ABC New Route True Description

Air:
Same as before. Didn't want Air Man to miss out on the fun :)
I decided not to fast forward the pauses this time because I hate my viewers.


Bubble:
I need Bubble Lead for an upcoming strat in Heat, so I went here right away. Item 1 doesn't save any A presses in this stage, so it's perfect!

Without jumping, a couple of lag frames on the first Item 2 ride are inevitable. But you didn't notice that, did you?

I switch to Buster to manipulate some energy refills from the crabs. Get used to that! I'll be doing it a LOT.
You might be thinking that I should switch during the pausefall zip, taking advantage of a free menu, then use the shrimp for my refill. But I actually need Item 2 out to do a B-trigger zip and save an A press, so that's not an option.

Unfortunately, without jumping, I couldn't do the zip in 5 pauses. I had to settle for 6.

The first Item 2 zip feels a BIT cheesy, since it's not strictly necessary to get over that ledge. But an A press is an A press, as they say. Might as well do it as fast as possible. I suppose I could optimize for number of frames held, but that sounds kind of boring.

The second Item 2 zip is strictly necessary for A press savings. I suppose it might be possible to do a silly ride right under the spikes, then set up the ending ride from underwater, but then I'd be low on energy and probably need to manipulate a refill from the frog, at which point...what was I talking about again?

I tried an energy wasting strat to get the last Item 2 to disappear 19 frames sooner so I wouldn't brush against the wall for 11 frames. But it's still faster to get the extra distance/speed from that extra energy.

The boss fight, like all ABC fights, is quite silly. But not trivial! Bubble Man targets your position when he jumps, so it's a careful balance of standing far enough away to get lots of shots in while standing close enough to hit the next cycle sooner. I found it was optimal to get 5 shots per cycle instead of the maximal 6. Except apparently at the end, where I did 6 and then 4. I have absolutely no reollection of why I did that. Was it to set up the unnecessary double death?


Flash:
I actually found that it was faster to take an alternate route rather than take damage from the blocky. This is ONLY faster because the ice physics make a no-A dboost incredibly slow! It's kind of cool to see a different path in a speedrun for once.

What's not cool is that this health save completely obsoleted the health zip from the previous version (since I no longer need any extra health), which is just about my favorite TAS strat I've ever invented :( To help cope, I manipulated a health zip anyway. I had to delay the Item 2 jump by 1 frame to accomodate this, but I still reach the door on the same frame.


Heat:
2 A presses saved!!

The first one is why I needed Bubble Lead. It's possible to enter the ceiling for the zip 0x from the ladder, but in the old route, I had to manipulate some refills from the tellies in that room and jump onto my Item 3, wasting an A press. With Bubble Lead, I'm able to kill the springers, which live in more convenient spots and enable me to get the 0x zip setup.

However, once in the ceiling, it's necessary to press A. Since the Item 3 always pushes me off screen, I can't shoot one for a B-trigger zip.

BUT WAIT! What if there were another way to turn around? What if there were some other entity in the game world that could conceivably knock me in some direction? Maybe even backwards? A backwards knock?

Yeah, OK. Unfortunately, a knockback strat isn't as easy is it might sound. In this game, you cannot choose the direction of your knock; instead, it is solely determined by the enemy's facing direction. To get a telly to knock me right (a knockright?) here, I would have to lure it all the way to the left edge of the screen and get it to move rightwards into me.

Well it turns out, that's fairly doable! By luring him to the left edge of the screen, taking a hit, then using the i-frames to set up the zip, I'm able to get a knockback zip in 0x A presses. Interestingly, the zip doesn't start until Mega Man returns to his standing pose. This is a good thing, because otherwise I would start zipping too soon and fall out of the ceiling. You want the i-frames to end as soon as you're high enough to zip safely; this movie is the best I could do. There seem to be 2 frames between when I hit the valid coordinate and when I start zipping.

Side note: the damage boost I take from the springer at the end of the first section actually gives me enough height to get on that ledge. A true damage BOOST!

You may be wondering why I shoot the springer in that yoku room without manipulating a refill. It's counterintuitive, but you can't argue with results! See, the optimal strat there is to switch directly to Item 3 and take the hit, which would save a weapon switch. However, health is really tight on this stage (I absolutely must take two hits from Heat Man), so I can't afford that health. If I'm going to kill it anyway, you'd think I might as well grab a refill. But that's slower. First of all, it's surprisingly only 17 frames slower to get the kill like I do. But picture what a health drop manip would look like: it would entail waiting forever for the bubble to disappear and incur an extra weapon switch. The respawn refill strat I did is 40 frames faster, well worth this 17-frame investment.

Killing the mech at the end was originally a free timesave from the free weapon switch I get. But with this new health route, it's actually necessary.
Funny story: I wasted a ton of time routing a Time Stopper dodge in that room. It saves health and it's faster! The only problem is, I zoned out and pressed A to drop off the ladder, completely invalidating it. I had even resynced the boss fight before realizing it, too. I wonder how many times an absent-minded A press will ruin my day like this.

Fighting Heat Man with Bubble Lead is a nice side effect of this new route. The fight is actually REALLY clean thanks to that damage boost I do, which gives me 2 frame-perfect charges comparable to jumpy strats. It's made possible by the way that he faces right for some reason after the second hit. I've never seen this before, and it seems to be position-dependent. The double death at the end is totally unnecessary, but totally cool B)

Oh, and if you didn't notice, I got rid of that ridiculous pausefall strat in the second room from my previous attempt. What was I THINKING?


What's next?
I think it's weakness order from here on out, since I have all three Items. I've been running some tests on Crash Man and I've hit the checkpoint in 1x A press, so look out for that.