Cover-Credits:
Riot Games had “accidentally nerfed” Jett in patch 3.08 with players noticing increased animation times on the character. The devs confirmed when the patch rolled out that it was unintentional and the changes would be reverted. However, it was announced that the bugs were not game breaking so the devs did not see the need for an emergency hotfix. A week has passed since the patch came out and Riot has finally addressed the issue via an update that dropped earlier today.
What was wrong with Jett in patch 3.08?
Once patch 3.08 dropped on 20th October, players noticed that it took longer to pull out weapons after using Jett’s dash. Some players speculated that the animation time was a possible nerf that didn’t get included in the patch notes.
Riot Games revealed that was not the case. An official statement confirmed Jett's weapon equip animation out from her dash (Tailwind) was taking longer than intended and Updraft was costing more than it should have. Riot had stated that the bugs were not severe enough (game-breaking) to risk a Patch redeploy, which meant players would have to wait until patch 3.09 (2nd November). However, Riot decided to drop an early hotfix and address the issues plaguing Valorant’s most popular agent.
Riot Games will be nerfing Jett eventually
The recent issue sparked a conversation within the community with a lot of players asking for the bugs to be implemented as nerfs. Sentinels’ Tyson “TenZ” Ngo said that he would be fine if the devs kept the change as is.
Jett has been the most picked Valorant agent for a very long time with a whopping 85% pick rate in Valorant Masters Berlin. In comparison, no other agent even broke the 65% pick rate mark showcasing the clear disparity between Jett and the rest of the agent roster.
Riot Games is looking to make changes to Jett as confirmed by Valorant game designer Ryan Cousart. It remains to be seen what tweaks are made to Jett as the last round of nerfs in patch 3.06 did not affect her pickrate at all in competitive play.
