Valorant: Devs Attempt to Nerf Jett + Judge Combo

Act 2 in Valorant is going great so far with a new agent and a changed gameplay meta and ranking system. Riot Games just rolled out the first patch for it. Although it isn’t a major update, it has made some significant changes. The most important issue that this patch has focused on is breaking the Jett+Judge combo. Game director of Valorant, David Ziegler mentioned this on his tweet announcing the update patch.

Further reading: Valorant: Top-3 Agents in the Game Right Now

Devs have also potentially fixed the bug that made some players HUD vanish. Besides this, devs have made changes to the audio and visual effects for Phoenix’s curveball ability. It now indicates when to turn away and when it safe to look back.

What exactly is the Jett+Judge meta in Valorant and how have devs hit it?

Jett is an attacking agent or fragger, and her abilities make her a swift killer. Apart from her Ult and the smoke cloud, all her abilities focus on her speed. Even her Ult complements this trait as it allows her to score quick kills. Her swift movement and jumping abilities make her hard to target given that her hitbox is small.

Now, coupling this with a lethal shotgun like Judge makes her an effective killing machine. A stable shotgun such as Judge works really well with her inherent abilities, giving players something of an unfair advantage.

With the current update, devs have tried to prevent that from happening by nerfing a particular aspect of every shotgun in the game. They have reduced the accuracy of shotguns when fired while in the air, by increasing the spread to 1.25 from the initial 0.5. The patch notes have this to say about this:

“While shotguns are doing well in situations they are supposed to, there’s been overly frustrating moments where people are accurate with these weapons while in the air. We hope to curb some of those encounters while still making them possible if you catch an opponent at a short distance.”

A lot of players had complained about the frustration that came with Jett becoming annoyingly invincible and lethal because of her speed. The first update patch for Act 2 has fixed that, along with some other annoying issues in the game.