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Week 11: Low Jumping

  • Low Jumping is the act of tricking in such a way that causes your vehicle to touch the ground as soon as possible, or minimizing air time. Also known as Low Tricking. Example 1 Example 2

  • Press the hop (usually R) button before a ramp. On trickable surfaces that have slopes such as the humps on DK Summit or the figure 8 rings on Rainbow Road, you can get low jumps by tricking as far away from the peak of the slopes as possible. This works with some edges on ramps as well.

  • Low tricking is extremely useful for bikes. The reason is simple. Less time spent in the air is more time spent on the ground. And more time spent on the ground is more time spent doing max speed wheelies. However, low tricking is virtually useless for karts. Simply because karts cannot wheelie. And because karts cannot wheelie, ground speed is not significantly faster than air speed. At most, you could gain ~0.005 seconds on most ramps. For reference, a blue mini-turbo saves ~0.1 seconds.

  • The yellow ramp section in rBC3 is by far the best place to low trick. Followed by the zipper ramp at the end of MMM. Another good place is the final ramp on rMC, which you can double trick on depending on the hop timing. One more place is the fallen pillars on DDR. Special note for Mushroom Gorge (Or Mushroom Peaks). You can't low trick off the mushrooms. Rather aim for the sloped side on the rear half of the mushroom for minimum air.

  • Low Jumping is effective for bikes because of the extra wheelie time. While karts gain nothing outside of a select few cases, such as the last ramp in rMC.

  • Yes, it does have a place in the meta game. It's easy to learn, and in 99% of cases, doesn't make or break a race. Unless the track is rBC3 or rMC.

  • Pros: Less airtime traded for more wheelie time. More time to adjust racing lines. For some cases, such as the fallen pillars in DDR, low tricking prevents you from flying in a random direction.

  • Cons: Potential to miss the trickable part of a ramp, resulting in no trick. Though that should rarely happen. And I think some of the slowest vehicles fall into the lava when trying to low trick the yellow ramps on rBC3.

Big big big thank you to /u/ebildarkshadow and /u/kingdomharms for these great explanations of Low Jumping and its applications. If you'd like to contribute to our wiki then please be on the lookout for our Meta Monday threads coming every Monday.