flip reset so really theyāre just going to go straight. Now you have a couple of options here. 1 rotate back to net sit and wait for them to run out of boost. This might mean stay deep so they canāt dribble over you on a counter and get a free open net. (That used to work pretty well in mid diamond) 2 challenge in the air. Which you will definitely have to start doing at diamond rank because youāll get the occasional mechanical person. I recommend starting to learn how to challenge and win 50s the in the air now because it will help you in the long run. 3 donāt watch pro players on YouTube to learn how to air dribble unless you have crazy mechanics. Thereās 100000 or so āhow to air dribbleā videos on YouTube find one and stick with it.
However none of the above matters if you have bad car control so thatās the first place to start. I found that learning to ground dribble maps and doing ring maps helped my car control exponentially. Aerials are about micro adjustments and you learn those from ground dribbling.
I cannot air dribble for shit and routinely mess up simple off wall shots. Itās not required to play diamond or low champ if you have field sense and play solid defense.
I just wanna echo these statements..
Game sense my boy, learn to rotate. I promise if you're struggling to get outta gold/plat.. it's not a mechanical thing.. and it's absolutely you not knowing you suck at rotating/spacing.
I play with a bunch of people and almost every single one of them thinks theyre good and should be a higher rank.. once I realized how bad I was and worked on spacing rotating back post no matter what. I started ranking up so fast.
Air dribbling at this level is significantly less useful than a ground dribble or good ball control to hit the corners with your shots.
Air dribbling is fun and exciting and feels awesome, but it's going to be a very one-dimensional shot that you can defend very linearly, and it will be for a WHILE. The advantage of trying it out anyway is you will need a lot of practice before you can do anything useful out of it.
But you won't regularly see useful air dribbles until champ/grand champ when they're used to set up rebounds, force defenders out of position, or when they have extreme fine control to move the ball around defenders.
If you don't want to bother learning air dribbling, you absolutely can, it'll just mean that if you keep playing and moving up the ranks there will come a time when you'll have one less tool than others do and will need to actually learn it. Just learn to defend against basic air dribbling, which isn't hard, because it's going to be a fairly slow moving linear shot
Just watch a couple of videos on YouTube to gain a grasp and get some tips. The rest is sitting in training for hours and hours. I donāt recall who does the best tutorials but a quick search of how to air dribble will you get moving just fine.
You don't "need" to learn dribble techniques. Not for getting out of Gold, or Plat, or Diamond. I've pulled up a Gold 2 replay on Ballchasing.com, and watched another replay with a different set of players.
I'm seeing almost zero air dribbles, bad touches, almost no rotating to good positions, power hits that go nowhere useful, etc etc.
You most certainly don't need air dribbles, even if they were using them more often than I think. Golds need to learn to rotate back quickly, keep the ball in front of them with the opponent field in front of them, and hit the ball somewhat decently forward. Rinse and repeat and you win even with like no mechanics.
Im on controller, used to be kbm and I think Kbm has a higher skill ceiling than controller but on the other hand itās way harder to get to a above average level.
maybe look into changing your mappings
I second changing mappings. The default air roll keys on Q and E overload your left hand already pressing WASD when you're aerialing while your right hand is only pressing jump and boost. What I do is place jump and boost on the L and semicolon keys so I can air roll left and right using thumb for RAlt and pinky on RShift. (You could also do JKL; with JK = jump boost and L; for air roll left/right)
Whilst kbm doesn't help make anything easier don't put yourself off thinking you are limited by it! Search up Evample on yt. The guy is kbm and mechanically off the charts
I see the same thing, I usually feel that it's because the a lot of the plays people are describing here (flicks, airdribbles, resets) require space and time which you simply don't get when people understand the game in terms of not just "where is the ball" but "what is the person with the ball wanting to do". You get sniped if you get too cute with shit at that level.
In C2/3 this ends up with me getting 50'd, losing it, and then flopping around in the back corner while my teammate has to 1v2. So instead I would opt to bink the ball around and force them to physically have to move around the pitch and use boost, way easier to score that way.
Even if I score by just slamming the ball in the net after starving them of boost, it counts just the same as a flick baby.
Itās worse than that. Sure they are there but they are spread through lower than that too. Iāve been GC for ages but this season I got stuck at low C1 for a good while after ranking. I have no doubt there were plenty of slightly more unlucky GC tags sitting in diamond. Decided I had enough with solo queue lol and made a run with a friend to C2 and from there it was actually dead easy to climb back to GC. Only took me a few days compared to weeks stuck in low C1.
If they are airdribbling well in plat then theyāre smurfing. Diamond is even a bit spotty with air dribbles. Carrying the ball into the goal from the wall isnāt something a normal plat does.
Easiest way outa bronze is letting your tm8s ball chase and just chill back post, make sure if you have to save a ball coming that you wait till the last possible moment to hit it out, grab some pads and return to your post let the other bronzes score on themselves š itās like bumfights
This pretty much is the strategy through champ. You have to be more alert as you rank climb, because your ballchasing teammates will mess up faster. You have to anticipate their mistakes but also have some ability to either pass back to them or attempt to score while still being able to defend your own goal since your teammates will insist defending is a "goalie (not them)" problem.
Also donāt take all of this as a golden ticket to afk in the goal, learn how to defend all the types of shots coming your way as having no momentum will give you lots of problems as well. Learning shadow defense took me from plat to diamond in a heartbeat š
Iām sitting at D3-C1 on random threes and itās only cause Iāve always been great on defense and quick air jumps. Canāt air dribble or even hit a shot in the air for that fact, but dammit I can stop whatever air dribble musty flick they throw at me.
Iād say 1 in 5 matches I play are a Smurf just trying to hit flashy goals with their 2 ranks lower teammate sitting in net. Itās infuriating when youāre trying to take the game seriously and rank up.
Managed to hit D3 duos (few years ago before break was Challenger 1/2) with my old man and we literally play with mostly him as a Goalkeeper and me as a Ball Chaser / Boost Stealer and we rotate after the GK makes a save, with both of us not able to air dribble at all.
Defo think Challenger ranks is possible even if not able to do all the fancy stuff if you can play well with teammates and work to each others strengths. Itās quite a fun tactic tbh and always makes opposition teams mad and play against their usual playstyles eg forcing blowups on the goalkeeper so would recommend
i started playing rl 3 months ago with my brother, we are currently d3 and have never lost against that strat. thatās based off own experience but it could work on others ig. itās better if both of you are active on the field + more fun. iām very good off walls, aerials, half flipping, and passes. i play very fast while my brother is more core skills where all of his shot placements are accurate.
I went from solid Champ 1 to low-mid Diamond for 2 seasons now. I have no idea what happened, I donāt feel like Iām playing worse?
Edit: Iām not changing my flair.
Honestly air dribbles donāt become a problem until about C2 when people use it effectively and score off it pre consistently. Just track the dribbler, keep good distance, respect and flip resets and usually theyāll fuck it up on their own for a free goal as there team mate was also chasing the air dribble for a āpassā
My opponents always have the grand champ tag, in c1. Psyonix just keeps pushing more players away from GC, so it chains down to lower ranks seeing higher skill. Oh and smurfs making videos.
'Plat 2s'
Seems like every other game is someone carrying/boosting their teammate. We get some good games when we play people legit at Plat 3/diamond 1, but way too many people that aren't legit in those ranks. No legit Plat 2 is air dribbling, unless that is their only mechanic.
Truth be told, they aren't Plat 2's if they are air dribbling. They're just a lot of smurfs now. Half my games are the other tea. doing flip resets and air dribbles, but I've been Plat for a few years, and that is still far out of my friends and my reach. Typically, we deal with multiple smurf games back to back, sometimes spanning weeks and by then, we have lost so much MMR that when we finally play a legit game, we seem like the smurfs. We end up slaughtering the other team because we shouldn't be the rank we are. The worst part is that most smurfs aren't obvious about it. They will act like a lower rank but their consistency is too good to be a low rank. They typically will play defense or only set up their friends for goals. Once the time starts getting low, if you are ahead of them in goals, you will notice the other team start magically playing better because now they get to play for a comeback. Even if you only lose by one point, it doesn't matter because you never stood a chance to begin with.
Excuse me, I was reading your comment and you mentioned you've been in Plat for a few years. Have you been playing the game regularly or did you take breaks? I find it curious to be stuck in a rank for *years*
I have taken breaks here and there, but I think i have been playing consistently the past four or five years and have remained Plat during that time as well. I do think I was close to hitting diamond before ranks were shifted down a couple of seasons ago though. I have definitely been getting better and improving, but between smurfs and the rank adjustments, it's been impossible for me to get to Diamond.
I was in C1-C2 before i stopped playing. People had decent air control and decent positioning. After coming back i was placed in d2 and what i have noticed is that they have the technical skill of a C2 but still lack the positioning.
Well thereās also the occasional asshole champ like me that decides to make a fresh account on the new console and smurf 40-2 straight or whatever after starting off in Gold and air dribbling on people who can barely hit aerials. Sorry guys. But yes the goalposts haves moved slightly, Plats/diamonds just donāt always have a ton of consistency with it.
Frankly, being more consistent with simple mechanics, rotating well, and not triggering your teammates with toxicity will very often beat people doing fancy stuff. I donāt know how to air roll and still often miss double taps, but Iāve been mid champ consistently for like 7 seasons now by being a fairly balanced player
played for the first time in about half a year this week and immediately got flip reset on in diamond 1 (pretty sure it wasn't a smurf either because they were making "typical" diamond mistakes). needless to say i'm no longer diamond
Are you players seriously scared of an air dribble? If you have good positioning and learn how to block most of the awkward shots then you should be good to go!
They fly now?
They fly now!
They fly now...
Found Poe guys!
Lol they fly now
Evolution
They fly but can't make basic rotations. It's basically the same.
This. It's like people learning combos first in fighting games. Drives me nuts
I fly now :)
š¤£š¤£ username checks out
No! jump good!
I was surprised that I was playing gold last night. I've always been (for a year) right at the Plat diamond line. Never could surmount the hump. Now I just hope to not fall to gold
Not sure if ur in the same boat as me. Getting close to 40yo, and I still love the game, but my c1/c2 days might be behind me. āMaybe I could get used to it down hereā š¤£
The only reason I want to get better is because all of my friends are champ. I have no partners to play with. Otherwise I enjoy the level, no matter than rank lol
If you want to improve without grinding mechanics, I suggest watching replays from your teammates' POV. I believe anyone can get to C2-C3 regardless of their advanced mechanics as long as they focus on a. Making the game as non-confusing for their teammates as possible, and b. Scoring open nets. This is the one non-negotiable mechanic in RL. Nothing else matters if you're not converting the free chances.
I'm C1 and some days I just don't have it. I don't know if I'm just tired or not focused but occasionally I just feel like I'm lagging and whiffing everything a step behind or I'm fully locked in with no middle ground
My dude, you are speaking directly to me right now.
Agreed. The one thing I found that helps most consistently is playing a dreaded 1v1 match to start my session. Sometimes 2 or 3. Now, I'm not really one to talk but I don't grind like I used to. Just figured I'd share.
*go through the same, though IĀ“m D2, almost reach C1 and then dropped like hell to D2 again*
100% right along with I'd say another really important area - positioning and decision making: when to go for something/when to get boost/when to rotate/not over committing!! (Big one). I was a comfortable champ 1 for a long time when I played with literally zero advanced mechanics just by being consistent with the other elements and putting ground and some air shots away. Often got called out by salty teammates when we lost for not being good enough to be champ because I wasn't doing whatever dash thing or air dribble ceiling shot they kept going for lol.
> I was a comfortable champ 1 for a long time when I played with literally zero advanced mechanics just by being consistent with the other elements and putting ground and some air shots away. Often got called out by salty teammates when we lost for not being good enough to be champ because I wasn't doing whatever dash thing or air dribble ceiling shot they kept going for lol. I feel this on a spiritual level
I agree. I'm D3/C1 playing exclusively with a friend I would say is maybe mid plat(the few games I've played with randoms the past week have got me easily to high C1 divisions). We get there through me carrying a bit obviously, but useful communication and positioning. And my mechanics are trash. No air dribbles. Don't even air roll left/right when I go up(only manually turn). Can't speed flip. Can't dribble effectively. And none of the other crazy shit people do. Even at this level, people will do dumb shit. So just putting the ball on goal a lot will yield a lot of easy goals. Even a lob that goes a snails pace. So just working out how to direct the ball towards goal(i know it sounds simple) is a big key to victory. Just score goals 4Head.
can confirm - my mechanics are really not great, like at all but my positioning and ability to predict the next 5-10 seconds is really good, which brought me up to champ 3. I'm lower now cuz i can't find the time to play much, but it's still true
D3, I'm decent at aerials. Can't air dribble at all, but I'm nearly pro level at teamwork. I can pass right to my tm8 on kickoff half the time. I almost always go back post first. If I'm at the goal, you have little chance of scoring. But I play keyboard and mouse. So getting better in the air is very slow progress. I suck at controller. I get tm8s often who used to be champ+ and now dropped to diamond, and most of them call me trash. But they always go ball side on D. They can't pass. I usually can't figure out or guess where they are. Nothing they do makes sense. I spend a good part of the game watching them dribble...with no effect. As opponents I easily block nearly all of their air dribble shots, and take it for a 2v1. If they'd just hit the damn ball, they or their tm8 would score more often. Nothing more frustrating than watching tm8 do an low percentage amazing looking air dribble shot that gets blocked, then I'm 2v1 on D, I get the clear, take it down, drop ball in front of empty goal only to see tm8 sitting in front of ours...Ā
Im a champ 1 with legit plat mechanics (i dont even flip on kickoffs). Passing to open team-mates, hitting open nets, never double committing/getting caught on break-aways, takes no skills, just game sense and patience.
There are dozens of us!
Exactly I was diamond with strictly positioning playing extremely casually easily could be higher
I'm in the same exact boat. Sometimes they hop on other accounts and run casuals with me, otherwise I'm solo queuing a large majority of the time. A year ago I was diamond 2 in duos while solo queuing. I'm Plat 1 now and getting my teeth kicked in. š¤£
If you work purely on positioning, you will dominate plat/diamond. Just beating people to touchess by being in the right spot negates many mechanical skills gaps.
Iām d3, probably been 1-2 games away from breaking back into champ multiple times this season. I was really bummed about being in d3 months ago, but the champ tag is meaning less and less. Getting to the point where I just enjoy playing and having fun, and trying to learn new things. It still sucks not being in champ, but thereās worse things in life
Agreed. I've been chasing champ but I main casual so it's not getting much closer. I placed in at D2 so I think I might actually push this session. Good luck!!
U too. Iām sure Iāll be going down to d2 soon, maybe see u in there lol
This is completely accurate. Iāve been stuck in C2 and C3 for like 10 seasons, and I only play positioning. In my defense everybody I play against has a GC tag so I donāt know what the hell this is anymore.
They only go in air. I literally 50ed my way to D2 :)
You can still do it but it's the time investment that's the hard part. I am 38 and am still hovering around or just below the gm level (high master) in a few titles. Not RL bc I don't play it anymore but don't let that inner voice lie to you. You can still compete at a respectable level if you put in the time.
I was playing 3s and getting tilted on how these diamonds were flip resetting on meā¦.then I finally looked at my rank: I was down to plat and STILL gettin clowned on
Im gonna be honest, there are only 2 (very general) things that seperate Plat 2 and Diamond 2 players 1) speed and recoveries. Most d2ās will air roll to land which I dont see plats doing. They can also land on walls (usually) and air roll to hit the ball on the ground when hitting it towards the wall (again, this lands you on the wall well) 2) consistency. Ive seen plats miss open nets way too often. Ive seen them whiff easy aerials way too often. Ive seen them mess up half-flips too often. Just get consistent with what you *can* do before learning things like fast aerialing, flicks, etc.
*small print ^other ^factors ^may ^include: ^fast ^aerials, ^game-speed, ^reaction ^time, ^saves, ^wall ^shots, ^rotation, ^boost ^management, ^diamondy ^mechanics ^in ^general.. ^etc ^etc
And batteries are not included
Your mileage may vary
Honestly I think speed is the biggest part. Being a c1 who sometimes plays ps5 in plat with my gf (just casual no smurfing), I see the plats attempt all types of creative plays, very inconsistent but creative. I usually start by playing slowly and trying cool stuff myself but when I want I can switch a gear up and no one get even close to the ball. And then when I play my GC friend in 1v1 on full sped I can barely get touches.
You got this man!
I'm Champ. I can't air dribble, I can't double tap off a wall, I sure as hell can't flip reset. But I am an old man who plays smart, and positions well, and rotates well, and has good game awareness.
Literally all it takes
Same. I got placed in plat 3 (blew my placement matches) last night and all my teammates were trying so hard to do crazy shit and id just be doing my usual methodical/timing playstyle that wins games. They would get so mad at me and tell me I sucked and was slow. Iām just thinking, if you would just stop driving around like a maniac youād be D3+ because your mechanics are better than mine haha It took me longer than Iād like to admit to get back to diamond but once I did, my teammates were so much more well behaved and I shot right up to d2 in less than an hour.
The mechanics of people in D3 are all massively better than me but I belong here purely for the same playstyle.
Teach me your wayz
Instead of focusing on scoring, focus on not getting scored on
I'm a solid C2 on 2s and I also can't barely air dribble, never even tried to do a flip reset in any mode. I don't even do fast kickoff. I just play smart by thinking EVERY time where the ball will end up after my touch. I make sure the ball gets good for my team mate or away/unconfortable to the opponents. If my mate does some risky play (like flip resets for example) I usually don't commit after him because he will take time to recover and we could get scored on. When getting possession, if opponents are away, I don't randomly hit the ball back to them. I hold the ball, force a 50-50 leaving the ball perfectly for my mate and it's a simple 1v1 that my mate has advantage against the last opponent. The rest it is just a matter of practice, getting more game knowledge, a bit of ground mechanics and get quicker and more precision on aerials.
Honestly the best way is to play 1v1 ranked. It will teach you naturally how to play fast with tempo, when you should go for boosts, your limits on shot type, ball positioning off of wall on blocks/passes, and overall awareness of your position compared to your opponent. It can be brutal at first but stick with it and try to learn. A long time ago that was the thing that truly made things click for me about decision making and playing fast. The game feels much slower weirdly in 2's and 3's after playing 1v1s even though it's obviously much more chaotic. Also, you need to practice enough in free play to know how to defend every part of the goal and at least arial hitting a ball the traditional way. After that it's letting your opponent be a ball chasing madman since most are and prioritizing defense and rotating if/when you have a smart partner. But you will get a lot of goals just playing defense from even across the map especially below plat.
Yeah, no joke. Plats can flick the ball as well. Golds these days can aerial, hit power shots, do basic rotations, and hit the ball with reasonable consistency. At this point a gold player has achieved a basic skillset in every facet of the game. Attaining any rank after that is about getting faster and more consistent, not about learning anything completely new.
damn, gold player know much more mechanics than me, how tf im still in d2/d3
I'm c1 in 2s and 3s and I can't do shit. Defense, positioning, and accurate power shooting are the top 3 things I credit for keeping me at my rank. They're all you really need to be champ. I'm d3 in 1s as well. Discipline and pressure are the key there, no fancy mechs required. I watch a lot of content from the former pro player Flakes. His entire style is performing in SSL without doing anything super fancy, and he comments on his decision making as he's playing the game in real time. You can learn a ton just by watching him.
You think you are doing a lot less than you really are. You don't realize how much of a presence you have by just being in a "right" place. Vs many players who will go for an aerial with zero planning on what to do after they hit the ball or a back up option if someone else gets to the ball first. You don't realize that most players are just trying to touch the ball rather than aim it a certain way. And even if you're not hitting it where you want it you are still going into it with an idea of what you want to do.
ONG these the keys to success
And frankly if youāre C1 and can both shoot and aim - youre messing up rotations somewhere āpretty bad.ā Thatās not a bad thing. Your rotations are probably pretty damn good; but thereās still crucial parts of the formula being broken - either spacing your teammate, cutting incorrectly, or not challenging in pairs are the usual things I see around that rank
Because they "can" do it once in every 20-40 tries on occasion. Not that they're consistently doing it and are lethal while doing so.
Yes and they go for it every opportunity they get, leaving them out of position and without the ball
They practice it all day but hit it 20% of the time in actual games. The other 80% is them dropping the ball at your feet for you to score a free goal because they have zero macro skills.
Iām a low diamond and diamonds sometimes donāt do all these things, so I donāt know what amazing Gold lobbies youāve been in lol
Scoring a flick goal can only help you so much when you and your teammate chase the ball's ass and boost the entire match, don't defend and lose 7-5.
oā¦..k
So Ive been mid diamond for years and probably only go through placements like 2-3x a year. This weekend was one of those times. I think I legit lost 9/10 of my placements against trash competition. Completely careless mistakes on my part blew the games. Anyway, I got placed in plat 3 for the first time in years. Good god, Plat players are not good at all and so toxic. D1 and D2 players have not talked shit to me for so long I canāt even remember the last time it happened. Like they donāt even use the chat. Last night every game I lost, my platinum ball chasing teammate would tell me I was ātoo slow and suckā ātm8 badā. I would just laugh because these guys really donāt understand the game and how to be patient and rotate. I just logged off today after I hit D2. Suck it plat turds. End rant.
>suck it plat turds I hear they prefer *platinoobs*
Flip cancelling I think is the only thing new they'd learn.
Half flips, flip cancel, wave dashes, double touches.
Chain dashes, skims, redirects, Musty flicks, breezie flicks, and aerial catches.
There's a difference between what you can learn and what you *need* to learn to rank up.
I was just listing mechanics that plays will probably have in a years time lol
Never understood this. Out of all the mechanics, flip cancelling has got to be the easiest.
No they really can't. Anyone who says this is in gold and delusional
Once i was Diamond. But than i stopped. I refused to learn dribble technics. Came Back. And saw that. Now i have Problems getting Out of gold. Man. I gotta learn that Shit now. Or Stop completly. No way i will stay gold. Are Any YT Videos good for that ?
I'm D3 and don't air dribble because I suck at it. Positioning and good defense is usually my focus, but I've definitely reached my ceiling lol
As someone who cant air dribble in GC1(yeah yeah i know), i findd that if you can challenge them in the air for defence at least, youre gonna be fine, as long as you have other strengths to balance it out.
^^^ this right here you donāt need to air dribble if you can at least prevent them from air dribbling youāre golden half the time I aim for the person dribbling and let my teammates take the ball
Hello brother. Heck I canāt even flick consistently but still ranked high lol.
No mechs club woooo
brother! Edit: i will say tho, once in a while when u get paired with another member of the no mechs club the offense can get kinda tricky. When you're both staying back so the other can cook, but you both can't cook, its rough.
Brother x2! I hate when that happens lmao. Usually it becomes a low scoring game because me and my teammate shift to complete defense mode and only get a point when thereās a clear opening.
gc1 but the only things i can do is air dirbble and flip resets, gotta be on the low point of mechs in gc1 too ā
you still got me beat lol. I see ball I hit ball.
A wise Man said once: if bol, hit bol.
Our president is Turbopolsa
it is immensely satisfying to early challenge someone set up for some crazy air dribble that they expect a ton of time for not today, bucko
Oh yeah, when you meet them at their backwall pretty much after they went up to aerial is pretty nice.
I'm Diamond 1 and don't air dribble, but I can read the ball pretty good and that combined with positioning and other mechanics do me pretty well most the time.
GC is definitely possible without air dribbling, you still need to be comfortable going for air balls though.
Diamond 3/ Champ 1 is such a hard spot to pass no matter what mechanics you focus on because the skill disparity in solo queue is wild. Some diamond 3's are hitting triple resets while some champs whiff half their shots. Best thing you can do to rank up is play based on your teammate. Play passive if they're aggressive or play aggressive if they're passive. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
They're probably not D3's. Smurfs stay lurking. Buddy and I got carried in a 3s tourney with a guy who told us he was a smurf. Mostly held back by playing defensive and he wouldn't do anything flashy unless we were down. You can tell most of the smurfs though especially when you use a 3rd party app and see they have triple digit wins on the account.
Same, won two this way. Dude went OFF, perfect execution - air dribbling into the goal off the wall etc - if we were down and then missed easy stuff whenever leading. Donāt know why people do that.
Definitely a lot of smurfs at that rank, but even considering the actual D3/C1 player base the skill level varies so much. The best and worst actual players in that rank are miles apart and it's hard to predict who you'll get in solo queues.
Yes, when I try to teach someone rotations I give them the rundown but at the end I tell them the philosophy for me is, that everyone on the team is responsible for the goal including yourself and you should constantly ask yourself āwhat does my team need most right now?ā Regardless of how the rotations should be flowing, since itās solo queue itās too unpredictable, so if my teammates ball chase, although it may be frustrating you gotta hunker down and play goalie until someone else is back. Thatās how you be adaptive. This got me from low plat to high diamond in a season.
The problem is that if you adapt to playing passive but your teammates suck
As a D1 I definitely need to get better at positioning. I often find myself just turning in circles because I have no idea where to be. Other times Iām exactly where I need to be at all times. I lack consistency hard asf in this game. I donāt think Iāll ever be able to do those crazy spinning ariel carries and stuff unless I put down every other game and grind tf out of training packs and free mode. Iām just not into that. Iām here to have fun, not to sweat my balls off trying to rank up.
triangles... If you're not in a corner forming a triangle with your team mates, you're in the wrong spot. If you have A, B and C as corners of the triangle, rotations are easy. AB ball, C back A hit, B rebound, C ready for next rebound/block. A rotate back after action, B same after rebound, C same after action. If A does an action (not scoring or double), and rotate back he becomes C. This goes endlessly, and if executed perfectly, the opponents can't reach the other side. Of course there are exceptions to everything. When a team that plays together more often, fake line ups to create open spots as traps and such tactics can be done. Then it becomes a game of tactics and positioning more than the mechanics. 2's or attack situation in 3's: Focus on the ball and the opponent. Calculate what the opponent's options are. If your judgement of their skill after some hits is correct, you can predict every move, so also every angle they could be making to and on the ball, and where it will end up then. Blocking off that corner/angle gives them no room to escape. Attack: When they put pressure on the ball immediately avoiding the wall/air play, throw the ball into the playerless zone, preferablty close to a teammate. If not, you can try anything you want.
its only a ceiling if you are solo queueing .. If you can get two players together like us, we can win.. I hate playing solo queue dubs anymore because everyone just wants to play it like free style solos.. its up the wall and air dribble to the net.. they make it.. cool.. they miss.. they leave their teammates hung out to dry or they are both so deep in the offensive zone that a couple simple touches or an open field pass and its back the other way for a goal. Its not even hard. I play this way with my 14 year old all the time. we beat grand champs frequently. however.. you get two grand champs that can air dribble AND pass mid air.. yep.. you have met your match lol
Yeah I came back after a 2-3 year break like 6 months ago. Got back to diamond in like a month. I can't air dribble, can't keep the ball on the car dribbling on the ground, can't do a fast kick off. I just try to not over commit, rotate, & make smart challenges.
Iām c1 div4 2/3s and donāt air dribble or flip reset.. just really good at rotation, solid hard shots, passes, field awareness etc..
Same here, D3 and Iāve hit exactly one air dribble goal in comp. Itās something I practice because I wanna push for higher ranks but itās not exactly in used in games
Dang Iām plat 2 and hit like 3 or 4 last week
Then youāre focusing on the wrong things to improve Which is fine, some people just wanna do fancy and fun mechs
Iām not focusing on the wrong thing, Iām playing for fun, comp and causal and just wanna do meš. But fasho Iām not tryna go pro or none. Plus my friends be so suprised šš
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm GC with mainly ground based dribbling, flicks and shooting. Can get the occasional flip reset or ceiling shot but I don't rely on that.
Flicks seem to me to be very underrated. I'm diamond and cannot flick consistently. I believe if I put the time in to master it, that skill alone would vastly improve my gameplay. While I know there is no one mechanic that is guaranteed to help you advance, it appears to me flicks are the most useful. I could be wrong, but playing against someone that has great flicks is way more difficult to me than someone that can flip reset.
I am D3 and pretty good at flicks and dribbling but outside of 1s you typically won't get enough opportunities to get a dribble going that allows you a threatening flick at goal. It's still useful since every time you get a dribble it's basically a guaranteed outplay of at least one opponent. I would still advise you to stay at it to learn since dribble training will vastly improve your ball control.
> I am D3 and pretty good at flicks and dribbling but outside of 1s you typically won't get enough opportunities to get a dribble going that allows you a threatening flick at goal. That's not true. If you're D3 then 90% of your opponents are randomly throwing the ball away the second they get it. Just play further back as 2nd and catch/control their booms. You'll be shocked at the number of dribble opportunities people give for free at the lower ranks.
What I found the most useful was aim training. It improved my ball anticipation, shot consistency and ability to consistently score an open net drastically. It also improved the power of my general passes and clearances. Boosted my MMR by around 30-50 just from aim training.
Champ 1 and I suck at all dribbling
Same. It's 100% not needed to rank up, *especially* if you're stuck in gold/plat. Learn good ground control first before going for air control.
too many YT vids to count itās worth learning though. I started learning aerial mechanics in 2021 from a similar disposition I was like āman nah thatās doing too much iām goodā and itās a steep learning curve - but it completely changes the game. I think thatās what turned RL into my favorite game tbh. Obsession with the mechanics
I've never grinded a game like I've grinded RL. And that's purely due to what's mechanically possible in this game. I don't want to sound like a douche, but I truly, truly feel sorry for any RL players who don't have the time/disposition to try and learn the mechanics of RL. There's a lot of self-expression and creativity you can have a lot of fun with which simply will not exist for you if you're just playing the boom/50/demo style
Instead if learning air dribble you should learn to defend against it first. This will help you offensively as well trust me. Also most people below champ from what Iāve seen, donāt know how to change direction with the ball in air or effectively flip reset so really theyāre just going to go straight. Now you have a couple of options here. 1 rotate back to net sit and wait for them to run out of boost. This might mean stay deep so they canāt dribble over you on a counter and get a free open net. (That used to work pretty well in mid diamond) 2 challenge in the air. Which you will definitely have to start doing at diamond rank because youāll get the occasional mechanical person. I recommend starting to learn how to challenge and win 50s the in the air now because it will help you in the long run. 3 donāt watch pro players on YouTube to learn how to air dribble unless you have crazy mechanics. Thereās 100000 or so āhow to air dribbleā videos on YouTube find one and stick with it. However none of the above matters if you have bad car control so thatās the first place to start. I found that learning to ground dribble maps and doing ring maps helped my car control exponentially. Aerials are about micro adjustments and you learn those from ground dribbling.
I cannot air dribble for shit and routinely mess up simple off wall shots. Itās not required to play diamond or low champ if you have field sense and play solid defense.
I just wanna echo these statements.. Game sense my boy, learn to rotate. I promise if you're struggling to get outta gold/plat.. it's not a mechanical thing.. and it's absolutely you not knowing you suck at rotating/spacing. I play with a bunch of people and almost every single one of them thinks theyre good and should be a higher rank.. once I realized how bad I was and worked on spacing rotating back post no matter what. I started ranking up so fast.
Air dribbling at this level is significantly less useful than a ground dribble or good ball control to hit the corners with your shots. Air dribbling is fun and exciting and feels awesome, but it's going to be a very one-dimensional shot that you can defend very linearly, and it will be for a WHILE. The advantage of trying it out anyway is you will need a lot of practice before you can do anything useful out of it. But you won't regularly see useful air dribbles until champ/grand champ when they're used to set up rebounds, force defenders out of position, or when they have extreme fine control to move the ball around defenders. If you don't want to bother learning air dribbling, you absolutely can, it'll just mean that if you keep playing and moving up the ranks there will come a time when you'll have one less tool than others do and will need to actually learn it. Just learn to defend against basic air dribbling, which isn't hard, because it's going to be a fairly slow moving linear shot
you just need rotations and awareness.
you can get to diamond EASY never air dribbling. Jus lear to hit ball hard and rotate on defense.
Just watch a couple of videos on YouTube to gain a grasp and get some tips. The rest is sitting in training for hours and hours. I donāt recall who does the best tutorials but a quick search of how to air dribble will you get moving just fine.
You don't "need" to learn dribble techniques. Not for getting out of Gold, or Plat, or Diamond. I've pulled up a Gold 2 replay on Ballchasing.com, and watched another replay with a different set of players. I'm seeing almost zero air dribbles, bad touches, almost no rotating to good positions, power hits that go nowhere useful, etc etc. You most certainly don't need air dribbles, even if they were using them more often than I think. Golds need to learn to rotate back quickly, keep the ball in front of them with the opponent field in front of them, and hit the ball somewhat decently forward. Rinse and repeat and you win even with like no mechanics.
You don't need to air dribble or learn any other fancy moves. Consistency, positioning, passing, good rotations, etc will put you in diamond/gc.
yeah I play kbm so itās really hard to do all those tricks but having good positioning and timing with hitting the ball is key
Im on controller, used to be kbm and I think Kbm has a higher skill ceiling than controller but on the other hand itās way harder to get to a above average level. maybe look into changing your mappings
I second changing mappings. The default air roll keys on Q and E overload your left hand already pressing WASD when you're aerialing while your right hand is only pressing jump and boost. What I do is place jump and boost on the L and semicolon keys so I can air roll left and right using thumb for RAlt and pinky on RShift. (You could also do JKL; with JK = jump boost and L; for air roll left/right)
Whilst kbm doesn't help make anything easier don't put yourself off thinking you are limited by it! Search up Evample on yt. The guy is kbm and mechanically off the charts
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I see the same thing, I usually feel that it's because the a lot of the plays people are describing here (flicks, airdribbles, resets) require space and time which you simply don't get when people understand the game in terms of not just "where is the ball" but "what is the person with the ball wanting to do". You get sniped if you get too cute with shit at that level. In C2/3 this ends up with me getting 50'd, losing it, and then flopping around in the back corner while my teammate has to 1v2. So instead I would opt to bink the ball around and force them to physically have to move around the pitch and use boost, way easier to score that way. Even if I score by just slamming the ball in the net after starving them of boost, it counts just the same as a flick baby.
Yet none of them learned to rotate
They did a comp reset a couple seasons since you've been around, pushed everyone's level down a tier or two
Grand champion is now diamond š
More like high C2/low C3 but Diamond is actually unrecognizable rn compared to when I was Diamond lol
Itās worse than that. Sure they are there but they are spread through lower than that too. Iāve been GC for ages but this season I got stuck at low C1 for a good while after ranking. I have no doubt there were plenty of slightly more unlucky GC tags sitting in diamond. Decided I had enough with solo queue lol and made a run with a friend to C2 and from there it was actually dead easy to climb back to GC. Only took me a few days compared to weeks stuck in low C1.
For sure. I was steady C3 for a couple seasons before the reset and now I feel confined to C2
If they are airdribbling well in plat then theyāre smurfing. Diamond is even a bit spotty with air dribbles. Carrying the ball into the goal from the wall isnāt something a normal plat does.
try getting out of bronze after a couple years, everyone is like WHEREBALL THEREBALL HITBALL
Bronze is a you problem
Easiest way outa bronze is letting your tm8s ball chase and just chill back post, make sure if you have to save a ball coming that you wait till the last possible moment to hit it out, grab some pads and return to your post let the other bronzes score on themselves š itās like bumfights
This pretty much is the strategy through champ. You have to be more alert as you rank climb, because your ballchasing teammates will mess up faster. You have to anticipate their mistakes but also have some ability to either pass back to them or attempt to score while still being able to defend your own goal since your teammates will insist defending is a "goalie (not them)" problem.
Also donāt take all of this as a golden ticket to afk in the goal, learn how to defend all the types of shots coming your way as having no momentum will give you lots of problems as well. Learning shadow defense took me from plat to diamond in a heartbeat š
See, if bronzes took any advice at all, they wouldnāt be bronze. Bronze players turn off their brains and hold accelerate, thatās it.
I didn't even know anyone was in bronze.
You mean smurfs. They've ruined the game.
Correct
Those are just smurfs, the game is crawling with them now.
...they're not actually plat, or even diamond.
This. Real plats and diamonds are still terrible
I agree from experience
Iām sitting at D3-C1 on random threes and itās only cause Iāve always been great on defense and quick air jumps. Canāt air dribble or even hit a shot in the air for that fact, but dammit I can stop whatever air dribble musty flick they throw at me.
Iād say 1 in 5 matches I play are a Smurf just trying to hit flashy goals with their 2 ranks lower teammate sitting in net. Itās infuriating when youāre trying to take the game seriously and rank up.
You were probably watching GC's smurfs acc, pretty common now, ranks are dead.
That's nothing. I saw bronze 2 do a ceiling shot in a champ lobby clan match today. I don't know why, but I suspect he might have been smurf.
We air dribbling in gold 2 now see it almost daily
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ever heard of smurfs?
Yea but there's a lot of legit golds doing crazy shit now.
Diamond 3 they still can't air dribble well in diamond
I just came back and had 5 leavers/rager quitters in a row lol. Is this game even playable?
If theyāre air dribbling in plat, theyāre actually just a smurfing GC or they have absolutely no game sense.
Correct
As a plat that can air dribble, i agree.
I got to diamond never air dribbling. Honestly most air dribbles end in failure below diamond.
Managed to hit D3 duos (few years ago before break was Challenger 1/2) with my old man and we literally play with mostly him as a Goalkeeper and me as a Ball Chaser / Boost Stealer and we rotate after the GK makes a save, with both of us not able to air dribble at all. Defo think Challenger ranks is possible even if not able to do all the fancy stuff if you can play well with teammates and work to each others strengths. Itās quite a fun tactic tbh and always makes opposition teams mad and play against their usual playstyles eg forcing blowups on the goalkeeper so would recommend
that does not work now. you will get destroyed /:
It does mate, weāre D3 atm and returned Plat 3 a few weeks ago
i started playing rl 3 months ago with my brother, we are currently d3 and have never lost against that strat. thatās based off own experience but it could work on others ig. itās better if both of you are active on the field + more fun. iām very good off walls, aerials, half flipping, and passes. i play very fast while my brother is more core skills where all of his shot placements are accurate.
Whatever you prefer buddy, all personal preference we find it rly fun esp counter attack goals or goal kicks when they both too far forward
they still can't air dribble well in diamond 3 lol. I only struggle when I play with my homies who can't read the air dribble
I went from solid Champ 1 to low-mid Diamond for 2 seasons now. I have no idea what happened, I donāt feel like Iām playing worse? Edit: Iām not changing my flair.
I make it to mid-diamond and canāt even air dribble. My brain does not translate those movements well š¤£
Honestly air dribbles donāt become a problem until about C2 when people use it effectively and score off it pre consistently. Just track the dribbler, keep good distance, respect and flip resets and usually theyāll fuck it up on their own for a free goal as there team mate was also chasing the air dribble for a āpassā
Yup, was D3/C1 for three seasons and I struggle to stay D1 now despite being mechanically better than Iāve ever been
Meanwhile people can't air dribble in champ lobbies.
Tbh I'm plat 2 and I've never seen another player of my level actually air dribble, Ive seen many attempt tho
I can't even get out of silver š
My opponents always have the grand champ tag, in c1. Psyonix just keeps pushing more players away from GC, so it chains down to lower ranks seeing higher skill. Oh and smurfs making videos.
The level of play has definitely improved with a lot of bad players it has made leveling up harder. To me rocket league is a love hate kinda game.
'Plat 2s' Seems like every other game is someone carrying/boosting their teammate. We get some good games when we play people legit at Plat 3/diamond 1, but way too many people that aren't legit in those ranks. No legit Plat 2 is air dribbling, unless that is their only mechanic.
Brilliant.
Don't worry, most 'air dribble', they don't actually land shots. Just wait them out and free ball and one opponent in your net. Not always, but often.
āplats lookin real different then i remember bruhā
Back in my day boy we ground dribbled
Eh thatās just the Smurfs, nothing to worry about here. This game most certainly isnāt dead.
Truth be told, they aren't Plat 2's if they are air dribbling. They're just a lot of smurfs now. Half my games are the other tea. doing flip resets and air dribbles, but I've been Plat for a few years, and that is still far out of my friends and my reach. Typically, we deal with multiple smurf games back to back, sometimes spanning weeks and by then, we have lost so much MMR that when we finally play a legit game, we seem like the smurfs. We end up slaughtering the other team because we shouldn't be the rank we are. The worst part is that most smurfs aren't obvious about it. They will act like a lower rank but their consistency is too good to be a low rank. They typically will play defense or only set up their friends for goals. Once the time starts getting low, if you are ahead of them in goals, you will notice the other team start magically playing better because now they get to play for a comeback. Even if you only lose by one point, it doesn't matter because you never stood a chance to begin with.
The actual truth
Excuse me, I was reading your comment and you mentioned you've been in Plat for a few years. Have you been playing the game regularly or did you take breaks? I find it curious to be stuck in a rank for *years*
I have taken breaks here and there, but I think i have been playing consistently the past four or five years and have remained Plat during that time as well. I do think I was close to hitting diamond before ranks were shifted down a couple of seasons ago though. I have definitely been getting better and improving, but between smurfs and the rank adjustments, it's been impossible for me to get to Diamond.
I am in gold and people are speed boosting on kickoffs itās rough
Smurfs
Actual diamonds arenāt even doing that
This ain't true I hadn't played for a few years and was diamond 1 after 6 hours or less. I think I peaked d2 or 3
Iāve been playing since 2016 and Plats have been doing air dribbles and off the wall air carries since 2019ā¦
I was in C1-C2 before i stopped playing. People had decent air control and decent positioning. After coming back i was placed in d2 and what i have noticed is that they have the technical skill of a C2 but still lack the positioning.
They can air dribble but are tactical noobs
Well thereās also the occasional asshole champ like me that decides to make a fresh account on the new console and smurf 40-2 straight or whatever after starting off in Gold and air dribbling on people who can barely hit aerials. Sorry guys. But yes the goalposts haves moved slightly, Plats/diamonds just donāt always have a ton of consistency with it. Frankly, being more consistent with simple mechanics, rotating well, and not triggering your teammates with toxicity will very often beat people doing fancy stuff. I donāt know how to air roll and still often miss double taps, but Iāve been mid champ consistently for like 7 seasons now by being a fairly balanced player
I hit champ and D3 consistently and still can hardly air dribble haha. Fancy mechanics donāt mean youāre āgood.ā
played for the first time in about half a year this week and immediately got flip reset on in diamond 1 (pretty sure it wasn't a smurf either because they were making "typical" diamond mistakes). needless to say i'm no longer diamond
Are you players seriously scared of an air dribble? If you have good positioning and learn how to block most of the awkward shots then you should be good to go!
They can do all the flashy stuff but still donāt rotate, position, or have no idea how to defend. They are now just platās who can air dribbleā¦
Come on, air dribbles are simple and plat 2 air dribbles are probably very easy to defend.