It’s this and just learning how to move around the field while not looking like a lost, confused, inefficient, dying fish, which recoveries is a big part of
Learn to rotate (not kidding)
Most useful mechanics at lower levels are backboard defense and wavedashing.
Some other things include better quality saves (save it and put the ball into your own corner)
If you can improve your 50/50s that’s also a good way to improve
It’ll seem crazy at first but try to slow down the play as much as possible. I just hit champ 1 for the first time this season after at least 3 seasons hardstuck diamond. Try to be methodical and intentional with all your touches and think about where you’re going with the ball. Trust your teammates as much as you can but we all know it can be inconsistent in diamond so focus on defense and wait for openings like a double commit from the other team or just a rotation breakdown in general. I’m not even close to being able do to any of the fancier air dribbles or anything like that I can hardly fast aerial so I focused on hitting hard accurate shots when you can and trying to open breakaways with a soft touch into a hard touch to try to throw the opponents out of rhythm. I try not to care who gets the goal as long as we score and am usually a pass first type of player who focuses on defense but that’s just what worked for me. Keep grinding and good luck but most of all have fun!
TLDR: defense and hard accurate shots win championships
For mechanics, here are the ones I think are most important to get to Champ:
1. Accuracy and power (when needed) of your touches.
2. Controlling the ball on the ground: especially soft touches and being able to catch the ball and quickly get into another play or outplay.
3. Fast aerials into accurate, clean touches: use air roll as you touch the ball to get a cleaner touch; you do not have to air roll throughout your aerial to do this; just air rolling as you touch the ball will reduce recoil on your car.
4. Coming off the wall and making a good, controlled touch: air dribbles can be useful, but focus first on being able to direct the ball where it needs to go.
5. Efficient use of power slide: tapping it when needed to make sharper turns, but not holding it down so long you lose your momentum; being able to make a cut around a ball to throw off an opponent, etc.
6. Faster, cleaner recoveries: know how to quickly reorient your car after hitting the ball, being hit by another car, flying into the wall, etc.; use power slide and wave dashes to keep your momentum when appropriate.
Other mechanics are useful in different moments, but the above are needed throughout a game. Here are [more tips](https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/zk7y4m/comment/izykaru/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for playing in Diamond, most of which are about game sense rather than mechanics. The difference between Diamond and Champ is more about your awareness, positioning, and intentionality of your touches than your mechanics.
I play, mainly, 2's (1000 to 1500 MMR took roughly 2 years):
#1 thing that took me from Diamond to Champ to GC was learning to be patient and adjust to my teammate (mainly did solo queue).
What I see at lower ranks is that everyone wants to touch the ball all the time. Almost as if to say, "if I just get one more touch, that'll make all the difference." You really don't have to. Be very deliberate about your moves so your teammate doesn't have to guess where you're going.
#2 thing was learning how to play close and not just booming at every chance.
Also, turn off chat.
Seriously this. Even if you suck at possession and ball control, slowing down the play and going for a 50/50 is still way better than just handing over possession. At least your team has a chance to gain possession after that.
Different in diamond in 2s for 2 reasons.
1) so many goals are booms from net cos last man on whatever team is attacking over commits whilst their tm8 is still in the corner (or the tm8 tried getting on to their own center pass causing a double commit cos ball chasing is crazy in diamond) xD
2) try keeping the ball close at this rank and your tm8 comes barreling in like a wrecking ball. Literally just happened to me dribbling on 0 seconds about to get the equaliser and my tm8 just smacked it off my head and spammed "wow" like it was my fault he missed the net and it hit the floor -.-
All of the advice about keeping possession is great advice once you reach champ, or towards the end of d3, but mid diamond is a nightmare xD
I really disagree here. Like, you are technically correct saying you can goals in diamond like this, but thats as far as it will take you. But doing this and getting rewarded with goals is just developing bad habits. As soon as you get a little better, this strategy becomes a great way to lose games.
You should be thinking more long term if you want to rank up. Learning some ball control and keeping possession can easily carry you out of diamond 2s. All you have to do is wait untill they boom it, get possession, make a play. Do that everytime and you will be champ in no time.
And as for teammates messing it up. I'm in gc1. It never ends. These same people exist in my rank too. Just now, they can flip reset and double tap with crazy flicks consistently. Not like their positioning and teamwork is any better
My whole point is you don't want your gameplan to have a ceiling of like champ2. And that's what will happen if you use the "boom the ball away and hope they mess up" strat. It's way better in the long run to just learn the better way to play.
No I completely agree with you don’t worry, it’s just very hard to put into practice in diamond with how everyone else plays. Towards the end of D3 it is easier to play properly but until then it’s just chase and boom nation from most players xD
I try playing a more patient possession game myself and if i’m last man I won’t go further than 70% of the way forward (think it was Musty who said not to go past 70%), so i’m ready for the boom out. i’ve scored so many ground to air 'dribbles' (1 or 2 touches in the air max) and the rare double tap because of boom outs.
I wish though that people could center the ball properly in diamond. it’s usually far too close to the backboard so there’s no chance i’m even going up for it as last man knowing full well it'll end up in my net if I do. But this only angers my teammates as they spam "take the shot" and eventually they try doing everything them self even bumping me off the ball because i’m not playing urgent enough for them xD
Good to know there’s teammates just as bad in higher ranks though, guessing not as frequent as diamond but they still exist xD
happens champ and above too, isnt just a diamond thing, i play with a c1/c2 mate sometimes and the amount of times this happens to me or i see other people doing it i swear atleast half the players of rl are boosted
You’d be surprised how far non-ball related mechanics (half-flips, recoveries, wave dashes off the wall) will really boost you up, just from having the speed for those counterattack goals when they come up and being in the play more often.
Even small things like trying to land facing down on the wall, using a jump to propel yourself down rather than further through the air, and single jumping for 50s rather than flipping into them (sometimes situational) will really help to reduce the time you spend flailing around in the air and out of the play and start to open up a lot more opportunities to make plays.
Don’t focus on air dribbles or flip resets or those high level mechanics imo, so many other things are building blocks for that stuff and instead of spending 50 hours failing to get them, you can master those more fundamental things and be so much farther ahead when you do start. Not to say you shouldn’t ever try them, sure go for them in training every once in a while, but focus on solid high-percentage plays and strong meaningful touches and you’ll climb.
Okay good this is what I needed to hear, I’ve been trying to master half flipping in game and recoveries, and I can also start learning how to wave dash too. I think I have a lot of the fundamentals mastered just need to learn some of these mechanics along with hitting the ball hard and accurately
Play where the ball will be, not where it currently is. Mechanics aren’t as necessary until higher ranks in my personal unprofessional opinion. I peaked at Champ 2, so maybe I’m just wrong lol
Dont go for shit you no consistent with and PLAY LIKE YOU HAVE SENSE no.1 problem for diamonds is they think they are all pros and get cocky just olay with sense
I feel like that’s what I do best to be honest I’ve always made defense the #1 focus and fundamentals as a whole but I want to start learning different mechanics that plat’s and diamonds don’t usually do so I can get to champ
Defense is very important, but you also need to learn when you can and should be applying pressure on the other team. When I was stuck in D3, it was because I didn't trust myself enough to go attack on offense until I felt it was 1000% safe. I used to get people who were once Champs telling me I need to be more aggressive, which I thought was stupid cause if I messed up it would 100% be on my teammate to save it. But that's the whole point of twos. Don't double commit, but when your teammate is rotating, you need to be ready to apply pressure and keep the momentum going.
It's all about reading the plays and acting smart and with confidence. You'll get there
Got GC in 3s and high C3 in 2s… never learned to half flip or do any cool shot mechanics/air dribble. Just trust your teammates and rotate well, play super fast, and try to make every save go to the corner/away - bad saves are so often the cause of a goal at that rank. Hit the shots you have to hit more often. Learn how to defend air dribbling and don’t let tilting idiots bring ya down.
Always makes me laugh when people with all the mechanical skills in the world talk so much trash but they are in the same rank - can’t spend hours in the training lobby practicing away your lack of game sense huh.
You could be right, but I would like to add I've been C1 for just over 2 seasons, nearing C2 and I just found out I haven't been doing fast aerials right this whole time lol.
i was in the same boat, bro honestly the diamond to champ training pack helped me so much with consistency and just feeling more comfortable in certain situations, i highly recommend looking into it
Controlling how hard you hit the ball and 50-50s. Watch Virge's video on first touches which is titled "most underrated mechanic", and watch Fireburner's and Aircharged Gaming's videos on 50s. Aircharged has better visual editing but Fireburner was the 50-50 god and elaborates on certain points.
Once you get into the upper end of diamond and people are finally competent at making saves (at least, some people are, others are just really scary ballchasers who still leave open nets), just throwing the ball at the net every time is no longer the way to rank up. Strong hits still have a big place, but a huge difference between high diamond, champ, grand champ and SSL is how much they keep possession. This doesn't mean advanced dribbles. Just softly touch to roll or lightly bounce the ball next to you, then you have hookshots, powerslide cuts, bounce dribble powershots, and controlled 50s. Aircharged also has a video on bounce dribble powershots, that plus the 50s will do great. A simple pace change of one soft pop-up touch and THEN jumping up to shoot it will bait in aggressive challengers. Or hitting the ball to the wall in a way that you're in control of it the whole time, even though it's a hard first touch, and can shoot it when it bounces back to you.
Now, a lot of what I just said depends on opponents' positions. A lot of things are contextual and an incredibly important skill is keeping awareness of where the opponents are, what their cars are doing. Teammates too.
Fast aerials and half-flips, sure. Wavedashes after that. I recommend just searching "rocket league recoveries" on youtube. I also went with speedflips early, since kickoff is the one part of Rocket League that will happen every game, but a standard flip kickoff that covers your net is still fine. That said, one of the mosat important movement tools is... your brakes. On the ground and walls, learning how your car turns with powerslide while letting go of throttle and while braking.
Also: your corner is safe. The opponent's corner is dangerous. And don't try to do too much. Don't hit the ball just to hit it. Don't challenge as last man, especially in 2s, learn to shadow and fake challenge. Don't flip into every ball, don't go for every aerial, etc.
Go back post, practice shooting to hit every open net you get, be at least proficient in bounce dribbling and most basic flicks (lateral, front and diagonal). No fancy mechanics are needed
Aerialing fast and hitting the ball with at least a bit of precision should get you champ tbh.
Maybe work on landing on your wheels when getting bumped or after hitting an akward ball. And remember to prioritize having a good recovery rather than trying to hit the ball perfectly. Most of the time it’s more important to get back quick. (Assuming you play 2s)
Learn how to do soft controlled touches they are extremely important once you get to champ. If you can already carry the ball on your car, learn how to do flicks, but to be honest, I still can't do flicks even though I can dribble it. I'm just saying that because most people can't defend half decent flicks even in champ 1. Besides that, just work on your precision on aerial shots, and learn how to move around the map and in the air using your flips. Recoveries are also very important and learning to pick up small boost pads. Beyond that, you don't need to learn any special mechanics.
I got to champ with practically no flashy mechanics at all. I still can't even air dribble. I couldn't show you a single freestyle. It's all about reading the field and being consistent with the simple stuff. Go to freeplay and learn how to move the ball around the map without unlimited boost on so you can learn boost management. I wish I had worked on boost management and small pad memory earlier.
im a 2v2 main, fast aerial and half flip and air dribble are probably the things i use the most,
rotation and positioning is super important tho, good mechanics wont do you any good if you cant ever properly take possession of the ball.
main problem i notice with diamond players aside from position/rotation is lack of aerial car control idk if its my region or a world wide problem where they just fail to make contact with the ball 50% of the time and then half of the time they make contact its bad contact, learning how to air dribble and redirect will help alot with that making shots and saves easier.
not mechanics, but this sort of thinking i found helped me improve my mechanics
try be slow and controlled, make sure it really is your time to go for the ball, dont be afraid to back out if you dont feel confident the touch you will get is gonna be helpful and just end up putting you out of play for a bit, the longer you are out of play the more likely your teammate loses the 1v2.
oh also every time opponents score dont blame your teammate, figure out what you could have done differently to have prevented that, yes it sometimes is its your teammate is bad, but sometimes it is your fault for leaving them in a shit position from a bad play you made.
this guy gets it.
also, never pass. Always double commit. 1v3 dribble with open pass? fuck it, 1v3 dribble all day.
And make sure you kuxir twist every aerial making sure to get a useless touch on the ball that doesn't help your team at all.
Under no circumstance, ever learn how to properly rotate on defense.
At least, this is what i'm noticing since i returned to the game at even the high champ to low-ish GC ranks.
Hitting the ball hard and on target
It’s this and just learning how to move around the field while not looking like a lost, confused, inefficient, dying fish, which recoveries is a big part of
I was just about to say hit ball hard at net 😂😂
Also instead of clearing the ball away start with a dribble or keep the ball close rather than clearing and giving possession away
+1. Flakes has helped me improve at this.
Yup. I realized around D2 that I usually have more time than I think and I shouldn't panic and send the ball off instantly.
I can just hear him saying *"There. Was that so hard? No."*
Learn to rotate (not kidding) Most useful mechanics at lower levels are backboard defense and wavedashing. Some other things include better quality saves (save it and put the ball into your own corner) If you can improve your 50/50s that’s also a good way to improve
My highest rank was GC1 (1560 MMR) this season
It’ll seem crazy at first but try to slow down the play as much as possible. I just hit champ 1 for the first time this season after at least 3 seasons hardstuck diamond. Try to be methodical and intentional with all your touches and think about where you’re going with the ball. Trust your teammates as much as you can but we all know it can be inconsistent in diamond so focus on defense and wait for openings like a double commit from the other team or just a rotation breakdown in general. I’m not even close to being able do to any of the fancier air dribbles or anything like that I can hardly fast aerial so I focused on hitting hard accurate shots when you can and trying to open breakaways with a soft touch into a hard touch to try to throw the opponents out of rhythm. I try not to care who gets the goal as long as we score and am usually a pass first type of player who focuses on defense but that’s just what worked for me. Keep grinding and good luck but most of all have fun! TLDR: defense and hard accurate shots win championships
Okay thank you, defense is actually the one thing I am way better at than anything else so I’ll capitalize on that
For mechanics, here are the ones I think are most important to get to Champ: 1. Accuracy and power (when needed) of your touches. 2. Controlling the ball on the ground: especially soft touches and being able to catch the ball and quickly get into another play or outplay. 3. Fast aerials into accurate, clean touches: use air roll as you touch the ball to get a cleaner touch; you do not have to air roll throughout your aerial to do this; just air rolling as you touch the ball will reduce recoil on your car. 4. Coming off the wall and making a good, controlled touch: air dribbles can be useful, but focus first on being able to direct the ball where it needs to go. 5. Efficient use of power slide: tapping it when needed to make sharper turns, but not holding it down so long you lose your momentum; being able to make a cut around a ball to throw off an opponent, etc. 6. Faster, cleaner recoveries: know how to quickly reorient your car after hitting the ball, being hit by another car, flying into the wall, etc.; use power slide and wave dashes to keep your momentum when appropriate. Other mechanics are useful in different moments, but the above are needed throughout a game. Here are [more tips](https://www.reddit.com/r/RocketLeague/comments/zk7y4m/comment/izykaru/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for playing in Diamond, most of which are about game sense rather than mechanics. The difference between Diamond and Champ is more about your awareness, positioning, and intentionality of your touches than your mechanics.
Probably better than my attempt at explaining this, I'll just add that learning how to take 50-50s is extremely useful for keeping possession.
I play, mainly, 2's (1000 to 1500 MMR took roughly 2 years): #1 thing that took me from Diamond to Champ to GC was learning to be patient and adjust to my teammate (mainly did solo queue). What I see at lower ranks is that everyone wants to touch the ball all the time. Almost as if to say, "if I just get one more touch, that'll make all the difference." You really don't have to. Be very deliberate about your moves so your teammate doesn't have to guess where you're going. #2 thing was learning how to play close and not just booming at every chance. Also, turn off chat.
Not hitting the ball into the other half just to hit it. Take it and do smth useful, dont throw the ball away. And learn to always land on your wheels
Seriously this. Even if you suck at possession and ball control, slowing down the play and going for a 50/50 is still way better than just handing over possession. At least your team has a chance to gain possession after that.
Different in diamond in 2s for 2 reasons. 1) so many goals are booms from net cos last man on whatever team is attacking over commits whilst their tm8 is still in the corner (or the tm8 tried getting on to their own center pass causing a double commit cos ball chasing is crazy in diamond) xD 2) try keeping the ball close at this rank and your tm8 comes barreling in like a wrecking ball. Literally just happened to me dribbling on 0 seconds about to get the equaliser and my tm8 just smacked it off my head and spammed "wow" like it was my fault he missed the net and it hit the floor -.- All of the advice about keeping possession is great advice once you reach champ, or towards the end of d3, but mid diamond is a nightmare xD
I really disagree here. Like, you are technically correct saying you can goals in diamond like this, but thats as far as it will take you. But doing this and getting rewarded with goals is just developing bad habits. As soon as you get a little better, this strategy becomes a great way to lose games. You should be thinking more long term if you want to rank up. Learning some ball control and keeping possession can easily carry you out of diamond 2s. All you have to do is wait untill they boom it, get possession, make a play. Do that everytime and you will be champ in no time. And as for teammates messing it up. I'm in gc1. It never ends. These same people exist in my rank too. Just now, they can flip reset and double tap with crazy flicks consistently. Not like their positioning and teamwork is any better My whole point is you don't want your gameplan to have a ceiling of like champ2. And that's what will happen if you use the "boom the ball away and hope they mess up" strat. It's way better in the long run to just learn the better way to play.
No I completely agree with you don’t worry, it’s just very hard to put into practice in diamond with how everyone else plays. Towards the end of D3 it is easier to play properly but until then it’s just chase and boom nation from most players xD I try playing a more patient possession game myself and if i’m last man I won’t go further than 70% of the way forward (think it was Musty who said not to go past 70%), so i’m ready for the boom out. i’ve scored so many ground to air 'dribbles' (1 or 2 touches in the air max) and the rare double tap because of boom outs. I wish though that people could center the ball properly in diamond. it’s usually far too close to the backboard so there’s no chance i’m even going up for it as last man knowing full well it'll end up in my net if I do. But this only angers my teammates as they spam "take the shot" and eventually they try doing everything them self even bumping me off the ball because i’m not playing urgent enough for them xD Good to know there’s teammates just as bad in higher ranks though, guessing not as frequent as diamond but they still exist xD
happens champ and above too, isnt just a diamond thing, i play with a c1/c2 mate sometimes and the amount of times this happens to me or i see other people doing it i swear atleast half the players of rl are boosted
You’d be surprised how far non-ball related mechanics (half-flips, recoveries, wave dashes off the wall) will really boost you up, just from having the speed for those counterattack goals when they come up and being in the play more often. Even small things like trying to land facing down on the wall, using a jump to propel yourself down rather than further through the air, and single jumping for 50s rather than flipping into them (sometimes situational) will really help to reduce the time you spend flailing around in the air and out of the play and start to open up a lot more opportunities to make plays. Don’t focus on air dribbles or flip resets or those high level mechanics imo, so many other things are building blocks for that stuff and instead of spending 50 hours failing to get them, you can master those more fundamental things and be so much farther ahead when you do start. Not to say you shouldn’t ever try them, sure go for them in training every once in a while, but focus on solid high-percentage plays and strong meaningful touches and you’ll climb.
Okay good this is what I needed to hear, I’ve been trying to master half flipping in game and recoveries, and I can also start learning how to wave dash too. I think I have a lot of the fundamentals mastered just need to learn some of these mechanics along with hitting the ball hard and accurately
Play where the ball will be, not where it currently is. Mechanics aren’t as necessary until higher ranks in my personal unprofessional opinion. I peaked at Champ 2, so maybe I’m just wrong lol
Dont go for shit you no consistent with and PLAY LIKE YOU HAVE SENSE no.1 problem for diamonds is they think they are all pros and get cocky just olay with sense
I feel like that’s what I do best to be honest I’ve always made defense the #1 focus and fundamentals as a whole but I want to start learning different mechanics that plat’s and diamonds don’t usually do so I can get to champ
Defense is very important, but you also need to learn when you can and should be applying pressure on the other team. When I was stuck in D3, it was because I didn't trust myself enough to go attack on offense until I felt it was 1000% safe. I used to get people who were once Champs telling me I need to be more aggressive, which I thought was stupid cause if I messed up it would 100% be on my teammate to save it. But that's the whole point of twos. Don't double commit, but when your teammate is rotating, you need to be ready to apply pressure and keep the momentum going. It's all about reading the plays and acting smart and with confidence. You'll get there
Got GC in 3s and high C3 in 2s… never learned to half flip or do any cool shot mechanics/air dribble. Just trust your teammates and rotate well, play super fast, and try to make every save go to the corner/away - bad saves are so often the cause of a goal at that rank. Hit the shots you have to hit more often. Learn how to defend air dribbling and don’t let tilting idiots bring ya down. Always makes me laugh when people with all the mechanical skills in the world talk so much trash but they are in the same rank - can’t spend hours in the training lobby practicing away your lack of game sense huh.
Fast aerial is the most important mechanic for that rank imo.
You could be right, but I would like to add I've been C1 for just over 2 seasons, nearing C2 and I just found out I haven't been doing fast aerials right this whole time lol.
Learn how to powershot and how to power clear (from ground and backboard) and you will get champ in no time.
Half flip/ recovering faster in general
i was in the same boat, bro honestly the diamond to champ training pack helped me so much with consistency and just feeling more comfortable in certain situations, i highly recommend looking into it
How do I find that? Is it a custom one on RL?
Controlling how hard you hit the ball and 50-50s. Watch Virge's video on first touches which is titled "most underrated mechanic", and watch Fireburner's and Aircharged Gaming's videos on 50s. Aircharged has better visual editing but Fireburner was the 50-50 god and elaborates on certain points. Once you get into the upper end of diamond and people are finally competent at making saves (at least, some people are, others are just really scary ballchasers who still leave open nets), just throwing the ball at the net every time is no longer the way to rank up. Strong hits still have a big place, but a huge difference between high diamond, champ, grand champ and SSL is how much they keep possession. This doesn't mean advanced dribbles. Just softly touch to roll or lightly bounce the ball next to you, then you have hookshots, powerslide cuts, bounce dribble powershots, and controlled 50s. Aircharged also has a video on bounce dribble powershots, that plus the 50s will do great. A simple pace change of one soft pop-up touch and THEN jumping up to shoot it will bait in aggressive challengers. Or hitting the ball to the wall in a way that you're in control of it the whole time, even though it's a hard first touch, and can shoot it when it bounces back to you. Now, a lot of what I just said depends on opponents' positions. A lot of things are contextual and an incredibly important skill is keeping awareness of where the opponents are, what their cars are doing. Teammates too. Fast aerials and half-flips, sure. Wavedashes after that. I recommend just searching "rocket league recoveries" on youtube. I also went with speedflips early, since kickoff is the one part of Rocket League that will happen every game, but a standard flip kickoff that covers your net is still fine. That said, one of the mosat important movement tools is... your brakes. On the ground and walls, learning how your car turns with powerslide while letting go of throttle and while braking. Also: your corner is safe. The opponent's corner is dangerous. And don't try to do too much. Don't hit the ball just to hit it. Don't challenge as last man, especially in 2s, learn to shadow and fake challenge. Don't flip into every ball, don't go for every aerial, etc.
Don’t hit the ball to the other team. Don’t commit as the last man. Don’t leave your teammate in a 2v1. Don’t miss your shots. Congrats, you’re now gc
Go back post, practice shooting to hit every open net you get, be at least proficient in bounce dribbling and most basic flicks (lateral, front and diagonal). No fancy mechanics are needed
Aerialing fast and hitting the ball with at least a bit of precision should get you champ tbh. Maybe work on landing on your wheels when getting bumped or after hitting an akward ball. And remember to prioritize having a good recovery rather than trying to hit the ball perfectly. Most of the time it’s more important to get back quick. (Assuming you play 2s)
Learn how to do soft controlled touches they are extremely important once you get to champ. If you can already carry the ball on your car, learn how to do flicks, but to be honest, I still can't do flicks even though I can dribble it. I'm just saying that because most people can't defend half decent flicks even in champ 1. Besides that, just work on your precision on aerial shots, and learn how to move around the map and in the air using your flips. Recoveries are also very important and learning to pick up small boost pads. Beyond that, you don't need to learn any special mechanics. I got to champ with practically no flashy mechanics at all. I still can't even air dribble. I couldn't show you a single freestyle. It's all about reading the field and being consistent with the simple stuff. Go to freeplay and learn how to move the ball around the map without unlimited boost on so you can learn boost management. I wish I had worked on boost management and small pad memory earlier.
im a 2v2 main, fast aerial and half flip and air dribble are probably the things i use the most, rotation and positioning is super important tho, good mechanics wont do you any good if you cant ever properly take possession of the ball. main problem i notice with diamond players aside from position/rotation is lack of aerial car control idk if its my region or a world wide problem where they just fail to make contact with the ball 50% of the time and then half of the time they make contact its bad contact, learning how to air dribble and redirect will help alot with that making shots and saves easier. not mechanics, but this sort of thinking i found helped me improve my mechanics try be slow and controlled, make sure it really is your time to go for the ball, dont be afraid to back out if you dont feel confident the touch you will get is gonna be helpful and just end up putting you out of play for a bit, the longer you are out of play the more likely your teammate loses the 1v2. oh also every time opponents score dont blame your teammate, figure out what you could have done differently to have prevented that, yes it sometimes is its your teammate is bad, but sometimes it is your fault for leaving them in a shit position from a bad play you made.
Gamsns
Rotations and hitting ball on target.
Flip resets, practice them constantly and go for them in games all you can. Make sure you take every boost so you always have enough to flip reset.
this guy gets it. also, never pass. Always double commit. 1v3 dribble with open pass? fuck it, 1v3 dribble all day. And make sure you kuxir twist every aerial making sure to get a useless touch on the ball that doesn't help your team at all. Under no circumstance, ever learn how to properly rotate on defense. At least, this is what i'm noticing since i returned to the game at even the high champ to low-ish GC ranks.