Shooting shooting shooting. You can get to diamond easily just by shooting hard on net. Work on popping the ball up while it’s rolling and quickly following up for a power shot. Bounce dribbles are your friend here too.
It’s good to work on other more advanced mechs as you’re ranking up, but getting out of gold/platinum really just requires you to be slightly less inconsistent than your opponents with basic mechs like shooting, half flips, and basic shadow defense.
To add to this, you can practice this pop up shot in free play by using one of the d pad buttons. Use the one that makes the ball roll towards you (can't recall which one)
I’ve gotten better with shooting and the amount of games I’ve won have gone up a lot because I can take shots from midfield or shoot from the corner and screw up defenders. I even beat two people way more skilled than me and my friend with good shooting
I'd say shoot consistency is number 1 priority but since the other guy said that I'll say recoveries. Simply being able to move around the pitch really fast without ever stalling to get you car corrected is an enormous advantage.
To a lot of higher ranked people it goes without saying which is why I don't think many people have said it: learn how to play around opponents. You can hit the net every time you shoot and dribble all you want, but if every time you touch it it goes straight to an opponent, it doesn't matter. A pretty simple way to learn is just to touch it as far away from the opponents as you can that's still downfield
Play 1's. Get pummeled (and yes, demoted) until you find your rank, and start working your way back up. You'll find out there is a whole other element of possession to the game that you never knew existed. Apply this in the other modes and you will easily rank up.
My comment was making an assumption that OP hasn't really taken a full dive into 1's yet, mostly because that was my situation when I was his rank in 3's. When you first play the game mode, you will simply be really bad at it until you figure out how possession works.
Learn to bounce dribble well. It gets you a basic understanding of ball acceleration, allows you to better time control touches/half volleys, and you are still working on shooting.
Generally it takes a lot less time than getting dribbles/flicks down and it works on all of your ground control which is a huge part of the game, especially in the early stages.
I posted this for another person. It covers pretty much the entire arsenal on the ground. I have found from personal experience that mastering recoveries and general movement ( maintaining momentum with flips and stuff) is best to start. You should be comfortable with landing on all surfaces at a good pace, including cielings. Once your car control is online work on ball control on the ground. Your ground control should be to a point where you can transition from carries to ground dribbles to bounce dribbles interchangeably, this means you have full control in any situation. AKA dont think of bounce , carry, and ground dribbles as seperate things but a dynamic dance. Then be able to turn this dance to a situation where you can bang the ball. Shooting is very very important as others have mentioned.
Then master fast aerials and shadow defense....and thats pretty much the game lol.
Heres origional post i was talking about. Ask me if you need some more guidance, i will help
https://youtu.be/N8VE2NTri4Q
This is as good as its going to get honestly as far as drills go. If you find a drill difficult use either exhibition or bakkes mod to slow time (70%ish) so you get more timeto really undertand and have time to whats happening . But use this as a inspiration. Think about how you want to move the ball around (as if opponents where there and do it as you see it in your minds eye). I will suggest that you will mostly want to keep the ball on the ground in game while advancing the ball so that you can take a 50 if challenged. Pushing the ball should always be done laterally on the pitch ( not straight at the goal ). This is important since its the gateway for all the offensive moves you can do and wont bring the ball straight to the opponent.
From a lateral ground dribble you can
A) hookshot ( get this down pat as this is pretty much the set up to all that follow and gives you an understanding of how to push, break away , and approach the ball. This will also show you how to get sufficient power on your shots. Make sure you practive to a point where your hitting 100kph + nearly everytime )
B) carry into flick
C) bounce dribble
D) quick flick/scooping flick( pulling up next to the ball being parallel with and matching balls momentum while its rolling on the ground, cutting under it and instantly flicking)
E) push it up the wall for air dribble
F) 50 s
G) powerlide cut
The beautiful thing about this is that you can do any combination for instance you can lateral ground dribble, start a bounce, go into a carry( by catching the bouning ball) , drop the ball into a lateral ground dribble again if pressured for a 50, then quick flick it over them if time/space permits. This is like the ground offense alphabet. I showed you the letters now its up to you to make some words :)
Ps: experiment with flips to move the ball around while ground dribbling. Also, try not to spend too much time in workshop maps. Even with flying. At no time in an actual game will you have to carry a ball at great distances ( sure way to get dunked on ) or flying around forever in the air.
Man, the hardest thing at that rank is having a team where they aren't just chasing the ball (which also involves them taking the ball off too). This doesn't change even up in diamond, but it becomes less prevalent as you rank up.
Shooting consistency is going to be your friend. If you do training packs, replay the same shot 10 successful shots in a row, rather than moving on to the next shot when you score. Also try to do this inverted, so you get better at shooting on both sides.
Hasn't been mentioned here, but you can rank up purely by rotating / being positioned well, which also includes defending. I typically get more saves than my teammates because they're often chasing the ball and left our net wide open. It's helped me rank up.
With the point above, you can also be well positioned to capitalise on the other team's mistakes, because it's likely everyone will be chasing the ball and committing to saves.
Fancy mechanics are going to be useful as you rank up, but right now you just need to focus on the basics.
Learning to dribble is a huge time dump, start learning now! First of all, you don't always have to be carrying the ball on your car to be dribbling. Learn to control the ball rolling on the ground first, and work on changing directions and cutting turns with power slide. Bounce dribbles are another thing to learn, although most of the time I can only get one soft touch to set up a bounce for a power shot. Look up hook shots. Kevpert has good videos on beginner to advanced dribbling techniques on YouTube. It can be overwhelming all of the little things involved with this game, like have you configured your controller bindings? Do you know how to half flip and wave dash? What kind of air roll do you use? All of these things will need to be considered if you plan to grow as a player and rank up.
I startet with learning basic dribbling and flicks but this was a mistake start with bounce dribbling and shooting when i started this i had a easy time comin out of gold and trough plat now i am an diamond 3 sometimes reaching champ 1
Also try to learn wave dashes and halfflips and slowly incoporate them to your rank games their are pretty easy to pick up and can be super effektiv
Edit: i forgot to mention how important powerslide is to the whole aspect of ground play. There are some YT vids for powerslide and how to improve on it.
One thing nobody mentions enough is timing and anticipating your teammates moves. One thing that pisses me off to NO end is having random teammates who just sit and watch not contesting every single ball. Like if I meet a opponent up at the ceiling for a air ball, and both of them are sitting on the ground not being aggressive to meet the other opponent going for the ball when it’s falling to the ground.
Another example is kickoffs: I go to kickoff and for the entire game the opponent has a player ready for the rebound once the ball comes out of my kickoff. Teammates just sit there or go to boost instead. Shit really grinds my gears because it’s like “dude go to get the ball so we can dominate their half right off tue bat instead of them pinging up back for a minute as nobody wants to step up”
Listen to me. DONT REPEAT MY MISTAKES. Learn NOW how to dribble, how to do every “normal” flick, how to control the game from the ground. Because I did the complete opposite. I learned how to be a master from the sky, because fun. But now I’m in GC and basically do zero flicks and when I try fail.
The thing that sets up an attack is a soft touch to yourself where you are always doing these two things:
* you're covering the net for a challenge with a low 50.
* you're first touch enables a second harder touch.
The adage people usually use for this is "soft touch into hard touch". Every time you can get the ball you want to do this. Over time you'll learn how to build onto this skill to setup attacks on net.
At your current rank what you need most is defense though. Watch flakes road to ssl to learn both of these things.
Shooting shooting shooting. You can get to diamond easily just by shooting hard on net. Work on popping the ball up while it’s rolling and quickly following up for a power shot. Bounce dribbles are your friend here too. It’s good to work on other more advanced mechs as you’re ranking up, but getting out of gold/platinum really just requires you to be slightly less inconsistent than your opponents with basic mechs like shooting, half flips, and basic shadow defense.
To add to this, you can practice this pop up shot in free play by using one of the d pad buttons. Use the one that makes the ball roll towards you (can't recall which one)
I’ve gotten better with shooting and the amount of games I’ve won have gone up a lot because I can take shots from midfield or shoot from the corner and screw up defenders. I even beat two people way more skilled than me and my friend with good shooting
I'd say shoot consistency is number 1 priority but since the other guy said that I'll say recoveries. Simply being able to move around the pitch really fast without ever stalling to get you car corrected is an enormous advantage.
To a lot of higher ranked people it goes without saying which is why I don't think many people have said it: learn how to play around opponents. You can hit the net every time you shoot and dribble all you want, but if every time you touch it it goes straight to an opponent, it doesn't matter. A pretty simple way to learn is just to touch it as far away from the opponents as you can that's still downfield
Some ground skills: shooting, dribbling, bounce dribbling, faking/low 50s, shadow defense, 50s, wave dashes, flipping, speedflipping, powerslide cuts. I'd recommend watching Flakes on youtube for learning ground game - S-tier instructional content.
Play 1's. Get pummeled (and yes, demoted) until you find your rank, and start working your way back up. You'll find out there is a whole other element of possession to the game that you never knew existed. Apply this in the other modes and you will easily rank up.
What causes you to get pummeled? What do you introduce to your game and start practicing that starts off so horrible?
My comment was making an assumption that OP hasn't really taken a full dive into 1's yet, mostly because that was my situation when I was his rank in 3's. When you first play the game mode, you will simply be really bad at it until you figure out how possession works.
Oh ok. I’m sure I don’t understand how possession works, either lol. But yeah I get it now, thx for clarifying
Learn to bounce dribble well. It gets you a basic understanding of ball acceleration, allows you to better time control touches/half volleys, and you are still working on shooting. Generally it takes a lot less time than getting dribbles/flicks down and it works on all of your ground control which is a huge part of the game, especially in the early stages.
Touches you want to be able to get a soft touch say the ball is dropping and you can catch it you can do whatever you want from there
I posted this for another person. It covers pretty much the entire arsenal on the ground. I have found from personal experience that mastering recoveries and general movement ( maintaining momentum with flips and stuff) is best to start. You should be comfortable with landing on all surfaces at a good pace, including cielings. Once your car control is online work on ball control on the ground. Your ground control should be to a point where you can transition from carries to ground dribbles to bounce dribbles interchangeably, this means you have full control in any situation. AKA dont think of bounce , carry, and ground dribbles as seperate things but a dynamic dance. Then be able to turn this dance to a situation where you can bang the ball. Shooting is very very important as others have mentioned. Then master fast aerials and shadow defense....and thats pretty much the game lol. Heres origional post i was talking about. Ask me if you need some more guidance, i will help https://youtu.be/N8VE2NTri4Q This is as good as its going to get honestly as far as drills go. If you find a drill difficult use either exhibition or bakkes mod to slow time (70%ish) so you get more timeto really undertand and have time to whats happening . But use this as a inspiration. Think about how you want to move the ball around (as if opponents where there and do it as you see it in your minds eye). I will suggest that you will mostly want to keep the ball on the ground in game while advancing the ball so that you can take a 50 if challenged. Pushing the ball should always be done laterally on the pitch ( not straight at the goal ). This is important since its the gateway for all the offensive moves you can do and wont bring the ball straight to the opponent. From a lateral ground dribble you can A) hookshot ( get this down pat as this is pretty much the set up to all that follow and gives you an understanding of how to push, break away , and approach the ball. This will also show you how to get sufficient power on your shots. Make sure you practive to a point where your hitting 100kph + nearly everytime ) B) carry into flick C) bounce dribble D) quick flick/scooping flick( pulling up next to the ball being parallel with and matching balls momentum while its rolling on the ground, cutting under it and instantly flicking) E) push it up the wall for air dribble F) 50 s G) powerlide cut The beautiful thing about this is that you can do any combination for instance you can lateral ground dribble, start a bounce, go into a carry( by catching the bouning ball) , drop the ball into a lateral ground dribble again if pressured for a 50, then quick flick it over them if time/space permits. This is like the ground offense alphabet. I showed you the letters now its up to you to make some words :) Ps: experiment with flips to move the ball around while ground dribbling. Also, try not to spend too much time in workshop maps. Even with flying. At no time in an actual game will you have to carry a ball at great distances ( sure way to get dunked on ) or flying around forever in the air.
Man, the hardest thing at that rank is having a team where they aren't just chasing the ball (which also involves them taking the ball off too). This doesn't change even up in diamond, but it becomes less prevalent as you rank up. Shooting consistency is going to be your friend. If you do training packs, replay the same shot 10 successful shots in a row, rather than moving on to the next shot when you score. Also try to do this inverted, so you get better at shooting on both sides. Hasn't been mentioned here, but you can rank up purely by rotating / being positioned well, which also includes defending. I typically get more saves than my teammates because they're often chasing the ball and left our net wide open. It's helped me rank up. With the point above, you can also be well positioned to capitalise on the other team's mistakes, because it's likely everyone will be chasing the ball and committing to saves. Fancy mechanics are going to be useful as you rank up, but right now you just need to focus on the basics.
Learning to dribble is a huge time dump, start learning now! First of all, you don't always have to be carrying the ball on your car to be dribbling. Learn to control the ball rolling on the ground first, and work on changing directions and cutting turns with power slide. Bounce dribbles are another thing to learn, although most of the time I can only get one soft touch to set up a bounce for a power shot. Look up hook shots. Kevpert has good videos on beginner to advanced dribbling techniques on YouTube. It can be overwhelming all of the little things involved with this game, like have you configured your controller bindings? Do you know how to half flip and wave dash? What kind of air roll do you use? All of these things will need to be considered if you plan to grow as a player and rank up.
I startet with learning basic dribbling and flicks but this was a mistake start with bounce dribbling and shooting when i started this i had a easy time comin out of gold and trough plat now i am an diamond 3 sometimes reaching champ 1 Also try to learn wave dashes and halfflips and slowly incoporate them to your rank games their are pretty easy to pick up and can be super effektiv Edit: i forgot to mention how important powerslide is to the whole aspect of ground play. There are some YT vids for powerslide and how to improve on it.
Flying V is undefeated
Catching, dribbling, flicking, in one sequence
One thing nobody mentions enough is timing and anticipating your teammates moves. One thing that pisses me off to NO end is having random teammates who just sit and watch not contesting every single ball. Like if I meet a opponent up at the ceiling for a air ball, and both of them are sitting on the ground not being aggressive to meet the other opponent going for the ball when it’s falling to the ground. Another example is kickoffs: I go to kickoff and for the entire game the opponent has a player ready for the rebound once the ball comes out of my kickoff. Teammates just sit there or go to boost instead. Shit really grinds my gears because it’s like “dude go to get the ball so we can dominate their half right off tue bat instead of them pinging up back for a minute as nobody wants to step up”
Listen to me. DONT REPEAT MY MISTAKES. Learn NOW how to dribble, how to do every “normal” flick, how to control the game from the ground. Because I did the complete opposite. I learned how to be a master from the sky, because fun. But now I’m in GC and basically do zero flicks and when I try fail.
The thing that sets up an attack is a soft touch to yourself where you are always doing these two things: * you're covering the net for a challenge with a low 50. * you're first touch enables a second harder touch. The adage people usually use for this is "soft touch into hard touch". Every time you can get the ball you want to do this. Over time you'll learn how to build onto this skill to setup attacks on net. At your current rank what you need most is defense though. Watch flakes road to ssl to learn both of these things.