Rocket League doesn’t have a set script for progression. It’s important to know that everyone develops at their own pace and learns skills at different points in time along their journey.
That being said, there definitely are some tips and a general path you can follow to properly flourish your skills in an order that will have you ahead of the competition.
In this article, we will look at mechanical skills you should work on developing at each rank in Rocket League to keep you ahead of the curve.
We won’t cover every single mechanic in Rocket League but we’ll certianly get close! Let’s jump into the ultimate mechanics list you need for each rank in Rocket League:
Bronze
Not much needs to be said about specific mechanics you should be working on at the beginning rank of Rocket League. There are even some people who start and will place above bronze who have a natural talent for the game.
If you find yourself here, the main thing you should focus on is just playing the game. As long as you put in the time and effort to play your online matches and spend some time in Freeplay, your mechanic skills will quickly multiply.
Specific things you can practice in Freeplay is just driving up to the ball (while it’s moving) and trying to hit the most powerful shot you can into the goal.
Work on this with flipping into the ball:
As well as doing it without flipping into it:
Silver
At this point, I’m sure you’ve started to take an interest in the more adept parts of Rocket League.
Having your skills developed a bit from just starting the game, you can start to learn more complex movements and concepts.
Focusing on more advanced ground play will be key to beating your opponents. Being able to make accurate, powerful hits on the ball will be enough to make them feel awkward and out of position.
You can practice more powerful shots by hitting the ball around as fast as you can in Freeplay and scoring off the rebounds.
Another important skill is being able to introduce a recovery air roll.
Although we don’t necessarily have to practice aerials yet, air roll will be very important for recovering your car and making sure you land on your wheels every time you come down from the wall or the air. Think of it as a cat: you always want to land on your legs, no matter what the fall is.
Last but not least, you need to be able to properly drift. Using your powerslide button, practice turning on a dime for faster recovery and turning times:
Gold
Now that you’ve reached Gold, you are officially in the top 50% of the player base! That’s right, most of the player base resides in high Gold/low Platinum.
This is a pivotal time in your Rocket League career where really focusing on your mechanics will allow you to break through to become a better player than the majority.
By now, you should be starting to learn aerials. Using Rocket League’s “Pro” and “All-Star” aerial training, you should be able to practice jumping into the air, boosting towards the ball, and striking it towards the net:
On top of becoming more proficient at the skills we have already talked about from previous ranks, tacking on wall play is your next step to expanding your mechanical portfolio.
Driving up the wall and being able to accurately hit the ball off the wall (and in the direction you want it) will be key to pair with aerials so you are not only a threat on the ground, but at higher altitudes in the arena as well:
Platinum
Plat is an interesting place. A lot of players will underestimate their skill, and even more players will overestimate their skill.
It’s important to stay humble and to continue to focus on yourself. You will witness a wide variety of teammates by this point with varying levels of skill in certain areas. Some teammates will be very proficient in rotations and have very little mechanical skill, while others will be more mechanically advanced but have poor positioning.
Sticking to your improvement path should be the number one priority. Having a more threatening ground game should be a part of this focus.
Dribbling is one of the most effective ways to outplay your opponent in a 1v1 situation. Learning to balance the ball on top of your car and transition it into a flick in-game is key:
To further progress aerials, you should be learning to incorporate air roll into them. Adding it at the end of being airborne will allow you to hit the ball on a certain part of your car.
At this point, it’s not a bad time to start to learn a more “advanced” mechanic. Air dribbling is typically the next step and Platinum is a common ground where players start to really get good at it.
Having learned basic dribbling, wall play, and basic aerials, you should have all the tools you need to begin air dribbling:
Half flipping is an extremely important recovery technique that is probably the most crucial skill to learn at this time. It will equip you with the ability to quickly change your direction 180 degrees without losing much time:
Diamond
Just like Platinum, Diamond is a huge mixing pot where you will see players of all sorts of shapes and sizes. Varying mechanical ability and game sense is not only important to adapt around for your own teammates, but also being able to capitalize on for your opponents.
As you continue to practice and become better at what we’ve already discussed, you can now start adding on fast aerials to your gameplay.
By double jumping (rather than single jumping) up to the ball in the air, you can achieve much greater speeds and reaction times to beat your ever faster opponents to the ball:
Along the lines of another “advanced” or “flashy” mechanic, this is a great time to adopt ceiling shots.
Starting off simple, you can pop the ball up in the air and drive off the ceiling towards it. Because the ceiling is a solid surface, you can either jump or fall off it and use your flip into the ball to score on the net.
When done correctly, it can be very hard to read from the opponents perspective:
A crucial thing to remember by this point in the game is that the ball will be traveling much faster around the field.
As opponents improve solid contact and clearing ability, being able to execute on your ground catches will be a great asset to take control of the ball and transition it into another mechanic of your choice:
Flip cancels are a great way to generate more power into your shots and manipulate the second half of your flip so there isn’t so much uncertainty in what your car will do after the play.
You can execute this by pulling back on your joystick in the opposite direction of your flip:
Backboard reads are your next mission and will be your next giant leap forward in gameplay. Being able to read the ball consistently off the backboard and transitioning it into an offensive counter attack will not only keep your team off defense, but will also constantly keep the other team on their toes and prevent them from getting too close:
Champion
By this point, if you’ve properly practiced and feel comfortable with all the skills we’ve addressed so far, you should be feeling pretty good about your mechanical abilities.
Goals by now should be to perfect mechanics already practiced and start to add flashier ones to expand your game and threaten your opponents.
Double touches are one of the game’s flashiest and most thrilling mechanics to pull off, and has a lot of competitive upside:
Coming back to the ground game, you should be pretty good by now at keeping the ball on top of your car and consistently executing basic flicks.
Adding in the 45 degree flick will give you more options with the ball on top of your car and will give you greater speeds and control of direction on your shots while dribbling:
Advanced ceiling shots can be done by combining mechanics and changing your approach.
Jumping up to the ceiling after popping the ball can increase your speed of the play and will give you more momentum when bouncing off the top of the arena. Jumping off the sidewall and air rolling 90 degrees to land your wheels on the ceiling will work…
…and spinning 360 degrees can give you increased control as well:
Another component you should be spicing up your aerials with is advanced air roll.
No, this isn’t just to look cool for freestyling (although it does look pretty cool), spinning and contorting your car in the air while going for the ball will give you added control and muscle memory on exact, precise movements needed to hit the ball exactly as needed:
Speedflips can be your best friend in Rocket League. This is the fastest way to get from point A to point B on the field and can greatly increase your success on kickoffs, preflips, and general speed to a play on the ground or in air.
They are done by cancelling your flip diagonally and using air roll and powerslide to finish off the flip:
Grand Champion
If you’ve properly practiced and feel comfortable with all the mechanics we have talked about up until this point, there should be very little you feel like you can’t do.
There should be little (if not none) disconnect between your brain and your hands when it comes to envisioning your car and how you want to control it.
Now, you can start to learn the most advanced mechanics in the game and really start to double down on perfect consistency on all mechanics practiced before.
Flip resets are your next mechanic to tackle and are no easy feat.
Just like the ceiling or ground, you can receive a flip by putting all four wheels on the ball, which is another solid surface. Your flip can then be used to threaten opponents with more dynamic options in the air:
Redirect double touches are probably one of the hardest mechanics to pull off as it requires a lot of precision to accurately get your first touch where you need it.
Air roll, boosting through the ball, and speed will all factor into getting this perfect touch and being able to follow it up afterwards. This can be done off a pass or opponent clear:
Pinches are a great way to keep your opponent’s distance at bay. Even if you don’t score them, they can really make them think twice about how close they want to play when you have a possible pinch.
They can be done coming down from the air onto the ground:
Or onto the wall (as made famous by kuxir):
To keep your ground game growing and even more dynamic, you can add tornado flicks to your bag of tricks. This will really keep your opponent guessing on your direction:
Supersonic Legend
At the top rank of the game, there really shouldn’t be much mechanically you need to work on, as far as adding certain skills and moves goes.
To reach this rank, you really need to be more than proficient in all the areas we have covered. To add mechanics can be beneficial, but more of a fun thing at this point.
Most of your focus should really be on mastering and being a perfect player with positioning and rotations and making sure no mechanic is holding back your game.
That being said, there are still a few tricks you can add up your sleeve, like musty flicks. Coined by its creator amustycow, this is the act of ‘scooping’ the ball on a flick rather than starting from the top. This can be executed on the ground…
…or even in the air:
Double flip resets don’t have too much of a competitive advantage, as at this level you will rarely receive enough space to execute one. However, if you do, they can be quite deceptive as the opponent will rarely expect another flip to come due to its rarity of use:
This can technically be chained into as many flip resets as you like, but for the sake of competitive reality (and my own mechanical limits) here is a double:
Sometimes mechanics can get spicy by combining two that we have learned before, like the ceiling shot double touch.
An exciting move that combines the ceiling shot and double touch at the same time, this can really be useful when your opponent is sitting in net and you need to get it above him to keep him guessing:
From this point on, becoming more mechanical is all about perfecting every little small detail, and combining certain skills we’ve learned all into one, so you can continue to keep your opponents on your toes with an entire bag of tricks.
Ground catch to air dribble to double touch:
Advanced air roll to flip reset to wavedash:
Wall play to flip reset to double touch:
The possibilities of combinations are endless, and are only limited by your imagination once you learn full control of your car and master everything shown on this list. Please keep in mind that this is only a suggestion. Everyone learns at their own rates and you don’t have to follow this list step by step.
Some people may find it hard to master a mechanic at the specified rank, and others might be nailing mechanics early on and can move on to more advanced ones at a lower rank. It’s all about what you feel comfortable with.
If you take anything away from this article, pay more attention to the order rather than the ranks.
For instance, you shouldn’t be learning flip resets before you’ve properly learned how to dribble the ball. This is a general progression that if followed, can give you all the tools you need mechanically to reach the top rank in the game — Supersonic Legend.
Good luck out there, and if you fancy booking a coaching session with me, i’d be more than happy to help you out!
