Dust Man Boss Fight

Damage Tables

To Dust

From Dust

Strat

Dust Man always opens the fight with a Dust Crusher. The weapon "explodes" on the 4 diagonals when it reaches Mega Man's horizontal position / X-coordinate, so jump straight up over it.

You want to hit Dust Man with Rings constantly, so stand within the length of one Ring shot away from him. There is a theory that standing in Dust Man's face makes him jump and "suck" less, so if you are brave, get in there.

Dust Man takes 7* Ring shots to defeat.

Dust Man Moves

Dust Crusher is telegraphed by it coming out of Dust Mans head. Continue pummeling him with Rings

Jumping to one of three positions in the room is a thing Dust can do. Continue hitting him with Ring, and give him room to land. Dust Man jumping once to the middle of the room is actually optimal (explosion animation time), but no more jumps.

Dust Man sucks in Mega Man is the one pattern you really don't want to see. He is invulnerable during this attack. The only way to end it faster is colliding with him, taking the 8 contact damage.

Dust Man can decide to immediately suck again while you are still in the damage animation. Because of this, the best technique is to fire a ring boomerang through him, and collide with Dust Man before it comes back. This ensures the boomerang does damage on the way back, even if Dust Sucks again.

Refight Notes

While there are no changes to the Dust Man refight, you should watch your ammo. Ring is used for most castle bosses, as well as the Wily Machine at the end of the Teleporter Room, so make sure you keep 9 Rings for Wily Machine.

The "old" refight route (2010?-2020) did Dust last specifically to "save" the extra weapon switch, as you would already be on Ring after the 8th robot entering the Machine fight. The "new" refight route does Dust first, having just collected more Ring ammo in the stage prior, so Ring is already selected entering the refight room.