You've Been Playing Jett In Valorant All Wrong
Jett is the ninja of Valorant. Quick as a dagger and twice as sharp, she excels in swiftly getting from point A to point B, all while disobeying every law imaginable, including gravity. A stationary Jett is a dead Jett, but a mobile Jett who masters her abilities is nigh unstoppable.
Jett isn't known for her support skills. She can glide to the ground on a soft cushion of air, toss out orbs of smoke, leap high into the air, and dodge a short distance. And, once Jett unlocks her ultimate ability, she can pull out several wind-powered knives that obey their own rules of physics. In other words, Jett is a self-sufficient character designed to keep enemies off balance.
However, Jett's lethality is dependent on effective use of her skills. In the right hands, a Jett can wipe out an entire team before they know they're dead. When used incorrectly, Jett has all the subtlety and efficacy as the Area 51 Naruto Runner. Here's how you've been goofing up with Jett and how you can sharpen your skills.
Using Jett's Tailwind to dash through doors
Tailwind, Jett's Signature ability, lets her utilize video game physics and dash in any horizontal direction to cover a good amount of ground. While Tailwind doesn't automatically recharge like other Signature skills, including Omen's, Jett players will rely on Tailwind to maximize mobility. However, if used to dash through doorways, opponents can rely on Tailwind to introduce you to their best friend, Mr. Shotgun.
While Tailwind gives Jett some serious distance, it features an even more significant weapon delay. Opponents who camp in corners will see a Jett dart through a door. By the time a Jett player turns around and whips out their weapon, they're already kissing pavement.
Instead, Jett players who find (or create) smokes might want to dash through them to surprise opponents. Will Jett still deal with the weapon delay after dashing? Yes. Will opponents be able to shoot Jett fast enough? Perhaps, since charging through smoke is bound to catch said opponents off guard. It's a high risk, high reward maneuver, but boy is it satisfying to pull off.
Not mastering the art of curving Jett's Cloudburst
Plenty of characters have smoke abilities, so Jett's Cloudburst is far from unique. Heck, her smoke skill seems underpowered since it doesn't last as long as others and doesn't automatically recharge. However, most characters can only toss out their smoke in a straight line or in their general vicinity, while Jett can do loop-de-loops around opponents' brains if players master the art of Cloudburst curving.
You can hurl out a quick Cloudburst for some insta-cover, but if you hold the fire button, you can control Cloudburst's trajectory with the mouse. With proper map memorization, you could throw a Cloudburst around a corner and make it sail through a doorway. That way, opponents are blinded by a smoke skill that, from their perspective, came out of nowhere.
Why hurl a Cloudburst down a long corridor and risk having an opponent spray bullets blindly — which could hit you — when you can throw a figurative and literal curveball? That sort of double disorientation is the hallmark of a true ninja.
Not going all crazy ninja with Jett's Blade Storm
There's no beating around the bush: Jett's ultimate ability, Blade Storm, is overpowered. Not only does it redefine the term awesome, but its mechanics are more broken than you realize.
You spawn five knives when you use this ability, so you only get five shots, right? Wrong-o! Jett replenishes knives every time she kills an enemy, which means that she can throw more knives than Dio Brando if she keeps on killing.
Moreover, Blade Storm attacks come in two flavors: long-range single shots and short-range shotgun blasts. If you catch someone down a hallway, snipe them until they fall. If you bump into an enemy, expend all of your knives for a massive short-range blast. Either way, you get another notch on your belt and more knives in your pouch.
Blade Storm's utility doesn't stop there. Jett's Updraft and Tailwind abilities feature a significant weapon delay, but Blade Storm isn't a conventional weapon. Since this ability consists of mystical daggers, you can use Tailwind with Blade Storm to negate the delay. No waiting to kill enemies, just a continuous stream of knives, blood, and more knives.
Thinking you can shoot while gliding
In most games, the ability to glide in midair implies you should rain death from above while defying gravity. This is not the case in Valorant. Jett's gliding ability is primarily for traversal, since it lets her jump from elevated platform to elevated platform, as well as glide from high locations without receiving fall damage. Gliding must take a ton of concentration because Jett forgets how to aim while in midair.
If you try to shoot something like an assault rifle while gliding, the bullets go everywhere. Well, everywhere except where you aim. Shotguns fare better than rifles, but if you glide as Jett, you should focus on reaching the ground before you start firing. Unless, of course, you also use Blade Storm.
Unlike other weapons in Valorant, Blade Storm is a hitscan ability with zero travel time, so gliding doesn't affect accuracy. If you glide from up high (or use Updraft and then glide) while your ultimate is active, you become the world's deadliest cloud.
Not synergizing Jett's abilities with other characters
Jett's abilities have little in the way of team support, but other character abilities pair well with her skills. Jett's Updraft, for example, lets her take the high ground and camp in locations like a deer hunter, but what if you could go even higher?
Updraft to a high location and ask a Sage teammate to fire a Barrier Orb underneath you. Now you are higher than ever and in the blind spots of most players, which means it's open season. If used in the right location, this trick lets you peek over walls and kill enemies the next town over.
Another cool synergistic strategy is combining Jett's glide with Viper's Toxic Screen. While Jett slowly glides down, a Viper player can lay down a line of Toxic Screen emitters, the force of which transforms Jett into an airsoft bullet. If lined up perfectly, this trick can yeet Jett across the map, giving her a significant speed advantage over opponents.
Of course, these tricks are subject to change if the developers patch them out of Valorant. Plus, you might see more strategies as additional characters are added to the roster. Just keep experimenting, and you might discover more skill symbiosis.