In our received Homeric texts, the W is absent, which means that since it is a consonant, its original presence which had led to specific scansion patterns in certain formulaic expressions (patterns which persisted even after the digamma ceased to be pronounced) no longer conformed to the needs of dactylic hexameter. I will let someone else explain how the metrical difficulties were resolved. An example is the earlier WANAX vs. the later ANAX.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anax