When VALORANT Patch 4.08 ships soon, it will ship with a huge nerf to one of the most relied upon abilities of one of the game’s most prolific duelists. The VALORANT team at Riot has been considering a change to Jett for a while, and on April 20, 2022, they released a blog post outlining the in’s and out’s of the upcoming update.
Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming changes to Jett, including what the nerf does, why it was implemented, and what other changes might be coming to Jett in this patch and future ones.
Jett’s Tailwind changes
Rather than being an ability that can be instantly activated, pressing the ability key for Jett’s Tailwind will activate a 12-second window during which she can press the key again to immediately dash. Players will be able to dash roughly one second after Tailwind is “activated,” and it expires if not used in the 12-second window.
Jett players will still be able to regain a Tailwind dash by getting two kills in a round.
Why was Tailwind nerfed?
The VALORANT developers at Riot have said that Jett’s dash “proved unhealthy” to the game’s tactical cycle. In particular, her dash gave her escapability that no other agent had, as her dash provided an instant escape that could negate her own mistakes or great tactical calls made by the other team. There are very few agents with abilities that could do anything to stop Jett from dashing away at a split-second’s notice.
This also gave her too much strength on the Op, as she could easily get a free pick on attack or an opening kill on defense and immediately dash to safety. It’s been a long-running joke in the competitive community that Jett mains don’t have to think as much, and Riot explicitly has said it wants Jett players to be more “thoughtful” when using her abilities going forward.
What’s the plan for Jett in the future?
The team at Riot isn’t nerfing Jett just for the sake of Jett or because they hate Jett. They say throughout the blog post explainer that they wanted her to keep her aggressive power on offense and her ability to make plays based on pure mechanical skill. Their overall goal is to keep the game balanced, however.
“We’re committed to making sure Jett can keep her unique place on the roster while giving our other Agents a bit of breathing room, while also ensuring we can protect the core tactical promise of VALORANT moving forward,” the devs wrote.
As with any changes, the team will monitor the feedback to the upcoming Jett nerf to make sure it doesn’t “miss the mark.”
