Jett Receives a Huge Nerf in VALORANT Patch 4.08

Nazmul Hassan
By Nazmul Hassan
6 Min Read
Image Credit: Riot Games

Riot Games has announced that the fan-favorite Agent Jett will get a massive nerf in the upcoming VALORANT patch 4.08

Jett is one of the few Agents to enter the original VALORANT roster. Since the start of the game, she has become very popular for her ability to get out of a fight free of cost. Jett’s tailwind ability made her a top pick not only among the casual/ ranked players but in the pro scene as well. Since the beginning, she has built a reputation for herself as a meta character.

In VALORANT matches, it is very hard for players to take a fight and get back in one piece without being killed or traded. Reyna can get back from a fight, provided she kills an opponent and use her Dismiss ability. But with the Tailwind ability, Jett does not have to kill someone to get back from a fight.

Riot Games has previously tried making slight adjustments to Jett’s ability to create a balance in the game. However, it did not stop players from picking her, and she is still one of the top picks among all players. So Riot Games has decided to nerf the Agent in the next 4.08 patch to make her on per with other Agents in the game.

Read more: VALORANT Patch Notes 4.08 PBE: Ability Ammo Improvements & More

Jett Receives a Tailwind Nerf

Because of Jett’s ability to run away from a fight getting vital information anytime and anywhere without even killing someone, Riot Games has decided to make e huge change to Jett’s Tailwind ability.

Tailwind

  • On pressing the ability key, after a short delay Jett activates a 12-second window where she is empowered to immediately dash on the next button press.
  • Her Tailwind charge is lost whether she Dash’s or the window expires, but can still be regained with two kills.

Reason For the Nerf

Her tailwind ability is just too strong, which can create a low-risk and high reward situation. It is always tough for duelists to get a pick and come back alive without being traded.

Apart from Reyna, she is the only Agent who can do that. But Jett has other abilities that make her superior to Reyna or any other Agent in the game, as she can adjust to any given situation.

Compared to other duelists in the game, Jett gets a lot of advantages, which make the other Agents look inferior to Jett. On the other hand, Jett’s Tailwind ability does not require any prior decision-making. There is also no delay in between the activation of the Tailwind. As a result, it gets really unfair and frustrating for the opponents, reducing the reward for taking gunfights against abilities.

As per the official announcement at playvalorant, “Here are the key issues Riot Games found with Jett’s dash:

  • The dash had no prerequisite, so she always had access to her escape power with no intentional decision making. This freedom gave Jett the unintended capacity to continually take space or hold unusual ground without having to commit her ability. This play pattern is something that no other Agent could match, and allows Jett to exert an extreme amount of pressure on a match in a way that can be oppressive, especially at high MMRs or in professional play.
  • This lack of intentional decision making made it feel like she played outside of the tactical cycle all our other Agents adhere to. Too often, she didn’t have to leverage game sense that other Agents needed to succeed, because her reactive dash could often negate her own strategic mistakes, or the great tactical calls by her opponents.
  • As we talked about in the Controller Deep Dive, one of our core design philosophies is that Agents are sharp and provide both clear upsides and opportunity costs when compared to their peers. Jett’s strength as both a dash-in executor on attack and holding angles with an Op—with unrestricted access to escape—provided her broad power with little downside. We want her to retain as much aggressive power on offense as possible, but reduce her defensive Op power.
  • Even in highly coordinated play, she’s proven very difficult to strategize against, and her access to an instant escape (not to mention two on demand smoke screens) marginalized most of the tools the rest of the Agents have to deal with her.

So the upcoming Jett change in the 4.08 patch will definitely make the Jett players more vulnerable and players need to be more careful while using the ability as there will be no second opportunity if you miss the 12-second window.”

Read More: VALORANT’s New Agent Fade: First Look, Abilities, Nationality, & More

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By Nazmul Hassan FPS Editor
Nazmul is GameRiv's FPS editor. He is a marketing graduate with an immense passion for gaming. As an ex-professional CS:GO player, he holds a strong interest in other FPS titles like Apex Legends, VALORANT, and CoD. However, he also tries out other games when he is free.