Despite all the nerfs over the years, Jett is still one of the best VALORANT agents. If you haven’t noticed yet, she is the only character with a real passive ability—and the community isn’t sure why this inconsistency exists.
On March 31, a Redditor highlighted Jett’s passive ability to drift without the use of any abilities as a subtle advantage no other VALORANT agent has. “It’s a cool ability that doesn’t give that big of an advantage but still is fun and makes her character feel more rounded off as it fits within her theme, I wonder why no other agent has one of those?” they wrote, bringing several players together for an interesting discussion.
While Jett may seem to be the only VALORANT agent with a real passive, it’s not “technically” true, as Riot designer penguin indicated in a comment. “Phoenix’s “heal off of his own fire” is also technically a passive!” he wrote. In fact, according to the wiki page for the game, only some agents have passive or passive-like abilities. These include Jett’s Drift, Astra’s Astral Form, Fade’s Terror Trail, Neon’s Energy Bar, Viper’s Fuel and Toxin, Phoenix’s Heating Up, and Reyna’s Soul Harvest.
Besides these passives, one player highlighted an interesting passive mechanic about Yoru—his hands glow when an enemy Yoru equips a charge of Gatecrash—and it enlightened several veterans and new players alike. If you were to consider Raze’s satchels, only she can boost herself with Blast Packs, which is also technically a passive.
Then again, Jett’s Drift doesn’t use an ability charge or anything crucial like other passive or passive-like abilities in VALORANT. Interestingly, one player explained how our favorite tac shooter treats passives differently than other games like Overwatch and Apex Legends.
“VALORANT passives might be something like (and I’m absolutely NOT advocating for these to become a thing) not taking fall damage, less flinch when getting shot, planting/defusing the spike faster, more ammo reserves, faster swap speed, etc. All that to say, a passive ability should be innate to a character, not their other abilities,” they wrote as part of a long comment.
Well, now you know why Jett will never die.
