This is our preliminary tier list for all of the W-Engines that are currently in Zenless Zone Zero as of the 1.0 release. Think of W-Engines as weapons in Genshin Impact or Light Cones in Star Rail. This tier list will be updated regularly as new updates and balance changes are implemented to ZZZ, so stay tuned!
Tier List
Attention, all proxies! This is a list of all available W-Engines that will prove valuable to you on your commissions. We will be going over the W-Engine, their ranking, and quick explanation as to why they've earned their rank!
*This list takes into account base ascension level. Also, this list is in no particular order outside of the main ranking.
Tier | W-Engine (Click to hop to them) |
S+ Tier | ⁍ Hellfire Gears ⁍ Steel Cushion ⁍ The Restrained ⁍ Big Cylinder |
S Tier | ⁍ Deep Sea Visitor ⁍ Demara Battery Mark II ⁍ Electro-Lip Gloss ⁍ Cannon Rotor ⁍ Steam Oven |
A Tier | ⁍ Drill Rig - Red Axis ⁍ Housekeeper ⁍ Precious Fossilized Cor ⁍ Starlight Engine ⁍ Starlight Engine Replica ⁍ The Vault |
B Tier | ⁍ [Lunar] Crescent ⁍ [Magnetic Storm] Alpha ⁍ [Magnetic Storm] Bravo ⁍ [Magnetic Storm] Charlie ⁍ [Reverb] Mark I ⁍ [Reverb] Mark II ⁍ [Reverb] Mark III ⁍ [Vortex] Arrow ⁍ [Vortex] Hatchet ⁍ [Vortex] Revolver |
Tier List Explanation
- S+ Tier: The best W-Engines in the game. These should be considered best in slot for role / element combinations.
- S Tier: W-Engines that are exceptional and will serve you very well for a long time to come.
- A Tier: These W-Engines are about average, but for certain agents, the W-Engines in this tier can be excellent.
- B Tier: W-Engines that are below average and should only be used temporarily until you can get your hands on something better.
S+ Tier
Hellfire Gears
Excellent for fire-based stun agents (and to a lesser extent fire main DPS) as not only does it increase fire damage and provide pen ratio as the additional stat, but also gives a stackable increase to their impact damage, making it easier to stun enemies.
Steel Cushion
Amazing for physical based main DPS units, especially for units who are mobile and can easily get behind an enemy. To add, you get increased crit rate.
The Restrained
This was built for ice-based daze units, with a healthy increase to daze and general damage, ice damage, as well as impact percent. This will make your job as an ice stunner much easier.
Big Cylinder
This is best in slot for defensive based DPS characters, which at the moment is only Ben, and Ben is an agent who I consider to be top tier, so this follows by giving him more defense, reduced damage, and increased attack and guaranteed crit when he takes a hit, allowing you to ignore building crit rate for your tank. With your high defense and reduced damage, you could tank hits just to get that increased attack and guaranteed crit for your next attack, which includes your basic, dodge attack, special or ultimate.
S Tier
Deep Sea Visitor
This is an excellent W-Engine for ice-based DPS as your crit rate is increased upon attacking a frozen enemy. Apart from that, you get increased attack% as part of the additional stat and as part of the W-Engine. The only downside is that for the increased crit, you must attack a frozen enemy, and not every enemy can be frozen, especially bigger bosses.
Demara Battery Mark II
This is a fantastic choice for main DPS agents who deal a lot of electricity in their attacks, as not only does it increase your electric damage, but also gives you a burst of energy periodically everytime you dodge, making it so that you can use your EX special more often for higher damage output.
Electro-Lip Gloss
One of the best general options for support units, as this will help them deal more damage with their attribute anomalies, as well as boost their attribute mastery with the additional stat, making their elemental damage output even higher.
Cannon Rotor
Another great option for support units, and semi good option for main DPS. This gives you more crit rate, and your crit hits a big boost to attack, which can only happen periodically, so when switching to your support DPS, the cooldown should be reset, and another crit attack boost applied. Also, the additional stat being attribute mastery further helps your support DPS deal more elemental damage.
Steam Oven
A fantastic choice for defense scaling units, although I think Big Cylinder is the superior choice as not only does it reduce damage, but upon taking a hit, gives you increased damage and a guaranteed crit, allowing you to spec into other stats than crit rate at the exchange of a hit. The only thing Steam Oven does is increased damage on your EX-Specials scaled on your defense periodically, which while great, is second to Big Cylinder.
A Tier
Drill Rig - Red Axis
This is a good choice for electric main DPS agents that have electric attacks on their basic, however, it has limited use and recharge time, not to mention, basic attack scaling is not the best. You do get crit rate as your additional stat however, which is great for main DPS.
Housekeeper
This was built for physical support agents, as they get increased energy while they sit in reserves, and when they pop their ex special, a stackable physical damage increase is applied. However, the time that the buffs last is incredibly short, meaning this is good for very specific units, and currently that only unit is Corin with her chainsaw that attacks multiple times in rapid succession, granting maximum stacks.
Precious Fossilized Cor
This is a good choice for your daze / stun units, as it increases the amount of daze that attacks deal against enemies with 70% or more HP. The only downside, of course, is that this effect is null when enemies go below that threshold. As a bonus, you get impact% as your additional stat, which will also help your stun agent.
Starlight Engine
This W-Engine is good for when your main DPS is coming off of a chain attack as it gives them an attack boost for a certain amount of time, so it will pair nicely for units with other chain attack bonuses.
Starlight Engine Replica
This W-Engine is built for ranged main DPS characters who use their basic attack a lot, as when they reach a certain distance away from the enemy, they deal extra damage. Not to mention you get PEN ratio as your additional stat, increasing your damage potential when paired with PEN.
The Vault
This is a good choice for support DPS units who have chain attacks or ex specials that have a lot of hits within a short time period, as the defense reduction has a very limited time frame upon executing a chain attack or special ex. The first hit of a chain or special would trigger it, and then any extra hits after would benefit from the foes reduced defense.
B Tier
[Lunar] Crescent
This is a secretly good B rank W-Engine for agents that scale off of defense, which currently is only Ben. Whenever you are attacked, you gain a defense bonus, which if you combine with every other method of gaining defense such as through disc drive stats, you can boost up your defense by a lot. And not to mention, since this is a B rank, you'll easily be able to max this one out for a whopping 40% increased defense upon getting hit. However, there are far better defensive W-Engines, so replace this as soon as you get either of the ones mentioned in S or S+ rank.
[Magnetic Storm] Alpha
This is an okay W-Engine for support DPS units as it allows them to more quickly apply anomaly build up, however, ones that increase how much damage anomaly does is more valuable, as you can increase anomaly build up in other ways, and damage is much more important.
[Magnetic Storm] Bravo
You get a boost to attribute mastery at the start of a fight. While if this is maxed out you get a 64% boost, it does not last long enough for this to be worth using over any other support DPS W-Engine in the above tiers.
[Magnetic Storm] Charlie
This is just a weaker version of Electro-Lip Gloss, so this would be temporary until you're able to get your hands on that one if you want your support DPS to deal more attribute anomaly damage.
[Reverb] Mark I
This is a weaker version of Starlight engine replica. There is no reason to use this as other than a slight damage boost to ranged attacks until you can get a hold of Starlight Engine Replica.
[Reverb] Mark II
This W-Engine provides the opposite effect of [Reverb] Mark I, where the closer the attack is, the more damage it deals. This is okay as a temporary w-engine for closed ranged DPS units, but any other main DPS mentioned in the above ranks will offer you better returns.
[Reverb] Mark III
This is arguably the best B-rank W-Engine for main DPS as it is a straight-forward damage boost to all of your basic and special attacks, and it even comes with a crit rate additional stat. This is a great pick if you have no other A thru S+ W-Engines left to use for your main DPS, but as soon as you get any, put this back on the shelf, as the scaling for B-rank is not desirable for main DPS in the long run.
[Vortex] Arrow
This is a B-Rank W-Engine for your stunner / daze unit, as your ex-special attacks deal more daze damage when your HP is equal or above 75%. Straight-forward, but there are better daze W-Engines even in this same tier, as the additional stat here is HP, which is not very useful for a stun unit.
[Vortex] Hatchet
This W-Engine gives your stunner a temporary impact bonus. As the impact bonus is nice, it is only temporary, which for a stunner who would be active for a long time doing their job, and that there is a better daze w-engine in B rank, this should only be used if you have no other daze w-engine available.
[Vortex] Revolver
This is arguably the best B-Rank W-engine for your stunner, as it causes your basic attacks to deal more daze, and your additional stat is impact, which will also help your stunning capabilities. I would use this until you can get your hands on something in the above tiers related to daze or impact.
Update / Change Log
Updates / changes to the tier list will go here, as well as brief explanations. Usually as gacha games get older and get more updates, power-creep is introduced, causing weapons to move down the list in order to make new weapons more appealing, so expect the same here.