Rocket League: How to Dribble, Explained

Dribbling is one of the most essential mechanics to master in Rocket League. Since it allows you to keep control of the ball, learning how to dribble can boost your attack and make you a better player overall. However, due to the complexity of Rocket League, mastering dribbling can be daunting.

From catching the ball to keeping it in control, the dribbling mechanic can be divided into multiple parts. In this article, we’ll break them down and teach you how to dribble in Rocket League. 

What Is Dribbling In Rocket League?

Similar to soccer, dribbling in Rocket League means keeping the ball close to your car and being in total control of it. While dribbling, you maintain the ball on the hood of your car and drive around the map without letting it fall. By doing so, you can easily build an attack and score goals. If you’re stuck in the lower leagues and can’t seem to rank up, learning how to dribble can be the breakthrough you need. 

Previously, the dribbling mechanic was only used by the higher-ranked players. However, now, you can find great dribblers even in the Platinum ranks. While most of them are smurfs, it still makes breaking out of Plat or Diamond difficult if you can’t beat them. As a result, learning the fundamental mechanics is now more important than ever. If you just master a few basic mechanics like dribbling and shooting, you’re gonna be golden.

How To Dribble In Rocket League

Dribbling can be divided into five basic skills. 

• Accelerating
• Boosting
• Turning
• Catching
• Jumping

While all these sound easy, they can each take multiple hours or even days to master. However, don’t worry, as we’ll try to make them as simple as possible. Before we begin, here’s a training pack you can use to train all these skills individually and then together. 

• Map Code: 6F35-CE3B-ABCB-FE13

We’ll use specific parts of this pack to train each skill individually.

Accelerating 

The first sub-mechanic to master is simply accelerating your car. In comparison, this will be the easiest step out of all five. While this step isn’t flashy, it’s important to completely learn it. All the subsequent steps will build on the accelerating mechanic, so make sure you know what you’re doing. 

To practice accelerating, launch the training pack we mentioned earlier. In the first shot of the map, the ball will be placed on top of your car, and all you need to do is carry it to the opponent’s goal without letting it fall. This is what we mean by accelerating. By carrying the ball to the other side of the goal, you’re learning how to keep the ball on the hood of the car, which is essential in dribbling. For this step, don’t worry about turning, boosting, or even jumping. All you need to practice is carrying the ball to the other side of the goal in a straight line. Everything else will come later. 

Once you can successfully carry the ball to the other side of the goal at least 5 consecutive times, you can move on to the next step. However, if you feel that you’re not entirely confident, keep practicing till you are. 

Boosting

Building on the previous step, this step adds boosting while carrying the ball. To practice boosting, you’re again going to use the first shot of the training pack. But, now, instead of just accelerating, you’re gonna add boost to the equation. This will make your car much faster, and the ball will want to fly off the hood of the car, making it harder to control. However, if you feather your boost instead of holding it down, it’ll become much easier to control. 

Again, keep in mind that we still haven’t incorporated turning. Simply focus on carrying the ball in a straight line towards the goal while boosting. Another thing to keep in mind is the braking aspect. When you’re going too fast and the ball tries to fly off the car, most players tend to apply the brakes. But this is extremely detrimental as braking can totally ruin your dribble. Basically, if you apply too much boost, the ball will roll backwards. On the other hand, if you apply the brakes, the ball will roll forward. To successfully dribble, you need to walk the fine line that is between. 

Simply feather your boost to carry the ball towards the goal. If the ball is rolling backward and you feel the urge to brake, don’t. Instead, to slow down, stop using gas/boost for a moment, and the ball will come back into control. Once you’re able to successfully incorporate boosting, feel free to move to the next step. 

Turning

Turning is where things get tricky. We’re not going to sugarcoat it, this step is definitely going to be hard. This is because turning adds an entirely new dimension to what we previously learnt. However, with enough practice, it becomes easier. To practice turning while keeping the ball in control, we’re going to use the second shot of the training pack. This shot is similar to the previous one, with one small detail changed. While previously the ball was placed on the hood of your car, now it will be placed at an angle, making it impossible to go in a straight line.

As a result, to control the ball and keep it on the hood, you need to incorporate turning. This is a big jump in skill for most players, so for the first few moments, don’t worry about the goal at all. Simply try to balance the ball on the hood of your car as long as you can. Additionally, don’t use boost as it’ll make things worse at the start. Instead, just give the car some gas and try to maintain ball control. Even though we just practiced boosting, using it instantly will make it harder to learn the turning mechanic. 

Even if you feel like you’re losing control of the ball and that it will fall, don’t use boost and let it fall. We need to simplify turning, so adding any other mechanic combined with it will add more complexity. Realistically, the turning mechanic might take you multiple hours, or even days, to master. But if you practice it consistently, the results will come. 

Once you’re comfortable with turning and can carry the ball into the goal five times, add boosting to the shot. This can be as little as feathering some boost here and there. The main goal is to make the ball go a little faster than just accelerating. Again, this will come with practice, and there’s no way to cheat this step. Finally, when you can consistently carry the ball into the net with both boost and turning, move on to the next step. 

Catching

In a real scenario, catching the ball is where the dribble starts, making it the actual first step. So, now that you can successfully carry the ball on your car, let’s get into catching and dribbling the ball. In the training pack, shots 3-6 are all designed to train the catching mechanics. In them, instead of the ball already being on the hood of your car, you’ll need to pop it up and catch it. 

To do this, simply tap the ball gently as it rolls towards you. This will make the ball go upwards, and then you can catch it by bringing your car under it. Of course, it’ll require a little control, but this step is much easier to learn. Also, remember to switch to the car camera as soon as you’ve caught the ball. Dribbling with the ball cam on is hard, so always switch your camera once you’ve initiated a dribble. In all the shots, you’ll be doing the same thing we’ve done before, carrying the ball to the net. 

Some tips to keep in mind are: 

• Don’t use boost while popping the ball up, simply tap it gently and boost afterwards to catch it. 
• Try to catch the ball on the hood of your car rather than the top. This will soften the bounce of the ball, and you can initiate your dribble quicker. 

Once you’ve practiced shots 3-6 and feel comfortable with catching the ball, move on to shots 7-10. These also require you to catch the ball, but the difficulty increases. To pop the ball up in these, you need to hit it from an angle and control it. However, once you master the initial catch, this won’t give you a hard time. 

Finally, shots 10-16 all require you to catch a flying ball. To do this, you’ll need to be extremely precise with where the ball lands on your car. Essentially, you want the first bounce on the hood. This will soften the blow, and the ball will land perfectly on your car. In some cases, you might need to turn while catching the ball, so keep practicing till you master the mechanics. Once you’re confident and can breeze through every shot, it’s time for the final step. 

Jumping

If you’ve successfully learnt all the previous steps, you’ve already mastered ground dribbling. However, to make sure you convert your dribbles into goals, you need this last step to tie everything up. By learning how to jump while dribbling, you’re adding another dimension to the mechanics, so it’ll be harder to master. If you want, you can either skip this step entirely or just learn it enough to chip the ball over your opponents. That said, if you want to master flicking in the future, this is where you’ll start. 

To learn the jumping mechanic, you can just start the entire training pack again and try to incorporate jumping into every shot. Firstly, start by carrying the ball in a straight line and adding a jump in between. If you’re able to do that and then catch the ball successfully, add more mechanics to it. Try to add a double jump, incorporate boost, and turning. Once that gets too easy, try to incorporate flips and spins. This will set you perfectly in the direction of learning flicks. 

Once you’re able to successfully add jumps to your dribble, pat yourself on the back as you can now successfully dribble in Rocket League.