Routes

Zips or Zipless

The major difference of the routes is zips. With zips, your route is focused on acquiring Item 1 as fast as possible. Without zips, item 1 is less important.

Yes-Zips

1. Flash
2. Depends
   1. Fastest: Heat then Air
   2. More accessible: Air then Heat
3. See above
4. Crash
5. Quick
6. Metal
7. Wood
8. Bubble

This route is focused on getting Item 1 quickly. It starts with Flash to get Item 3, needed for the Heat Man zip. WR pace goes to Heat second and executes "Fast Air". Slightly slower overall (with a much slower Air and a much fast Heat) is Air second and Heat third, using item 2 to skip the Yoku Block section.

Wood could be significantly earlier, if you wish to try Dog Zips and "get them out of the way". Most important is having Crash for Quick, and Metal for Wood & Bubble.

Zipless

Without zips, the focus is on Item 2 for speed and flying over long sections, which means Air early is a must.

Beginners will want to do Flash early, because Time Stopper allows you to skip some tricky sections in Air and Metal.
Once you get the hang of those sections, you'll want to do Flash later in the run to take advantage of his Metal Blade weakness.
In Normal mode, however, it actually saves more time to use Time Stopper on Metal Man's crushers than Metal Blade saves in the Flash Man fight.

Beginner Route

1. Flash
2. Air
3. Quick
4. Metal
5. Bubble
6. Heat
7. Wood
8. Crash

Advanced Route (Difficult Mode)

1. Air
2. Quick
3. Metal
4. Bubble
   
5. Heat
6. Flash*
7. Wood**
8. Crash**

** Wood and Crash are fully interchangeable.

* There is some flexibility as to where you place Flash in the route: it just needs to be after Metal but before Wood/Crash. Most runners put it after Heat, because F and 3 get in the way in the menu.

TAS Route

QMBFHAWC

1. Quick
2. Metal
3. Bubble
4. Flash
5. Heat
6. Air
7. Wood
8. Crash

The Zipless TAS takes an unusual route. While the category is ordinarily defined by Item 2 rides, doing Air Man without Item 1 loses 12 seconds. Several Item 2 rides have to be sacrificed in order to have Item 1 in Air. It's almost a wash, but it's 1.5 seconds faster overall, so that's what the TAS does.

You may wonder why you don't see this in top-level runs. While top-level runners are well equipped to do the Item 1 strats, they are scared off by the Item 3 climbs in Heat, particularly this one. The slightest mistake can make the whole route fall apart.

Another variation you can find in Seth Glass' old runs is a Bubble early route, which saves Metal for later to take advantage of F and 2,
but does a bit of an awkward Bubble stage with Q only. It's slower in Difficult, but it may be faster in Normal. More testing is needed.

True Weaknesses?

Mega Man 2's bosses often take extra damage from multiple weapons, so this is debatable. Much of this is not useful in the actual route, so check the individual stage pages. However...

Flash > Quick > Metal > Bubble > Heat > Wood > Air > Crash > Who Knows

• Crash is effective against Quick as well
• Bubbles are somewhat effective on Flash
• Metal is effective against Flash, and of course, Metal himself
• Wood Man is weak do just about everything.