Good question man,
I take notes usually when I go online or whenever I practice. I keep a notepad by my chair and there are a few main things I take notes for.
The first is self assesment. I write down alot of the bad habbits that are getting me killed (Waking up too much, guessing on breakers, failing to change up a mixup when the opponent figures the first one out, jumping too much, execution stuff that I'm consistenly missing on etc.)
This is strictly for personal improvement as a player. It's easy to salt out and lose track of why your losing in the first place and if you do that, your going to lose for the same reasons over and over. So I go back and look at a match and alot of times I'll even be surprised looking at the footage. I'll realize bad habbits I didn't even know I had during the fast pace of a match. Then I'll focus on one of these at a time. Like last weekend when I realized I was wake up DPing too much I set a rule for myself "Ok only one wake up per round" And I'll work on that until the bad habbit is gone. Then move on to the next thing.
The next category is all information about my own character and stuff I need to work on. Some of the things I write down initially are combos for each situation, mixups, setups, meter charge spots etc. eventually you memorize those and don't need them anymore, then there's also stuff like
"If you see start up animation for an EX projectile use EX blade charge"
"Explore resets and instinct cancel confirms"
"Blade charge can anti air"
really anything you don't want to forget.
Another category is Matchup specific info. Like for sadira when I'm fighting her and lets say I'm missing anti airs left and right. I go back and watch the footage and look for spots that will give me guarunteed anti airs. Like after she does web cling to M widows bite, this is my window to DP her. So then I'll jot down in my notes. "DP is free if in range after M widows bite" Or like when I realized that fulgores blade charge goes through her isntinct webs. I'll jot that down. Once you collect enough of this info you can take your notes and come up with a gameplan.
Like so for Fulgore Vs. Sadira I went through all my notes on her and started a new page for a gameplan. This is how I usually make them:
Sadira
-Zone and charge meter full screen, H laser if she jumps in range, H blade charge under her to reverse position and create space.
-When she has meter midscreen watch for spin and Shadow Counter it.
- Do not anti air her with DP until she has used all of her air resources
-If she gets in, either cancel a normal into teleport away from her, or go for tic throw and teleport away from her after if it hits.
-On knockdown meaty with mid (since spin is low immune)
- Whiff punish with EX blade charge when she has instinct
- Instinct cancel devastation beam after a blocked H widows bite, after she has used her air resources, if she whiffs a spin, after blocked recluse
As I learn more and more about a matchup I'll adjust stuff.
But yeah 3 main categories man.
Self assesment
Character specifics/ conclusions
Matchup specifics/ conclusions
