How will Jett's Dash be nerfed in Valorant patch 4.08?

Jett is set to receive notable changes in the upcoming Valorant Patch 4.08 (Image via Riot)
Jett is set to receive notable changes in the upcoming Valorant Patch 4.08 (Image via Riot)

Jett will have no more quick escapes as Riot is ready to nerf the Korean Agent in the upcoming Valorant patch 4.08. The developers recently revealed that she would be receiving notable changes to her Tailwind ability.

The developers wanted to make these changes to "do right for the game’s health and for Jett players." However, players have been left confused about its effect in the coming days.


Changes in Jett's Dash in Valorant patch 4.08 will surely slow the Agent down

With every new update in the game, Riot has tried to make some key changes to tweak the meta. Ahead of Episode 4, the developers promised that this Episode would witness a slew of Agent updates. However, Jett's changes have come as a surprise to players tonight.

According to the developers, Jett's Tailwind (E) ability will be nerfed in the upcoming Patch. Here are the changes that will be made in the upcoming Valorant update:

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

Jett is currently the most-picked Agent in Valorant and is arguably most favored by Sniper users of the team. Though the introduction of Chamber has affected her pick rate to some extent, the Korean Agent is still the favorite for many.

The upcoming changes will surely affect her fluency as the team's primary sniper. While revealing the details of the upcoming changes, Valorant developers have also pointed out the idea behind this nerf. Here's what they said:

  • 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.

Jett players are surprised by these changes. It will be interesting to see how these changes affect the game in the upcoming Valorant update.

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