In an upcoming Valorant patch, the character Jett will be receiving some major nerfs to address issues some players have been facing.
With the introduction of patch 4.08, Jett’s dash (called Tailwind) will only work after a short delay once the ability key is pressed. Following that, Jett will activate a 12 second window where she is empowered to immediately dash on the next button press. The Tailwind charge is lost whether she dashes, or the window expires, but it can be regained with two kills.
Riot Games has identified a number of issues that currently come from Jett’s dash. One of the issues is that the dash had no prerequisite, meaning she could also escape power with no intentional decision making.
In turn, no other Valorant agent could match this play pattern. This made Jett feel like she played outside of the tactical cycle every other agent adheres to. So part of the plan for Jett is for her to retain as much aggressive power on offense as possible, but reduce her defensive op power.
In a press release, Riot explained why it took this approach to Jett with this latest patch. “Often when we nerf an Agent, we get questions on why we couldn’t just buff the rest of the roster,” explains Riot.
“Jett’s reactive power crowded out the competition for other agents and pressured the core tactical promise of the game to a degree that we think it would be dangerous for the roster to try and match.”
Riot went on to explain that buffing other agents could avoid some pain in the short term, “but jeopardises the tactical promise we think is key to Valorant.” The developer hopes that these changes for Jett “provide a window where Jett can feel as powerful and reactive, prior to the changes, when she calls her shots correctly.”
