Mega Man X2/Bosses

This section of the Guide relates to the names of the bosses and how to most efficiently defeat them, as well as noticed holes in their style of attacking. This will also contain potential spoilers as to who you will face.

Damage chart
The Giga Crush always deal 2 damages to any boss.

The Shoryuken instantly defeats any boss except Morph Moth, as he is a Maverick with two forms, and one hit will force him into his second form, where a second hit will defeat him.

The Mavericks
The bosses of Mega Man X2 are a variety of interesting designs, though central to the beginning of the game are the eight main Maverick commanders whom you must combat at the end of each stage.

There is, of course, a weakness that each boss has. As such, the well planning player can prepare themselves to specifically target each of those weaknesses as they progress through the stages, gaining what the next opponent will be weak against in the current stage.

The overall "Chain" is the following:
 * Wire Sponge's attack is best against Wheel Gator
 * Wheel Gator's attack is best against Bubble Crab
 * Bubble Crab's attack is best against Flame Stag
 * Flame Stag's Attack is best against Morph Moth
 * Morph Moth's attack is best against Magna Centipede
 * Magna Centipede's attack is best against Crystal Snail
 * Crystal Snail's attack is best against Overdrive Ostrich
 * Overdrive Ostrich's attack is best against Wire Sponge

Wire Sponge

 * Weakness: Sonic Slicer
 * Weapon Gained: Strike Chain

Wire Sponge will be easy to beat even if you just started playing Megaman X2 and have no upgrades or anything yet.

He has 3 different sets of attacks that he will put into use against you:

1. Standing on the ground rotating his chain to block off your attacks and throwing the chains in your direction. This is easily evaded by climbing a wall as his chain only throws horizontally. As soon as he takes his chain back, try and get a quick blast in.

2. He moves on the ground, jumping at X. Again, stay on a wall and dash jump off of it so you don't hit him when you get down, then blast him fast.

3. He hurls his chain up top, slowly elevating and throws spores at your direction which will damage you upon hitting you or grow a stingy plant upon hitting either floor or wall. This is the attack set you can benefit from the most. Dash around on the ground and make sure the spores don't hit you, shoot them down whenever possible or if they're in your way, shoot at Sponge as he makes himself an easy target as he hangs from his chain.

This boss is pretty easy. The most dangerous move is when he releases the spores, and he can cut off many escape routes. Destroy the spores whenever you can, maybe while the boss is spinning his chain. Use the walls to your advantage, but don't rely on it as the spores will hurt you much, much more.

After he gets damaged a good amount, he will gain a new move, which will make him invincible and shoot lightning from the roof. He will only shoot lightning a certain distance away from him, so when he turns red stay as far away as possible.

Wheel Gator

 * Weakness: Strike Chain
 * Weapon Gained: Spin Wheel

Wheel Gator is fought in a room full of oil, and he will often dive under and attack from underneath. To avoid the worst of his attacks, stay in one of the upper corners of the room by wall jumping. He has three attacks.

1. He will dive underneath the oil and shoot blades that will roll on the walls and ceiling. This can easily be dodged by jumping away from the wall as soon as you see the blade come up, but you have to go back up the wall immediately to avoid his second attack.

2. He will come up and bite you, causing a lot of damage. To avoid this, minimize the amount of time you are on the ground. If you do get caught, move left and right really quickly to break free. Watch for when the oil gets calmer, this is when he will jump up. Sometimes, he will shoot a blade up on the wall and then after you jump down bite you.

3. He will jump up and crash into one of the walls. The mark he makes will also cause damage, so hit him whenever he pops up before he can jump.

Charge up a shot before you enter the boss room to get a good first shot, then switch to your Strike Chain(if you have it). After dodging 1-3 blades, he will jump up and try to bite you. If he misses, jump down near him and attack before he can jump and crash into the wall. This boss has a really predictable pattern.

Sticking to one wall is the best strategy, preferably the left wall as you can easily access it after you fire your first charged shot. If you don't have the Strike Chain for some reason just charge your shots as you are wall jumping and dodging the blades.

Bubble Crab
This maverick is easy. If you touch him you will take a lot of damage, so one of his attacks is to hop around. Dodge underneath when he gets close to you. For the most part, stay on the walls; if he gets close to you with a hop, jump over the top of him and turn around and fire a charged blast or a Spin Wheel. He can also charge across the ground, so stay on the wall to avoid getting caught in his claws. The water changes makes the window for dodging his hopping hard to predict, so if you need to dodge through water, try to drop to the floor so you can dodge underneath when he hops high through the water. Try not to jump over him.
 * Weakness: Spin Wheel
 * Weapon Gained: Bubble Splash

Flame Stag
When facing off against Flame Stag you have to realize that he will be faster than you, and he will jump quite often since that is his main style of moving. The area you fight him in is a massive chamber, one that reaches up so high that you will very rarely ever see the ceiling.
 * Weakness:Bubble Splash
 * Weapon Gained: Speed Burner

If you're fighting him without Bubble Crab's weapon you might discover that he is a little difficult until you understand his overall style of combat, at which point he becomes easy.

You can charge up your buster, and as he leaps up and up and up you can climb up a wall. Then if you time it right you can discharge the buster so that as he descends he'll run into the shot, then drop down and hug the corner of the wall while preparing to shoot him when he lands.

As he lands you'll fire off, and he'll respond by doing one of three things:
 * 1) Flex his muscles and then dash at you.
 * 2) Throw fireballs in your direction.
 * 3) Leap up the walls again.

If he does the first hop up onto the wall, jump and aim to go over him. However, immediately pull away from that direction, as he will try to intercept you by leaping toward the wall that you're heading in the direction of. Timed right you can even get off a shot on him!

If he does the second simply dodge and fire at him until he stops throwing the fireballs, whereupon he does one of two things. He'll dash at you, which is easily avoided(and you should do what is mentioned above), or he'll simply start jumping right away.

If you stick to a single wall for a long time he'll come dashing up the wall, burning all the way.

Mainly when he lands on the ground he'll often not land on top of you, except if you move to where he's planning to land. Normally sticking to the very left and very right spots, hugging that corner of the wall, will make you avoid getting landed on.

His fire will turn blue at about half his life. When this occurs his flames he leaves while dashing tend to remain afire a little longer.

If you use Bubble Crab's weapon he will react by throwing fire at you. If you're used to dodging that fire throwing attack then you can kill him without once being hit, simply because each time you hit him with the Bubble Crab he does the fire throw.

Morph Moth
You might not want to take this maverick on without his weakness because it is easy to take damage in this fight. Exploiting his weakness will end the fight more quickly. If you have Speed Burner, shoot it and wait until the invincibility wears off and shoot again. Each time it will take a chunk from him. If you have the Mega Buster upgrade, charge a Speed Burner and it makes the fight even easier. Morph Moth's moves don't hurt much, but if he touches you, it'll deal a large amount of damage.
 * Weakness: Speed Burner
 * Weapon Gained: Silk Shot

Magna Centipede

 * Weakness: Silk Shot, secondary weakness to Strike Chain
 * Weapon Gained: Magnet Mine

Magna Centipede (AKA Magne Hyakulegger):

Magna Centipede is one of the more static boss battles of the game, which means this is one of the bosses made the most easier by possession of the Arm Upgrade in a buster-only fight; he spends enough time standing still that you can reek serious havoc on him with the double shot charge. However he has one irritating gimmick, which can really screw with you if you let it.

Fighting Centipede with the X-Buster:

-Starting the Fight:

The battle begins as he teleports in on the right. There is always enough time to get a free buster shot in at the start, so make sure you go into the battle charged up and ready for action.

-Contact Danger: (4 contact damage inflicted to unarmored X)

Through-out the fight, Centipede will do sudden jumps from one corner to another between attacks, usually following where you are. This attack can seem unexpected, but don't panic; his hit box is smaller than it looks by quite a lot. If you are on the wall and he does a jump from one the top corners towards your wall, it is easy to dash jump off the wall over him as he jumps, as he dips quite low when he jumps over. If you are on the floor when this happens, stick in the bottom corners to avoid him as he dips down in his jump, although that small hit box won't likely hit you anyway. His jumping from the floor to the opposite ceiling corner is usually less trouble. He never stands still in the exact center or corners of the room; always somewhere between. If you don't damage Centipede, he will always repeat jumping between attacks.

Once you start hitting him, he will begin to teleport. Centipede will teleport between four locations in the room: the bottom right, top right, bottom left and top left corners. However, he will always stand far enough away from the wall that you can be behind him without getting hit. He will never warp to any other but these four locations in the room. As long as you stay away from these four spots between the center and sides of the room, his teleporting should not be a direct threat. The main problem is anticipating where he will warp to. Sometimes he teleports somewhere else immediately, leaving you with no time to counter. It is generally best to stay on the walls close to the ceiling; this way, if he teleports to the ceiling you can hit him immediately, and if he teleports to the floor he is only a small drop away. Sometimes hitting him with a charge shot will stun him and make him warp immediately without attacking; these situations are very useful for racking up damage.

Main Attacks:

-Attack 1: Tail pieces (3 damage inflicted to unarmored X), telegraphed by him mischievously touching his face with his finger

For the first attack, the tail adjoined to his head will break off, and after a brief moment, will start orbiting X in pieces. They spin fast, so it is hard to time shooting between the pieces without the shots being blocked; it can be better to spam uncharged shots in this moment to guarantee a couple get through. After a second, the pieces of the tail will stop orbiting X and remain in place, and a moment later, will come to together in the center where X was when they stopped orbiting him. In this brief moment, you need to react to where the pieces stop and get out of the way before they hit you. If they stop either side of you, jump up. If they stop above and below you, dash out of the way. Early in the battle, there will only be two pieces orbiting you, but as Centipede's life depletes, it will turn to three, making it trickier to avoid.

-Attack 2: Shurikens (3 damage inflicted to unarmored X), telegraphed by him spreading his arms out

The second attack is much more annoying to avoid as you must react quickly and does not afford you that small moment to counter Centipede easily that the tail pieces do. He will throw three shurikens out which move in an arcing pattern, so much so that if you try avoiding them from the wall, they sometimes almost double-back towards Centipede. The easiest way to avoid them is to dash jump from the floor over the lowest one or two shurikens, the other one or two going overhead. It depends on the pattern which is best. Luckily, he does not do this attack often, and on average should only be seen a few times or less in an efficient buster-only battle.

-Gimmick Attack: Magnetizing Power Drain, telegraphed by him raising his arm and closing his eyes

Being such a static fight, the true threat of Centipede comes from his magnetizing power drain. Occasionally, more often as he comes closer to his demise, Centipede will try to magnetize you towards him. If he catches you, and you do nothing about it, he will take away an ability from X! During the fight, he can de-power X up to four times. The following are the abilities X loses each time:

Power drain 1: Lose the ability to charge the X-buster. Power drain 2: Lose the ability to have more than one buster shot on screen at a time. Power drain 3: Lose the ability to dash (It's pre-Chill Penguin X1 all over again!). Power drain 4: Lose the ability to jump full height, this also makes wall climbing much harder and gives Centipede more time to knock you off the wall with an attack.

As you can see, getting power drained becomes an utter nightmare. However, the attack is not all doom and gloom. If you see he's about to do it, dash immediately in the opposite direction from him, then keep holding the dash button. You will keep yourself away from him, hovering in mid-air. After a couple of seconds, he'll give up and try something else. If you don't dash in time, you will inevitably be sucked in, however if you mash the directional buttons/analog stick like crazy, you can easily escape from him without consequence. Interestingly, Centipede has no hit box during this attack; you can run/dash right through him without taking damage.

There is, however, a small problem. If Centipede is low enough on health (approximately one third or less), then it is impossible to escape from his magnetizing power drain if you did not dash away in time and he has caught you with it. If this happens, and it likely will in a buster-only fight, your best bet is to start abusing the infamous 'Dash shot' exploit, where if you shoot an uncharged shot while dashing (including off a wall), it will do two bars of damage instead of the standard one bar. Having more than one buster shot on screen should not be a problem when using this strategy, so getting drained a second time won't be a big deal. If you get drained a third time before the dash shots have finished him, then simply focus on getting in as many shots as you can. If you get drained a fourth time, then pray the random number generator gods favor you and have him teleport/jump to the floor for easy shots. Don't get scared by the drain. There is usually enough time to finish him before things become a real problem if you don't get drained until past halfway. If you get drained earlier, you will simply need to employ the same strategies noted above for a longer portion of the fight.

Fighting Magna Centipede with the Silk Shot: (2 damage to Centipede uncharged, 4 damage when charged)

Poor Magna loses much of his difficulty with the Silk Shot. When he is hit with it the first time, he is stunned and his tail falls to pieces! This deprives him of his ever-pesky magnetizing power drain, thank goodness. However, there is a downside. Without his tail, Centipede will only ever do the more annoying shuriken attack, as opposed to the tail pieces attack. Luckily, if you hit him with the Silk Shot before he has a chance to attack, he will always be stunned and teleport to somewhere else before throwing the shurikens. You'll notice that when the Silk Shot hits the floor, shrapnel goes flying in all four diagonal directions; this is the easiest way to hit him with it when he warps to the ceiling. Simply fire the Silk Shot onto the floor in the opposite corner, and the shrapnel will fly diagonal directly into him, and inflict the same amount of damage as the normal shot. The shrapnel has a small hit box, so this might take a little practice to get the aim right. If you have the Arm Upgrade, used the charged Silk Shot for extra damage; it has to be aimed slightly differently to hit Centipede with the diagonal shrapnel (stand a little farther back when firing than you would with uncharged shots), but the shrapnel still inflicts increased damage.

Fighting Magna Centipede with the Shoryuken:

Centipede is tricky to take down in one hit with the shoryuken, since he starts on the floor and has that deceptively small hit box. It is perhaps easiest to hit him once at the very beginning for half damage, then when X falls behind Centipede on the right side, Shoryuken back to the left to annihilate the other half of his health bar. Since Centipede takes a little while to get going, there's usually enough time to do this before taking damage and disabling the Shoryuken. If he teleports to the ceiling, you can obviously do an easy one-hit K.O. Shoryuken straight up into him.

Additional notes on the Magna Centipede battle:

Centipede has a secondary weakness to the Strike Chain. It won't remove his tail or do extra damage when charged, but will do two damage and can be more reliable for attacking if you have been power drained.

Centipede's battle is actually very slightly harder in the rematch. This is because his boss chamber is a just a little larger, meaner it takes longer to reach him if he is on the ceiling. The difference in difficulty is close to negligible though.

Crystal Snail

 * Weakness: Magnet Mine
 * Weapon Gained: Crystal Hunter

Overdrive Ostrich
This guy is a good candidate for your first maverick. He's deadly with an attack that can shave your health off pretty quickly. There is a gimmick where you can trick his AI into repeating the same behavior over and over again, making him predictable and less of a threat.
 * Weakness: Crystal Hunter
 * Weapon Gained: Sonic Slicer


 * Attacks
 * He runs in the back ground and jumps up trying to land on you. You need to KEEP dashing to dodge this because he won't land on where you stand when he jumps, he'll keep homing on you until he appear on-screen at hyper speed so dashing alot to dodge this.
 * He runs on the ground trying to hit you. Try to get to a high place in the map, not slope down and jump over him. He'll stop and delay so you can let him have it right after.
 * He jumps like crazy trying to crash into you. Time your dash and simply dash past him
 * He shoots some crescent-shaped thingy into the air and hit you with them. They always home on you so try and move a little bit but not much to dodge.

There are several gimmicks to controlling Overdrive Osterich's AI. For example, if you try to find an area with a valley, like '\_/' and stand on the opposite side of the slope as Overdrive, he will try to run into you or jump into you. You can jump over him easily with a dash jump if he runs down into the valley, then turn around and shoot him. Get to the other side of the slope and repeat. He will often run outside the border of the screen because the valleys are wide. When he is off screen he may execute another dashing jump attack, so be careful.
 * Strategy

Most of the time you can stun lock him into doing the back ground jump and he just keep do that all over and over and over and you can just dodge and shoot and just that. He also as well use the blade attack occasionally but it takes 1-2 Mega Buster projectiles from you and they are easy to dodge.

Violen

 * Weakness: Bubble Splash

The best thing you can do with Violen is just try to take the least amount of damage possible while inflicting the highest amount. To do this, simply stand directly in front of him and spam Bubble Splash. He will swing his chain all across the room and if you are lucky, he wont swing it in front of him. Every few chain swings, he will jump twice in your direction. Simply move a bit to the left when he does this. Repeat this process until you defeat him.

Serges
Serge's fight is a little tricky because he rides on a machine. To damage the controller, you must destroy four cannons in front of him, which when one destroyed, the machine will move one step forward and destroy a platform. It will continue to do this until there are two platforms left.
 * Weakness: Charged Sonic Slicer

Use Giga crush to tear his machine into two with just one use. Then stand underneath him and repeatedly use charged Sonic Slicers. If you don't have Giga Crush or can't execute it, use the Spin Wheel to rip the cannon to bits quickly (3 blades per cannon). Don't use the buster for the first phase because it is tedious.

Agile
Agile is really easy during the second encounter. You hug the wall and slide down to shoot magnet mine at him. If you have a chest plate and 1.5 sub tank, he shouldn't give you a run through your mind. Alternatively, if you have acquired the Shoryuken from earlier in this level, enter Agile's lair with completely full health. Hit him square in the face (cannot be to the sides or it does less damage) with the Shoryuken once, and it is an instant defeat.
 * Weakness: Magnet Mine.

Neo Sigma
Pretty disappointing for a second-to-final boss. You might defeat him with a little hp has result in Zero's battle (If couldn't retrieve all Zero parts). Change into sonic slicer and blast him often. His attack are easy to dodge: Save the subtanks for sigma virus
 * Weakness: Sonic Slicer
 * He summon 5 elec balls that homes on you. Slide down the wall or dash a little to dodge. Very easy to do so
 * He charges at you, slash the claw at you and send you flying across the room if he successfully execute the attack on you. Hug the wall to dodge. He won't home on you.
 * He summon a electric pole and make it runs across the room. Hug the wall to dodge. He only do the attack at low health.

Sigma Virus
After Neo sigma you should have 3-4 subtanks left. You turn on the chain and spam it on him as it and the buster are the most effective and the only thing that damage him (aside from Giga Crush). The goons he summon drop health capsules and w.energy so you can use that fact to make the fight looks more like a joke. At red status he sticks to you, drain your health down. Spam chain to kill him quickly because what ever you do the chain hits him. He might unstick after awhile so use the chance to kill him once and for all! (probably can't but whatever). Use buster if the chain runs out.
 * Weakness: Strike Chain, fully charged X Buster (upgraded)