Jetpack Cat, the flying support otherwise known as Fika, just got faster in Overwatch’s Season 4 update, and the reaction has been anything but calm. The change lets her cover more ground, dive in and out of fights more freely, and stay in the air where most of the roster can’t reach her. Players who already saw her as too strong are now openly asking Blizzard to undo the buff.
Quick answer: Season 4 raised Jetpack Cat’s base movement speed and increased her acceleration from 7.7 to 9.5. No health reduction came with it, so her win rate and ban rate climbed further, and much of the community is calling for the buff to be reverted.
What the Season 4 buffs changed
The core of the update is mobility. Jetpack Cat’s base movement speed went up, and her acceleration figure jumped, letting her reach top speed sooner and reposition through the air with less delay. In practice she now zips across the map faster than before while still healing her team and using her ultimate to knock enemies off the edge.
| Attribute | Before Season 4 | After Season 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Acceleration | 7.7 | 9.5 |
| Base movement speed | Standard | Increased |
| Health | Unchanged | Unchanged |
The sticking point for critics is that the mobility boost arrived with no matching downside. She kept her healing, her damage output, and her ability to airlift teammates, so the buff added speed on top of a kit that was already considered strong.
Jetpack Cat’s win rate and ban rate
The numbers are the main reason the buff drew attention. Jetpack Cat holds the highest competitive win rate in both Europe and the Americas, and the second highest in Asia. She also carries one of the highest ban rates in the game, meaning players routinely remove her from matches before they even start.
One widely shared figure puts her at a 61% ban rate and a 65% win rate in Europe, with the top win rate of any hero across the board in North America. For a support with that kind of presence, a speed increase reads to many as pushing an already dominant pick even higher.
Why players want the buffs reverted
The loudest request is simple: roll it back. A popular Overwatch subreddit post titled “The cat buffs need an emergency revert” argues that pushing mobility changes without a large health nerf was one of Blizzard’s worst recent calls, pointing directly at her ban and win rates as proof.
Others focus on how much she already does at once. As one player put it, a hero with unlimited flight, strong healing, and heavy damage should be losing power in one of those areas rather than gaining speed.
Part of the frustration is about where she fights. Because she rarely touches the ground, ground-based and short-range heroes struggle to threaten her, and she can taxi teammates over walls, chokepoints, and spawn areas. Add faster movement, and she becomes even harder to pin down for players who can’t reliably hit a small, fast target.
The case that Jetpack Cat isn’t as strong as the numbers look
Win rate on its own can be misleading. Jetpack Cat has a fairly low pick rate, which means the people choosing her tend to know how to use her, and that skews her success rate upward. By comparison, heroes who get picked constantly, such as Kiriko or D.Va, post lower win rates without needing changes, simply because a much wider range of players are on them.
Staying airborne also comes with trade-offs. Without a tank naturally standing between her and the enemy, she has to keep hunting for cover, which leaves her exposed to a skilled damage hero who can track her. In the right hands she is punishing, but she is not without counterplay.
Where the balance stands now
Blizzard has already shown willingness to adjust Jetpack Cat since her debut, having previously toned down her perk combinations that let her dive backlines and win one-on-one fights. The team has also said it wants heroes to feel impactful without becoming the most-banned character in the game, which is exactly the position she keeps landing in.
If the ban rate stays high and players keep pushing back, further tuning is the likely outcome. For now, the Season 4 buff stands, and Jetpack Cat mains are largely alone in celebrating it while the rest of the community waits to see whether Blizzard walks the speed increase back.
