Since launch, Jett has always felt out of place in Valorant. As the only Agent with an on-demand dash ability — a vertical one to boot, and one she could use multiple times per match — she broke the pacing of the game and made carefully calculated plays against her feel like coin tosses. Her Tailwind had no downsides and required no premeditation, unlike almost all other Agent abilities in Valorant. Riot is no longer turning a blind eye to this and is nerfing Jett’s Tailwind in patch 4.08 to fix what it describes as an “unhealthy” mechanic.
In patch 4.08, Tailwind will be brought in line with many other Valorant Agent abilities with similar impact by receiving an appropriate wind-up. Instead of dashing instantly on keypress, Jett will now receive a 12-second dash “window” after activating Tailwind, during which she can reactivate the ability to dash. She can’t simply double-click either, as there is a small delay between pressing Tailwind and the dash window opening. If she doesn’t dash during those 12 seconds, her Tailwind charge is lost, though she can still gain charges by eliminating enemy Agents.
This change won’t make Jett any less deadly of an opponent in competitive Valorant, it would just force her users to reframe how they use Tailwind. No longer will it work as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
