Damn, work is boring today, so activate speech mode.
Every character has a special ‘brake’ (or ‘break’) move. Most of these moves are made to allow to easy comboes into supers. At some point in that special move, the person hits A+B to ‘brake’ it. The throw style break moves (Freeman and Rock) can only be broken if the throw connects, while the others can be broken on hit, counter hit, block, or whiff. Most launch the opponent up in a way that makes it easy to juggle them with a super, and all of the ones that can be ‘braked’ on block leave you at much better frame situation than they would if it wasn’t ‘braked’. Learning the characters ‘brake’ moves and how to combo them to super is pretty important for most characters, about the same time you learn their bread and butter combos, before learning feint combos.
Charge d-u+K: Kain, Jae Hoon
dp+K: Terry, Dong Hwan, Gato
dp+P: Marco/Butt, Grant
qcb+K: Hotaru
hcf+K: Freeman
360+P: Rock
qcf+K: Hokutomaru, B. Jenet
I think it’s hard coded into the game, but it you launch them with a ‘braked’ move, you cannot follow it with another ‘braked’ move. This is to avoid infinites, otherwise you could just corner juggle them to death. However, if the first one hits as a counter hit, it doesn’t count. Using Terry as an example, you can (normal hit) dp+K (brake) dp+K (not braked) for a 4(?) hit no-super combo, or (normal hit) dp+K (brake) Busta-Wolf. You can also (counter hit) dp+K (brake) dp+K (brake) dp+K (not braked) for a 5 hit no-super combo, or (counter hit) dp+K (brake) dp+K (brake) Busta-Wolf.
Outside of a character’s brake move, A+B is still important for the evasion attacks. A+B by itself will do an overhead move that is invulnerable to low attacks. down+A+B will do a move that is invulnerable to high attacks. Down A+B attacks are super and special cancelable (some caveats apply if you’re Tizoc), and A+B moves are special cancellable (I am not sure about super cancellable). So if you are B. Jenet, your Down+A+B, which is a wonderful anti-air attack BTW, can be cancelled into a qcf+K move, which can be ‘braked’ so you can juggle with her kick super. Her A+B overhead can be cancelled into a special, which because she is in the air, means her down+K moves which are one of her strongest attacks. With Rock, his A+B overhead isn’t in the air, so can be cancelled into a reppukken or 360 throw before it hits for mindgames.
And if you face a Terry player, you definitely want to be familiar with Down+A+B attacks, as it may be your only defense against a guard crush string.
EDIT: I dont know why I didnt say it to begin with, but if you are familiar with guilty gear, brake moves are like a no-meter FRCs, and down A+B attacks are like f+P attacks.
Re-Edit: Ooops, got B. Jenet’s break wrong.