How to Dribble in Rocket League - RL Beginner Dribble Tips & Tutorial

Dribbling is a basic skill in many ball games, it’s also the hardest essential skills of Rocket League. How to dribble in Rocket League? Rocket League dribble training packs are recommended. Here are some Rocket League dribble tips for mastering the skill.

How to Dribble the Ball in Rocket League - Rocket League Dribbling Tutorial for Beginners

Most people can tap the ball a couple of times as it rolls on the ground to line it up toward the goal, but actually, carrying it on your car is extremely difficult, especially carrying it toward a specific direction that you want, and at a specific speed at very specific angles and jumping and turning and flipping at specific times. You need specific Rocket League dribble training to learn the mechanic. Dribbling can be broken down into five main skills, they are gas, boost, turning, catching, and jumping, this is also the exact order, you can practice these skills.

Gas

The first skill to master is the gas or the right trigger button on your controller or W if you're on the keyboard, this one is so simple and you probably don't even need to put that much practice into it, but it's important, don’t skip it. The ball just resting on your head and you carry it all the way across the field into the other goal, this is super simple also kind of boring. When you do this, you don’t want to to use any other button on your controller, you can literally take your left hand off of it, if you want the purpose is to carry the ball all the way to the goal with only using the gas, no need to turn or boost or hit the brakes or anything, this is very basic, so hopefully you can do that. Another quick thing to keep in mind is that your car choice isn't a big deal when you're learning how to dribble, Dominus or Octane or other cars are all good choices. Don’t worry about this. If you can successfully do this five times in a row, you're ready for the next step.

Boost

Incorporating boost and brakes is definitely a lot harder than only using the gas, but it's still really easy, so you may be able to get master it on your first day of practicing. Instead of just going straight toward the goal, using boost, you're gonna speed up by feathering your boost at the start and then you'll tap the brakes at midfield to slow it down a little bit and then you'll speed up again with a boost to put it into the goal, no turning necessary when you tap the brakes at midfield, do not hold it down, that'll just send the ball flying forward, just lightly tap it only for a brief moment, if you do it any longer, the ball is gonna go way out of your control, the point of using the brakes in this drill is not necessary to get good at actually, using them competitively. But instead to get used to how jarring it is when you use them, it's really natural for us in real dribbles in the game to want to hit the brakes when the ball is getting a little too far behind our car, but doing that is clearly way more powerful than you think, so the purpose of using the brakes in this drill is to train your brain to not enjoy using them, so you can eliminate that bad habit before it even starts, instead of in real situations to slow down, you should simply stop using boost and gas for a moment, only use the brakes if the ball is way behind your car. Once you can do this five times in a row, you're about ready to move on to the next one.

Turning

This is the hardest in difficulty because you're basically adding an entire dimension to everything you've been doing to get used to turning, you kind of have to go back a step in the previous skills to make it easier on yourself. In real games you'd be using all of these skills at once to keep control but obviously, that's just not possible if you haven't gotten the basics down. It's pretty much the same thing as before except the ball is slightly on the side of your car, so you can't go in a straight line at first when you're doing this, don't even worry about the goal just try and keep the ball on your car for as long as possible, but the other big thing is don’t use any boosts or the brakes at all, even though you were just practicing those skills in the previous step. Only use the gas and turning for this, even if you know the ball is about to fall off the front, let it fall down, do not press that boost button. What's most important when you're adding the element of turning is that you keep every other complication to a minimum. If you can get this in the goal with only gas and turning five times in a row you're ready to add boost. Adding boost is as simple as feathering some boost into it here and there, just try and make the ball go a little faster, this is another one of those things that don't really have any tips, because it's not a skill that suddenly clicks in your brain and makes sense, it's just something that you grind out and get better over time. Similarly, before moving to next skill, practice five times in a row.

Catching

Catching is where the dribble actually starts, but if you are not able to carry the ball on your car, you don’t know exactly what’s considered as a good catch. The ball will be rolling toward you or just be stationary in front of you, you need to pop it up softly and catch it and carry it into the goal. One tips for here is to try and catch the ball in front of your car instead of directly on top when you catch it. On top the ball tends to bounce on your car more which makes it harder to keep control, but from the front, it doesn’t bounce as much and allows you to start your forward momentum. Also, when you pop it up, it’s actually best to just drive into the ball slowly, so do not pop it too high but boost immediately after your touch. 

Jumping

The final skill of dribbling is jumping. It sends you off in a nice direction to be able to work on flicks, which requires you to be really consistent at dribbling. The thing about jumping is you have to be really controlled with where the ball is on your car. If you have the ball just bouncing around all over the place on your car when you jump, it’s not going to be possible to catch it before it hits the ground. So when you jump the ball needs to be on a specific spot in your car so that it’s easiest for you to catch it.

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