General Notes that I could say about everything that happened:
1. Maybe Superjump more? I know I know, I superjump *all* the time like an idiot, that's fair. But I really think it's a solid option for Para for a lot of situations. I really felt my play got better when I noticed NCV/Noah using Superjump in neutral when I'd only ever seen other Paras use it from fullscreen with float. While I at least like to *think* I got better, it very certainly changed my approaches to neutral so if you are looking for the same it is worth considering.
2. Look over the set and compare what you do to zone, and compare it with Woofly's. I don't think you or anyone really needs to zone like he does, but it's good to at least realize what he's doing and why. Once you see that and know it, you can maybe adapt it to your own game when it fits or find your own spin on it that you like. If you are fine with your zoning and what it does for your play as is, then at least you are aware of the options that Parasoul gives you.
3. Just a general thought from a motivation angle, but to be honest, it doesn't look like you played all that badly? Like yeah you didn't win every single game and round and stuff, and you certainly made your fair share of mistakes, but there are a bunch of things you did right and you ended up with some very solid rounds when you made the correct reads. In those situations too, look over what you did so you know "This is what went right, so I need to know why this was right".
4. Please please please please please please PLEASE bait out and punish Napalm Pillar more. :'(
5. More so than anything, it felt to me like Woofly's Squiggly was the thing that was giving the most trouble in the set. It's worth considering to look at your approach to the Squiggly MU (which I guess we can do later or something if you want, but I just wanted to point it out).
I didn't really comment much during the Eliza section because there wasn't much to really say, considering the play that was going on it seemed that you did correct things that paid out. I also tried to avoid talking about resets and obvious drops and combos and stuff cause I suck at that stuff. Also bear in mind I have no idea what things were bad decisions or what things were mistaken inputs or lag issues, so I wrote most everything assuming it was a decision since that's all I have to go on here.
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0:44 - The Bomb Jump into jHP. As an incoming it's okay I suppose, but you went for a jHP that crossed over and failed. Justa general execution note, but if you want to go for an jHP or any non-Spiral flare move after SJ/BJ then you have to go for the button slightly late so that it corrects sides as you cross over. Spiral flare, on the other hand, is best to do that move early. I literally mixup my inputs on spiral flare all the time in this scenario and it kind of sucks.
1:04 - Backthrow after Lshot loop. You probably already know this, but it's worth mentioning since it came up, but you have to be aware of that tear if you go for this. It didn't look like you were ready at all for a mixup here. I think you can combo after the tear if you use jLK there, but in general I try to stay away from throwing at this spot since it's tricky enough. Personally, I'd rather go for a combo after getting a reset instead of risking it on an immediate mixup, but if you are okay with this one I just say be more aware (also go for overhead, I've never hit anyone with a low in that mixup)
1:22 - doing stuff when triggered IPS/undizzy. When you got off the launcher, you could've gone for a throw there which generally works? I mean if you knew Woofly was gonna do that then fine, but you could've done something to mixup at least like a cHP or Pillar if they try to throw tech, instead he came falling down and you got hit low by the jLP.
3:32 - Against parasoul zoning with the detonated tears. Was gonna say something here but I honestly can't think of what to say, other than "Hey look at this and pay attention". I cna go over this bit in more detail later if you want but I think it's a good example of Woofly's zoning.
3:57 - This was a spacing issue. You came directly into his Dash-jump-jHP range, and only backed a little away for charge time it looked like. And you only did a Lshot which doens't cover much options at that spot. If you are in that spacing I think you need to consider different options. Dash in LP gives offense against them zoning you (and might catch them dashing in with cLK too maybe), dash jump jLK will beat out a jHP from them, dash jump jLP has a slight chance at beating their air options while also give you a little chance to hit them if they are dashing in grounded. At the very least, if you want to throw a fireball there, I'd reccomend a backdash first so that their jHP lands right in the fireball.
5:13 - You do these raw sweeps...unless you are going to egret cancel them sweep isn't the best raw option to go for. Were you expecting Eliza's boat? cMP beats that too and is a little easier to manage than sweep I feel. ::FAKE EDIT:: Okay, maybe you were going for that thing where cHK lowprofile dodges certain jump-ins? I still wouldn't advise it against eliza unless you had Napalm Pillar loaded.
6:04 - Dash in sweep. I see from the other seconds that you wanted to get in, but again I don't feel sweep is a good option at all here. Just do a jump in, if he reacted with singxxgrab then you can airtoss, if he does singxxSBO then you can just block. You could also maybe just do fHP to apply pressure if you are really scared of Sing and that close.
9:16 - Not a critique, but I really liked your chase down with Dash in LP here, even if technically Woofly could've super'd/DHC'd or something.
10:04 - You try punishing the SIlver cord with a dash in ground normal. Just do Dash in jump jHP
10:37 - In general for this section, I think you play well against his Parasoul and keep your spacing down, but I don't agree with the Napalm Trigger here. You had 2 tears close to each other compared to his 1, which were all right next to him. I think if you wanted to detonate them, it would've been a bettre bet to use an air button since you have a lot more coverage with your 2 tears versus his, or at least use cMP. A napalm trigger from that close is very risky with not a lot of good payoff IMO compared to you advancing in.
13:51 - In this section, you take advantage of Woofly's slow tear zoning setup and just go in, which is the right thing to do I think, but I think you need to be more on top of looking for the holes in Para's game and looking to level 3 it. You kind of try to do this later times in the set, but you look for the wrong thing or do it at the wrong timing.
14:09 - Almost the right spacing for Bike, but I think it was at the wrong time. Bike in general (even still after the buff) not the great except from the absolute max distance full screen away and more importantly when you have the zoning momentum on your side. Getting hit by the burst sets up the spacing, but it kills momentum. If you wanted to zone, H shot may have worked better.
16:23 - I know you know about this one already, but really, this was a really bad time to go for a throw reset. :(
17:48 - Patience is good sometimes, but this looked more like a deer caught in the headlights. Squiggly with charge and meter IS scary, but while you need to play carefully, you still need to *play*. Squiggly can easily catch you being too patient like here, and you have to establish that you will sometimes jump. Jump with an HP sometimes since that will catch either the squigs not doing anything or you can cancel into toss if it's a grave super, and sometimes empty jump since that will guard against an SBO.
18:07 - cHP? Maybe an accident, but if on purpose, you'd probably have to delay some more if you wanted to anti-air anyways. Funnily enough, at a lot of spacings where cHP works on Squiggly anti-airs, you can probably backdash-sLP as well since that can work as an anti-air in this MU too against divekicks. I mean, in the immediate next match, you get the cHP anti-air, but it's at a completely dfifferent spot in momentum from the matches.
20:25 - Jumping in with jLP I like, but you go for the cLK twice. I dunno if you already did this in the set, but mixing it up between throw and overhead too works pretty well a lot of times. ::FAKE EDIT:: Okay it looks like you did it occasionally, but it's still worth getting down and mentioning.
24:56 - this is just a thing you do a lot, but when you get full screen, and you don't want to go in, and it looks like you don't want to zone, you do that thing where you jump and do instant toss-lp/HP detonate. Were you trying to hit woofly attempting to tag in front of you? It didn't look like woofly tried that in the set from the video so far, so I don't think so. Point is, sometimes it's okay to do that because not everyone is out looking to punish fullscreen stuff, but a lot of characters can hit you trying that, and Woofly was just fishing to DHC eliza out here. If you are unsure at the moment of what to do, just down-back until you feel what to do. While Instant-detonating tears is certainly good, it really shouldn't be a time-waster if you get what I mean. If you do it, do it on purpose to catch them doing something, and not "just something to do cause idk what to do there". ::FAKE EDIT:: This works better against Fortune and Eliza, and I'll guess it cna work against Filia and maybe Val too, but its still worth keeping in mind in general to have a purpose for this
29:48 - This is the smartest thing of the whole set. While Woofly could've (and should've?) tried to use his level 3 throughout this segment, you bulldogged him into the corner, patiently waited until you had the right timing in zoning/counter-zoning, and caught his fireball with a dash in jHP. It's "basic", arguably, but it's classic and always good shit to see.
30:12 - Shoutouts to Roundstart Superjump jHK! o/
31:47 - Never Give Up(tm) at work. This was a pretty sick moment.
39:51 - Again, you do sweep in neutral, but here you cancel it into fireball? At least Napalm pillar would make sense since you had enough time to see him jump.
40:43 - I dunno why, but I just felt like this was the most defeating part of Woofly's zoning when he got you here. You get in once, but I feel like this section is worth examining and going over in specific to look at where your attempts to get through his Para zoning didn't work well.
43:46 - I know you already mentioned that you need better incoming mixups, but still.....bHK from that distance? You set up the tears too, so you should've guessed he'd already be blocking, and you weren't anywhere close to him. Unless it was lag? Which did happen right afterwards.
44:02 - You have the right idea with looking for level 3, but your timing isn't quite fast enough. If needed, you might want to practice reaction level 3-ing since its very handy.
44:16 - You were both almost dead, and he had a full rainbow of meter. I'm trying to avoid comments about resets in general, but you *had* to of expected him to mash out something. If you didn't alreayd do this, keep track of your opponents meter when you have them in a combo and are thinking about a reset, because it will help you be aware of their potential to reversal out and you need as much info as you can when you do a reset.
47:04 - Jump in Napalm Trigger? Was this an error?
49:38 - I'm not applying this to all of Woofly's play, but I'm going to talk about it here since it was a consistent thing in this round that you didn't know to deal with. He does a neutral thing to place a tear close to the ground, hits with cMP to detonate the tear xx Napalm shot, then tear toss, then starts to zone again with whatever coverage he wants/reads. During this round, he patterns this and while you get in a couple of times you don't "solve" it, so he just goes and keeps doing it. I'm not going to tell you how to "solve" this, but I'm pointing this out to you so that you can think about it. If you think about it, I'm sure you can come up with something to either bypass this or ignore it. This is what neutral is all about, seeing that thing that the opponent is keeping you out with and using your knowledge and tools to do something about it. Sometimes the answer is something that bypasses it completely, sometimes the answer is something that stays far away from the troubled spacing and ignores it. Sometimes the answer is easy like a Jump in jHP, sometimes its not. If you want me to go over this specific pattern more in detail I can, but I just wanted to highlight it so that it sticks out to you, since being able to highlight things like this is a part of getting better at neutral.
50:12 - This can apply for the whole section, but you really need to look at this section until here. Woofly has been mashing pillar out of your resets for the past...4 times? You need to see that he isn't respecting your resets and bait a pillar properly. If I'm a Parasoul, and I see that the opponent isn't punishing or baiting my pillars if I did 2 of them in a row, then I'm going to mash the shit out of pillar. This is classic ST "what do I do against the Ryu who keeps doing Jab SRK".
51:00 - If there was one round to look at and be like "Where is me Parasoul Neutral at Now in the Mirror match?", I'd look here. There are so many things that really tell a lot if you think about them. Ask yourself as the match progresses, "Why did I get Zoned out here?", "What did I do right here to get the hit?", "What mistakes did I make right here?" and you'll start thinking about the little details of your game. Once you start thinking about it, then hopefully you can begin to change things up or make better decisions. If you want me to go over this game in detail, just ask though it will probably be long.
54:07 - I might be wrong on this, but I've thought it over a while looking over at this set/knowing some of your play. You just kind of...throw out tears. In this specific instance, you keep throwing out H tears specifically and it doesn't pay off in general. If I had to give advice on this, think about it like this: Don't throw out tears, place them. Put tears where you think they will benefit area coverage, and think about where you put them, what you want to do with them or how you want to handle your zoning. As is, it looks like you "know" that tear toss is pretty good but are not actually sure how to use it. Just start out with simply placing them in different spots and switching up between each variation of toss since they all have their own area coverage and usage in terms of zoning/mobility/trap setups.
57:45 - This isn't the first time I've seen this, but it looks like you get hit by cMP in neutral, then freeze. If you need to, practice what to do against this move at close ranges since it looks like you are stumped by it.
58:54 - You probably already knew this, from before this occurance to after it, but in general I *really* don't like trying to counter Parasoul actions with sniper, especially when they have meter as well.
59:14 - I just want to point out that this was completely awesome.
1:02:30 - Also worth pointing out that you just took the last 2 rounds straight with very solid play. Not much to specifically go over in them, but its worth looking back on to see what reads/things you did right, and a little confidence boost can go a long way too.
1:06:46 - Not a critique but a comment: I agree with the idea that in the Eliza MU, cHP might actually be a solid button for AA-ing her.
1:08:03 - Eliza Neutral and MU knowledge still needs to developer obviously, but I think that the close distance you were firing a tear shot here was very dangerous for this reason. Eliza's boat is a real threat I think, and you were lucky that this didn't explode in your face, but in general I'd keep tear shots on the minimum in this Matchup unless from fullscreen. I say, treat it like a bella who knows how to reflect in terms of figuring out when it is safe or not to use Napalm Shots.
1:09:59 - Risky as hell, but paid off. One thing I like to do sometimes, that's similar, is bait with Napalm Pillar when I have them cornered, so if you did a super afterwards it'd probably autocorrect for you. Maybe worth considering? I dunno
1:11:40 - Great idea, just wrong execution. In general, I feel like with floating you need to plan your directions a head of time and go full on in if you want to go a direction, just in case you maybe didn't compensate enough for trying to control your float.
1:14:06 and 1:14:10 - Using cHPxxShot. Gets you blown up once, and you get the hit the other time. I just want to point out, that in general, I like doing cHPxx Napalm Pillar. Maybe that's crazy, I dunno, but I think throwing it as a variation of what to do after a whiffed cHP isn't a bad idea and has certainly helped me out in some situations.
1:14:54 - I just want to point out that this song is making me feel uncomfortable. >.>
1:29:38 - A lot of low blocking against Eliza in general. Perhaps it was just your read, but you got opened up quite a bit by the highs earlier, and in this moment you just stuck to low blocking which I don't feel was the right choice. High block or chicken block...idk, but unless you were fishing for a pillar I don't think it's safe when cornered against eliza to low block like that (even if her low range is scarier than filias/vals).
1:29:51 - This looks to be the only time it comes up, but I think it's worth mentioning: beware Eliza's sLP since it works pretty well as an anti-air against Para jump ins. Here you try detinating with jmk which generally works out, but jLP also works well to cover that I think and hits Eliza standing form point blank at least.
