How To Wave Dash: Rocket League Guide
Rocket League is a competitive online game, where players can square off against each other in football matches with their rocket cars. The promise of the game is quite simple – you push the ball into the opponent’s goal while defending yours. And although this might sound very simple in theory, much like real football, there are many advanced techniques and skills that you need to master, if you want to reach Grand Champion or even higher ranks.
One of the more popular advanced move techniques is the wave dash. Here’s everything you need to know about wave dash in Rocket League and how to reach supersonic speed with this technique.
What Is Wave Dash?
With a name borrowed from another game, specifically smash bros, wave dash is an advanced movement technique that you can use in Rocket League to instantly gain speed when you cancel the flip animation. The name Wave Dash comes from the fact that your car performs a movement, which resembles a sinusoidal wave.
Wave Dash is an essential skill in higher ranks, which you must learn if you want to compete in Grand Champion Rocket League rank and beyond. By properly maneuvering your car in the air and with quick reactions you can easily gain momentum in the air, which will continue while you’re on the ground, allowing you to get quick bursts of speed. Thanks to wave dash, you can use the forward momentum to rush to the ball, knocking it away from your goal field or into the enemy’s.
Wave Dash is one of the core mechanics of advanced Rocket League and learning how to use the game’s physics engine to your advanced is necessary if you want to develop a general game sense and compete with other players. If you’ll find yourself lacking, your enemies will simply outrun you with their wave dashes, keeping you stuck in the lower ranks. When you Wave Dash, you can easily gain speed out of nowhere, allowing you to turn the tides of a game.
How To Wave Dash In Rocket League
Before you try to go into a match and use your advanced movement techniques, start a practice game, where you can try out your new skills without risking the loss of your ranked MMR. Once you’re in a practice lobby, try to do the following:
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Jump And Tilt Back
This step is important, as the key to starting a Wave Dash is to first try and land with your wheels. Unless your back wheels touch the ground first you won’t be able to Wave Dash. Try jumping up a few times and tilting your car, so that it lands with it’s wheels first.
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Do A Front Flip As Soon As Your Back Wheels Connect
This can also be done before your back wheels touch the ground. The point is that you must do a front flip, and since you’re standing on the ground this will only apply some additional force to your wheels heading towards the ground.
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Cancel The Flip Animation And Gain Speed
If you’ve done all of the steps above correctly, your car should automatically cancel the front flip animation, but you will still retain the additional speed you’ve got from your flip attempt with wave dashing.
These are the basic rules of how to Wave Dash. You simply use (or abuse?) the downward momentum you get from slamming your front wheels into the ground, resulting in free speech increase. A normal front flip increases your speed for a duration of its animation, but with flip cancels your car can’t flip, but the game still registers the attempt, providing you with bonus speed.
Can You Wave Dash In Different Direction?
Short answer: Yes. In fact, you can wave dash in any direction in the game. Sideways wavedash and diagonal wave dashes are all important mechanics that you can’t ignore, if you want to play Rocket League in higher ranks.
If you’re wondering how to wave dash in a different direction, don’t worry, diagonal wavedashes generally follow the same set of rules as a normal wave dash, and once you master the basic flip animation canceling, you’ll be able to wave dash in any direction you need.
If you want to perform a wave dash in any direction, keep in mind that the key element is always the flip animation cancel and that all of your wheels touch the ground as soon as you cancel the animation. Keep in mind, that the side which you want to go should always hit the ground last. Let the other side connect first, then, when the wheels touch the direction where you need to go you should be able to wave dash with increased speed.
To Sum Up
A lot of the advanced techniques in Rocket League rely on muscle memory, which means that to use them effectively, you will need to do some practice by yourself. However, it is well worth it, as knowing how to wave dash in Rocket League will easily win you more than a couple of matches.
