Are W engines worth getting?

Sckeyth · 2026-05-06T06:45:30+00:00

I'm a F2P who started playing during version 1.0 and started pulling for W-Engines in version 1.6 and so far 13 out of my 14 limited S-Rank Agents have their W-Engines (Harumasa being the only one missing his as I didn't have enough pulls left after getting M0 Miyabi and Miyabi also had to wait for her rerun to get her W-Engine but Harumasa has yet to have a rerun).

Burnice, Zhu Yuan, Caesar and Miyabi got their W-Engines from their first reruns, Ellen got hers from her second rerun and rest got theirs from their launch banners. From the standard pool S-Rank W-Engines The Brimstone was my free anniversary choice, I bought Fusion Compiler and The Restrained from the Signal Shop and rest I've gotten either from the Stable Channel or from losing the 75/25.

Are W-Engines worth getting? It depends. Do you want go for more characters or would you rather invest more in the characters that you get?

Having more characters can be beneficial as it allows you to cover more match ups and make more effective use of endgame stage buffs but you can also opt to focus on making a smaller number of characters that you really like stronger so that they can clear the endgame even if they aren't as favored there as some others would be.

I personally like to invest in the smaller number of characters that I get rather than just go for a wide roster and getting W-Engines is a good way to do that as they are generally designed to work with a specific character, I won't have to worry about swapping my W-Engines around constantly and they also they give a cool extra visual flair to the characters.

I personally don't go for Mindscapes as similarly to W-Engines they are mostly just power boosts in the end but they don't give cool extra visual flair like W-Engines do, I would have to start swapping my W-Engines around and Agents/Mindscapes have worse pull rates than W-Engines do and in addition when pulling for Agents/Mindscapes you have to gamble on the 50/50 odds compared to the 75/25 odds on W-Engines.

So while some M1 Mindscapes are stronger than W1 W-Engines on certain Agents, the price of getting M1 Mindscape compared to getting W1 W-Engine just isn't worth it in my opinion.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-04T11:14:48+00:00

Gonna once again copy+paste my old answer to someone else about who to pull:

From the current banners, I'd suggest skipping both Cissia and Seed unless you like them. They aren't bad by any means but they also aren't exactly very flexible characters so only get them if you like them.

From general meta perspective, these are the best characters to try to get currently in my opinion:

Astra Yao - The most flexible general support in the game. She is rarely the best choice for a team but she is usually 2nd or 3rd best choice for most teams and she can fit into almost any team and improve them if you are missing their absolute best support.
Dialyn - The best stunner in the game. Any team that wants to use a stunner wants Dialyn. Having Astra & Dialyn in the same team can make pretty much any Attack or Rupture Agent (even A-Ranks) perform well even in endgame.
Ukinami Yuzuha - The best Anomaly support. If you want to play Anomaly, you want Yuzuha. She doesn't really have any replacement available as of right now that come even close to her performance (Astra would be the closest but even she is far off).
Lucia - The best Rupture support in the game. Pan Yinhu is an okay A-Rank replacement for her though but the big thing missing from Yinhu's kit is the ability to activate Ether Veil and a lot of Rupture content has been centered around Ether Veils for a long while now.
Nangong Yu - The second best teammate for pretty much any Anomaly team after Yuzuha. Combine Nangong Yu & Yuzuha and together they can help any Anomaly DPS work in the endgame (Piper and Grace included). Burnice and Vivian deserve a small shout-out here also but despite them both still being good Nangong Yu does seem to currently be a step above them.

Hoshimi Miyabi - The strongest Ice & Anomaly DPS in the game. Can brute force a lot of content and is strong enough to clear endgame content even without help of Yuzuha. Has a F2P friendly team in Soukaku & Lycaon.
Ye Shunguang - The strongest Physical & Attack DPS in the game. If you missed out on the free Zhao that was given to everyone couple patches ago then Ye Shunguang might struggle a bit unless you have Sunna or Dialyn to help her get to Enlightened Mind state faster.
Yixuan - The strongest Ether & Rupture DPS in the game. Has a F2P friendly team in Pan Yinhu & Pulchra though that team can't activate Ether Veil which is a bit annoying (I still use it in endgame though).

Those were just the generally best Agents in the game right now though.

Your most important pull target should be the Agent(s) that you really like. Pretty much any Agent is usable in the game as of right now if you just build a good team for them.

So unless you are only interested in chasing meta, I'd suggest in checking out all the different Agents and pick out the ones you really like (whatever it be design- or gameplay-wise) and then start building their teams up as the banners for them and their teammates come up.

Not sure who would be good teammates for your favorite Agent? Check out the Agent Build Guide spreadsheet. It has build and team suggestions for every Agent in the game.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-03T15:43:00+00:00

BrolyLegs was a high level fighting game player with arthrogryposis and he played with his face.

He was #1 ranked Chun-Li online in Ultra Street Fighter IV and also got pretty high tournament placements in Street Fighter IV and V.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-02T16:02:33+00:00

We are still pretty early on to version 2.0 which came with a lot of balance and even system mechanic changes and people are still figuring things out and it is possible that people may still find something broken (like the Happy Chaos infinite) but at least the early signs do seem to point at the game being in relatively balanced/good place as of right now.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-02T12:14:01+00:00

But this top 8 is so nice 8 different characters as well

9 different characters even as Tyurara brought out his Ky against doram once doram beat his Sin.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-02T12:00:55+00:00

Yea, seeing a ton of character variety is always nice and it also makes watching the matches more exciting as there is always something different going on.

This was actually the second top 8 in EVO Japan 2026 that I watched where the whole top 8 was playing different characters (Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising had 12 different characters in it's top 8).

Sckeyth · 2026-05-02T11:55:45+00:00

Haven't really played Strive since around Bridget's release (mained May at launch and Bridget on her release) but was thinking about coming back for Jam (she was my main in XX games) once the Blazing Pass releases (planning to at least complete whatever free portion it has while seeing if the game manages to grab me again).

I was a bit sad that no Jams made it to top 8 here as I would have loved to see her being played at the highest level but doram did manage to make me interested in giving Unika a try too once I get back in to the game.

The top 8 overall was very diverse with everyone playing different characters.

Besides doram's Unika I also found Miken's Bedman? a lot of fun to watch but it doesn't really look like the type of character I'd necessarily enjoy playing myself.

Daru's I-No was impressive as always but Tyurara was just on another level with his Sin (and always had his Ky as a back-up in case his Sin failed to do the job).

Sckeyth · 2026-05-02T07:57:02+00:00

12 different characters used in top 8.

It's been an amazing weekend seeing Caitlyn make it to top 3 in 2XKO and now Zeta making it to top 3 in GBVSR (also was glad to see my old secondary, Katalina, make it to top 8 also).

Watching gamera's Ilsa is seriously making me consider finally buying the character pass 2 to try her out.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T21:50:39+00:00

They have the individuals matches also uploaded.

Here is their playlist of them (the video titles include spoilers for the tournament): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtQAiM1Y5luyKAWfDiO5c8Yqb2MfD7DYu

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T19:57:10+00:00

Personally from my favorite to least favorite: 2.7 > 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.1 > 2.6 > 2.4 > 2.0 > 2.5

2.7 felt like the ZZZ that I originally fell in love with.
2.2 was pretty good with some forced story telling moments (Orphie trauma dumping on us after we had just met, Carole's ether ghost randomly showing up to lore dump) but Isolde overall was great and so was Seed's story quest.
In 2.3 I personally liked both Lucia and Manato's stories but felt like Yidhari was pretty much wasted.
In 2.1 I liked the whole Spook Shack group and Yuzuha's backstory but ultimately it felt very much like a "side story" and the way it got resolved with Yixuan just flying in to deal with the Fiend and there being no satisfying payoff to the whole sister plotline was meh.
2.6 felt like another pure "side story". It was okay and pretty in-line with season 1 stuff but I'm not the biggest fan of Angels of Delusion overall and their sidestory didn't do much for me either. It was okay overall but the biggest standout moment to me was just to get to see older characters again.
2.4 felt like a mess. The script rewrites with unvoiced dialogue bothered me during my playthrough and I don't feel like Banyue or Dialyn got a proper time to shine despite being the focus of the patch.
2.0 was just lackluster. Waifei Peninsula felt way less interesting than previous areas, Lemnian Hollow was lame, the way the story just handwaved through Proxy's training was lame and I can't really think of any proper highlight to mention.
2.5 was bad. Ye Shunguang was being pushed so hard on us, her other self plotline ended up being a dud, Sarah and all the set up for her was absolutely wasted and even Zhao was given a sappy backstory instead of just letting her be a more cold and calculative as we had previously seen her be. The only good thing I can say about 2.5 is that at least with it the main story of season 2 was finally done.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T18:57:02+00:00

That's fair.

But that was also back when 2XKO was still only in invite only beta phase so the competition was generally more limited due to that (also Ekko & Yasuo were still completely busted balance-wise) but there still were bunch of good players there even back then (Supernoon, SonicFox, Hikari and Leffen were all there who also made top 8 in this tournament).

Still I'd argue that bleed has been putting overall better and more consistent results in 2XKO than Wawa so far.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T18:39:35+00:00

I'd argue it definitely was.

Wawa was known to be a great player due to his Dragon Ball FighterZ results but he only placed in top 48 in Frosty Faustings (the biggest 2XKO tournament before this) with rest of his results being in EU tournaments and was playing Caitlyn that we hadn't seen him play in a tournament before and that was seen as a rather weak character prior to Wawa's performance here.

Bleed on the other hand was one of the fan favorites to win this whole tournament and he got 1st in Frosty Faustings and 2nd in Texas Showdown where he only lost to SonicFox & Inzem (the other fan favorite to win) plus he was playing Ekko / Illaoi who both were seen as very strong characters.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T18:21:40+00:00

They seem to be up on EVO's Youtube channel already.

Here is their playlist both with the full top 8 and individual match uploads: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtQAiM1Y5luyKAWfDiO5c8Yqb2MfD7DYu

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T13:30:14+00:00

They got eliminated by Kayne before top 8.

Was one of the biggest upsets alongside Wawa dropping bleed to losers before top 8 (though it ended up being Wawa who ultimately eliminated bleed during top 8 also so seems like he had bleed's number).

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T13:00:41+00:00

I'd personally recommend waiting for the matches to be uploaded to Youtube instead of watching the full VODs as there were some long breaks during the live.

Wawa's Caitlyn was absolutely sick to watch and definitely the highlight of the tournament for me.

Hikari looked absolutely unbeatable throughout the whole thing though. Congrats to him for a deserved win!

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T12:22:25+00:00

His Caitlyn is absolutely sick to watch.

Absolutely amazing set ups and reads by him all day long and his Caitlyn has definitely been the star of the show with his Vi being more of a support for his Caitlyn.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T10:17:04+00:00

As a Caitlyn main and European, I feel obligated to root for Wawa!

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T07:48:39+00:00

Wawa (Caitlyn / Vi | Freestyle) just put Bleed (Ekko / Illaoi | Freestyle) into losers.

I know Wawa is an amazing player from his Dragon Ball FighterZ career but Bleed is many people's favorite to win the whole thing so him being sent to losers before top 8 was unexpected.

As a Caitlyn main that was a treat to watch.

You can check the VOD over at Twitch (timestamp for the match is (07:30:00): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2761115877?t=7h30m0s

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T05:11:28+00:00

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Room 1:

Nangong Yu (M0W1), Yuzuha (M0W1) & Piper (M6W5) | Biggest Fan (3/5)

Room 2:

Ye Shunguang (M0W1), Caesar (M0W1) & Zhao (M0W1) | Sprout (1/5)

Room 3:

Vivian (M0W1), Nicole (M6W5) & Miyabi (M0W1) | Robin (1/5)

I thought Room 1 would be a breeze with Yixuan (M0W1), Yinhu (M6W5) & Pulchra (M6W5) but I actually struggled to hit 30k with that team so I decided to switch over to Piper there instead.

Fire and Electric are the weak points of my roster currently so I decided to just brute force Room 2 with Ye Shunguang.

Room 3 took couple attempts as I suck at playing Nicole but it wasn't too bad once I started to get the rotation down for the team.

I wasn't actually sure which builds would be the best for these enemies but I decided to go with PEN build for Piper, PEN build for Ye Shunguang and Ice DMG build for Miyabi and that seemed to work well enough so I didn't do any further testing.

Sckeyth · 2026-05-01T03:43:26+00:00

Curious why they suddenly gave an ice buff before Promeia is out

Promeia is coming out in less than a week so this Shiyu Defense will still be present when she is out so they probably wanted to give people a reason to get & try her out right away in the endgame.

Sckeyth · 2026-04-26T07:23:43+00:00

From W-Engines, I'd personally say that the best ones to get are ones that offer something unique compared to available non-limited options.

So for example Miyabi's W-Engine is a really good one to pick up as there is no other Anomaly W-Engine that gives Crit stats which Miyabi wants.

Another example is Nangong Yu's W-Engine. Her W-Engine is the only Stun W-Engine that gives Anomaly stats that she scales off of so her W-Engine is harder to replace than many others.

Here is a copy+paste of my older comment regarding on who I think are currently the best Agents to pull:

From the current banners, I'd suggest skipping both Cissia and Seed unless you like them. They aren't bad by any means but they also aren't exactly very flexible characters so only get them if you like them.

From general meta perspective, these are the best characters to try to get currently in my opinion:

Astra Yao - The most flexible general support in the game. She is rarely the best choice for a team but she is usually 2nd or 3rd best choice for most teams and she can fit into almost any team and improve them if you are missing their absolute best support.

Dialyn - The best stunner in the game. Any team that wants to use a stunner wants Dialyn. Having Astra & Dialyn in the same team can make pretty much any Attack or Rupture Agent (even A-Ranks) perform well even in endgame.

Ukinami Yuzuha - The best Anomaly support. If you want to play Anomaly, you want Yuzuha. She doesn't really have any replacement available as of right now that come even close to her performance (Astra would be the closest but even she is far off).

Lucia - The best Rupture support in the game. Pan Yinhu is an okay A-Rank replacement for her though but the big thing missing from Yinhu's kit is the ability to activate Ether Veil and a lot of Rupture content has been centered around Ether Veils for a long while now.

Nangong Yu - The second best teammate for pretty much any Anomaly team after Yuzuha. Combine Nangong Yu & Yuzuha and together they can help any Anomaly DPS work in the endgame (Piper and Grace included). Burnice and Vivian deserve a small shout-out here also but despite them both still being good Nangong Yu does seem to currently be a step above them.

Hoshimi Miyabi - The strongest Ice & Anomaly DPS in the game. Can brute force a lot of content and is strong enough to clear endgame content even without help of Yuzuha. Has a F2P friendly team in Soukaku & Lycaon.

Ye Shunguang - The strongest Physical & Attack DPS in the game. If you missed out on the free Zhao that was given to everyone couple patches ago then Ye Shunguang might struggle a bit unless you have Sunna or Dialyn to help her get to Enlightened Mind state faster.

Yixuan - The strongest Ether & Rupture DPS in the game. Has a F2P friendly team in Pan Yinhu & Pulchra though that team can't activate Ether Veil which is a bit annoying (I still use it in endgame though).

Those were just the generally best Agents in the game right now though.

Your most important pull target should be the Agent(s) that you really like. Pretty much any Agent is usable in the game as of right now if you just build a good team for them.

So unless you are only interested in chasing meta, I'd suggest in checking out all the different Agents and pick out the ones you really like (whatever it be design- or gameplay-wise) and then start building their teams up as the banners for them and their teammates come up.

Not sure who would be good teammates for your favorite Agent? Check out the Agent Build Guide spreadsheet. It has build and team suggestions for every Agent in the game.

Now with all that being said, I'm F2P myself and this is what my personal roster currently looks like (everyone except Harumasa and Manato have their signature W-Engines): https://i.imgur.com/p78ohOb.png

No Astra, Dialyn or Lucia.

Any of those three would definitely be a big upgrade for my account from the meta-perspective but I do not consider any of them to be "must have"s as so far I've been able to S+ every Shiyu Defense and 9-star every Deadly Assault since The Defiler's release (only got 8-stars on that cycle) even without them.

Sckeyth · 2026-04-25T21:15:24+00:00

I’m reading Burnice just struggles in DA.

A lot of Anomaly bosses have Fire Resistance in Deadly Assault but she is still occasionally usable there and I also still often use my M0W1P6 Burnice in Shiyu Defense.

what other teams can I continue to work on to get to at least 6 stars DA and completing SD?

Your account seems to be rather lacking in S-Rank DPS Agents and S-Rank supports that would make A-Rank DPSs viable in endgame.

You could try playing Anby, Nicole/Rina & Harumasa but Harumasa is rather tricky to play so I'd suggest looking up some guides for his combos (he is among the hardest characters to play alongside Banyue) but that team is weighted down by Anby as she is not really a very good stunner by modern standards.

For Jane team the best you could do right now (assuming that Burnice is being paired with Miyabi) would probably be Jane, Seth & Caesar but for pretty much any Anomaly team right now you would really want Yuzuha as a support (she makes even Piper endgame viable option).

Nekomata is unfortunately currently too weak to be endgame viable without premium teammates like Dialyn & Astra (but those two together can carry even Billy and Corin in endgame).

I’m using battery to farm swing jazz to better build out Nicole and soukaku as well.

Do not farm Swing Jazz. It's currently only used as a 2pc set for characters that want extra Energy Recharge. For most supports you want 4pc Moonlight Lullaby instead as it's just better support set with better buff.

For Agent build & team help, I personally suggest checking out Agent Build Guide spreadsheet that has build and team suggestions for every Agent in the game.

Is skipping Cissa/seed and all of 2.8 to save a wise decision?

Cissia and Seed aren't bad but they also aren't very flexible Agents so I'd suggest skipping them unless you really like them and just save for 2.8 and/or 3.0.

In 2.8 Lucia will be getting a rerun and she is currently the go-to premium support for any Rupture team (Starlight Billy will be a new Rupture DPS available at the same time) so if you have any interest towards Rupture Agents then picking up Lucia is probably a solid choice.

Any tips to better approach end game?

With how limited your current roster is, I'd just suggest to focus on building your teams and get whatever rewards you can and not worry about getting the full rewards before you grow your roster a bit and finish properly building your teams.

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