Octane is one of the first of the new heroes added to Apex Legends since the game launched. Octane in Apex Legends is arguably a solid pick, and there’s a good reason for that. His abilities work well in the hands of a skilled player. Problem is, it’s very hard to do that. Most players choosing him for the first time will usually just end up launching themselves into a pit and early death.
The lack of utility out of the gate for new players has led to many thinking that this particular hero is all but worthless in ranked play. That’s not true. So let’s look at using Octane in Apex Legends and see how you can make better use of the character.
Octane’s Abilities
Using Octane in Apex Legends is not easy the first time out. Octane can dominate fights if you let him.
His Passive is pretty interesting with the small amount of passive healing. The ability kick in after a few seconds of not taking fire, so it can be great when paired with his high mobility. Swift Mend automatically regenerates health at a rate of 1 HP every 2 seconds.
Combining the Passive Swift Mend with the Tactical Stim makes it easy to cleanse negative status effects. The real use here is that it increases his overall movement speed by 30% and his running speed by 40%. This is wonderful for clutch escapes from overwhelming odds.
The Launch Pad Ultimate is where a lot of division over Octane occurs. Jump Pad is almost useless as is an escape tool. Although, it does have one key use. The Jump Pad can even do something Pathfinder’s Zipline can’t: deny a high ground position. You can drop a Jump Pad and then destroy it after moving your squad to higher ground.
Play Smarter
Octane has been worked around a bit in Apex Legends Season 5. His abilities are not on the OP side of the scale but pack some power. You can be fairly aggressive with his abilities as you can spam them. But a lot of players use them too much, especially Stim. Launch Pad can be great for breaking pursuers off your tail, and Stim can be clutch for a quick escape. Be careful not to put yourself deep into your health pool though.
Use that Ultimate to your entire team’s advantage. Using a key moment of peace to reposition your entire squad can be very helpful to get around the map. And having Octane outrun the competition while drawing fire can help cover for the squad while you spread out and take up better positions. Octane can be incredibly useful as bait for an ambush or as a mobility support for a slower squad. Pairing it with tanky heroes can help Octane players excel.
The purpose of Stim makes it the most interesting and metagamey of Octane’s abilities in the game. The loss of health pushes the Tactical into a very high risk/reward category. Overall, most players can’t properly balance that aspect, and often are too aggressive with some abilities. This leads to players the abilities at the wrong time.
Stim is great, but it needs to be used at the right time. It’s normal for newer players to use it too much, leaving them in a tactically weaker position. There’s a lot of emphasis on getting a solid position and protecting yourself from incoming fire. Either through using mobility or cover, you need it when using Stim. A lot of players make the mistake of exposing their flanks and then using Stim, and they end up ganked. Don’t do that. You will often want to keep together with your team when using Stim as well. You can put some distance between you, but if you’re on your own and your squad can’t help you, things going south will be bad for you.
