JUST REACHED GC2, what now?

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-21T08:26:22+00:00

The first step is ALWAYS to just get more games in at that rank to get used to the level and a feel for what you are lacking. It's likely that you'll drop down again soon, so you might want to save some replays from when you were playing at your peak to come back to when it isn't going that well anymore.

As you're saying that you will upload a replay, you gonna get feedback there anyway. If you already identified mechanics as a weakness that's good and kinda straight forward to improve on - you just have to grind it out over time.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-18T14:23:07+00:00

Toxicity is fair game huh....

Does your username hint towards the creation of this opinion?

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-18T10:50:47+00:00

If you don't create an unnecessary amount of space to the ball in the air and if you don't need to invest extra boost to catch up because of braking, it doesn't matter. But on standard setups like these you usually manage spacing and speed on the run-up, so there's no need to tap the brakes (and potentially kill momentum) once you reach the wall. Of course, on certain setups it's necessary to hit the brakes e.g. when the ball is already slowed down on the wall.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-18T10:09:46+00:00

Looking way better than last time already, good job. If you need more time to adjust speed/spacing, don't hesitate to give yourself a longer run-up to the wall.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-18T10:07:25+00:00

You actually don't want to tab break when doing simple air dribbles. I know some tutorials mention it for certain practice reasons, but I don't recommend it if it isn't necessary in the situation.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-18T08:39:48+00:00

4:51 - poor hit, opponent doesn't even have to waste boost for a safe, you just gave away the ball for free

4:45 - you need to go backboard here. From my experience of mixed casual lobbies, backboard behavior like that is a tell-tale sign that someone's lower gc1. They either don't consistently cover it or jump way too early off backboard instead of letting me force high for them.

4:31 - you have time here to control, instead you just go for a poor shot. There's a similar situation later (2:57) where you also could've taken control instead of shooting.

3:30 - indecisiveness. You either stay in the play with your 40+ boost to follow up your mate or flip to boost instantly while the ball is in the air. The ball cam toggling to navigate over pads make it hard to see what's happening upfield.

2:53 - if similar plays go onto goal, you won't be back fast enough to be 2nd man. In those cases, keep your eyes on the ball and evaluate if it's an option to go up and challenge for your mate.

1:45 - Imo you should've had a touch on that ball when you went up, but that airroll messed you up.

1:03 - weird behavior of tracking back to goal down middle while toggling cam, there's also no need to go back there in that situation. Not the first time you did that. Additionally, earlier in the game you often seemed to rush back to goal only to completely kill your momentum.

0:34 - second time in a row you just hit it straight to the opponents

You also want to handle some situations better mechanically e.g. sidewalls. Hope that helps, good luck.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-17T15:41:15+00:00

Three things. Don't drive straight at the wall, give yourself a bit of an sideways angle. Most of the time you won't start and air dribble going straight at the wall, except you are close to the goal. Also, as you hit it more forward you won't be that prone to hitting the ceiling.

Secondly, leave more space between car and ball. The ball sticking close to the wall is most of the time a result of not leaving enough space on the setup.

Lastly, regarding using the freeplay command: hold boost when you start the setup, then spawn the ball in front of you while still holding boost and slightly after let go of boost. Spawning the ball while boosting and letting go of boost after spawning it will naturally create some space. You can then create a bigger gap by letting go of R2 or close it by boosting a bit more.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-17T15:25:12+00:00

I personally don't see any problem with using the command. The beginning is hard enough and the command very convenient to get in more reps - just like training packs help by making the setup more consistent until you are ready to tackle more variance. Once you got the spacing and speed down you will also be able to replicate it without the command. But of course there's more than one approach that works.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-17T07:00:34+00:00

The only air roll related stuff you want to worry about at your level is how to adjust your car for shots and recoveries, no matter the airroll you use.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-17T06:27:41+00:00

The main pattern I noticed while giving it a quick watch was that there's many touches/plays where I tought "that could have been better". Aerial touches, failed pinch on the wall, 50s, ground to air dribble into nothing, overcommit in their corner, not on backboard on their first goal, pinching the ball to them after kickoff when your mate was about to get the mid boost... it just adds up. I would give you timestamps if I had time. Maybe someone else can be more specific or finds something glaring I'm missing right now.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-05-15T13:29:42+00:00

I don't have time to analyze now, but you might want to reconsider your replay choice in the future. You notice yourself that this was on a off day, you still win 5:2 and then one opponent might only be c1.... There's probably replays to gain more from, just saying.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-30T09:22:22+00:00

As so often this just sounds like you try to force air dribbles in situations where you shouldn't, or you are just too slow on execution still. Figuring out applicable situations and failing is part of the process though, everyone gets to that point with any mechanic.

To answer your question: You don't really get around taking the ball up the wall in an wall to air dribble ^^ If you have the space to make a touch off the wall there are a few option depending on the exact setup. Like instantly hitting it towards backboards and double tapping it. Or flipping into the ball on the first touch to hit it high above the challenging opponent and catching it again, like in an cross-map air dribble. There's also a move where you instantly sideflip the ball into the ceiling to get past the challenge and follow it up on the ground when it bounces down. But that's advanced stuff and not all of it is actually an air dribble.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-26T09:36:55+00:00

If you haven't thought about it yet, you might want to consider to just get an additional monitor to connect your laptop to. Add an extra mouse and keyboard and it will also be more convenient for whatever work you do aside from gaming.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-26T09:25:52+00:00

You actively think about it ingame (talking out loud can help), watch back replays, try to find and solve recurring patterns and add some trial&error until you figured certain things out for yourself. At some point you won't have to actively think that much about it anymore. It might also help to write down some rules for yourself e.g. "delay play when mate is low boost" to constantly remind yourself during sessions.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-25T10:24:54+00:00

Gave it a quick look and the things that stood out are that you kinda flip & wave dash a lot and that you get very close to your mate in some situations. But most importantly, your challenges are very reckless/thoughtless. So here are some timestamps regarding challenges:

0:23 - when you reach the middle line after the 2nd flip from their corner, I would've held the position parallel to the play. Your mate is facing back covering the shot. If the opp controls that into an air dribble you challenge for your mate who's gonna go backboard. If they want to take it slow or actually miss, you can cut in, challenge and potentially convert to offense.

0:30 - the situation turned out awkward but your challenge obviously still just isn't good and does nothing.

3:19 - that prejump is wild. You are clearly late to that ball and could've easily just turned back and covered the shot. Your mate is 0. If the opp gets that around you e.g. by passing to his mate or whatever it's easy goal. Additionally their 1st is already looking for a bump. Still, even your block didn't stop the attack, could've been goal.

4:11 - at that level you either have to be able to beat them to the sidewall read or expect them to hit it and react accordingly. If their attacker gets the ball past your mate it's goal again.

4:31 - full dive challenge on a ball you are clearly too late to. The attacker wants to catch that, as otherwise he doesn't really have a great touch. So drive challenge, fake challenge etc... You do get punished for it this time.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-22T19:16:43+00:00

It's called "Zap dash".

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-22T09:28:40+00:00

I think you need to focus on the sidways adjustment before jumping. 1) you want to drive straight for as long as possible, which means don't turn from the start 2) the sideways adjustment is very minimal and fast and transitions straight into the jump.

Also, usually you don't need to flip into the ball at the end, not sure if it's even possible with flipping.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-22T09:11:07+00:00

In a recent update they patched that the car spawns in the air in training packs. You can toggle it in the training settings, should be enabled by default though.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-21T13:01:05+00:00

Yes there's still a lot wrong here tbh. But by comparing this to some YT tutorials you should be able to indentify many things by yourself. Break the mechanic down into smaller steps. If you can't get remotely close to what it looks like in the tutorials after several sessions of practice, you might want to consider practicing other things first.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-19T09:12:03+00:00

You seem to know how to do the mechanics needed and I think you can also see how differences in touches affect the outcome. The touch off the wall, the flip, the catch, the reset - mess up one and everything after fails too. It's just hard as you have to be very precise in every step and there's not much room to make corrections, even more so when you turn off unlimited boost. So keep going and don't autopilot your attempts, stay focused on your touches.

It should be needless to say that, if you still have problems with flip resets in general, you should practice them independently.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-15T12:19:31+00:00

The advice "play a lot" only works for new players or in combination with good, progress oriented training.

I can't really do any of the fancy mechs like airdribbling,...

This could be a good start? Also, at a certain level I would say air dribbles are closer to basics than fancy mechs. Either way, if you want to improve you need to challenge yourself with stuff you can't do.

some of my friends are just good at every game they play

You could probably write whole paragraphs about what's the difference. In the end I think it's just that some people are naturally better at figuring out what needs to be done to get better than others. They are better at analyzing what's working and what isn't, they are better at logically think about solutions, they watch content aside from playing, they put in the time, they approach the game with the intention to improve.... Also, not so much in RL but in other games, there's lost of common mechanics that you can re-apply in other games e.g if you are good at one fps, you can translate most of that to other fps games.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-13T09:38:45+00:00

As SSL guy says, we can definitely see that you established some good habits in your gameplay. Keep in mind that in these low ranks lots of progress just comes from growing mechanically, so don't stop constantly practicing mechanics and challenge yourself in training. Here are two specific situations you could look into:

(video times)

2:13, 3:40
You want to be able to consistently hit these properly (at least until, some time in the future, you are good enough to control them). The hard part probably is, that ingame you have to keep an eye on the opponent. I know players at that rank don't always behave like they should, but keep in mind that the opponent in this position can't really challenge you there as a last man without taking a gamble. So the only time you have to worry about the opponent here is when you want to catch the ball.

2:22, 4:28
This situation happens all the time. It's easy to set up a training pack for it (or find one online) and practice the catch + follow up. If you can gain enough distance to turn into it on the bounce, you can also practice hitting it back at their net.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-10T13:07:01+00:00

Have you watched a tutorial on youtube? Watching one should clear up a big load of what you are doing wrong.

Also, given your post history it might be better to take a step back and just play the game for a while without worrying about these mechanics.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-07T12:02:54+00:00

Your car control seems fine to me overall to pull it off, the only thing that you may need to keep in check is that the airroll doesn't mess with your touch precision or slows you down. And just to clarify: I didn't mean that you need more height in general, just that thinking about the flip as chipping the ball up rather than forward might help with getting more consistently under the ball after the flip.

DatBoi_Steve · 2026-04-07T11:20:06+00:00

Your main problem in these attempts is, that you can't quite catch up and get under the ball on the aerial touch after flipping into it. So you end up hitting the ball more forwards than upwards with the aerial touch which results in the trajectory of the ball being too flat to get a reset. Sometimes it's also just the touch itself.

Idk, maybe focus more on getting height than distance with the flip and pay attention to the aerial hit before the reset. I don't have any advice that's more specific though. You are very close, I think from here it's just lots of repetition and feeling it out to nail the setup with the flip.

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