Octane Guide
Octane Abilities:
“One day, Octavio Silva was bored. In fact, he was bored most days. Heir to the preoccupied CEOs of Silva Pharmaceuticals and wanting for nothing in life, he entertained himself by performing death-defying stunts and posting holovids of them for his fans to gawk over. So, this day, he decided to set the course record for a nearby Gauntlet by launching himself across the finish line – using a grenade.
As he lay in triage hours later, the doctors informed him that the damage done to his legs meant his daredevil days were over. That didn’t sit well with Octavio, who turned to an old friend for help: Ajay Che, who he guilted into forging an order to replace his legs with bionic ones. Suddenly able to repair his limbs at a moment’s notice, Octavio decided petty online stunts weren’t enough: the ultimate adrenaline rush, the Apex Games, was calling. Now, he’s going to become an Apex Champion doing the most incredible, death-defying moves anyone’s ever seen. Maybe in the arena, he won’t be so bored.” – Apex Legends
How To Unlock Octane In Apex Legends
Octane is unlocked exactly the same way Mirage, and Caustic are unlocked. He is able to be bought two different ways. One, is with Apex Coins for 750 which is approximately $7.50. Unfortunately, you cannot buy the specific amount of coins. You’d have to spend $9.99 for the 1000 coins. Secondly, he is purchasable with 12,000 Legend Tokens. If you’re unfamiliar with these, check out our currency article. TLDR, though, they are earned through playing the game much like IP in League of Legends.
How To Use Best Use Octane’s Passive Swift Mend
Swift Mend is apart of Octane’s bread and butter. It allows him to do many different things. Swift Mend will passively heal Octane 1hp every 2 seconds while he is out of combat, and at a loss of health. This is important when considering Octane’s tactical ability, Stim that requires you to sacrifice some of your HP for additional movement speed.
Swift Mend, and Stim synergize incredibly well, which is why we say it is the bread and butter. Drop 10% of your health using Stim, don’t worry, you’re going to passively regenerate it. I think Respawn did an incredibly good job with not overdoing it. I think if you add too much HP regen, then he becomes wildly overpowered.
To further add to that, imagine 2 HP per second instead of the 1 HP. If you’re using 10% of your HP for a single Stim, that’d be 10 HP. That’d mean that you’d heal the HP back within 5 seconds as opposed to 10. I think if it’s ever going to see a change, it may end up being a half HP. This would essentially make Stim an ability without risk. What’s 5 seconds to you at the end of the day?
Already, I’ve seen Octane’s passive keep me alive in multiple situations, and he has only been out one day. While 1 hp over 2 seconds isn’t a lot, there’s so many variables to consider that you can’t possibly keep track of all of them. It’s a situation where an additional 3 HP is going to save you from an additional R-301 Carbine shot that hit. If you’re wraith, you’re dead. If you’re Octane, you’re still running around being your daredevil-y self.
How To Use Best Use Octane’s Passive Swift Mend
“Gotta go fast! Gotta go fast” Octane shouts as he injects himself with some sort of pharmaceutical. We can only imagine that this product comes from his company. What does it do exactly though?
Octane’s Stim tactical ability will sacrifice 10% of his HP, for 30% additional movement speed over 6 seconds. Think of Bangalore’s movement speed, but on use and you have the speed at which Octrane runs with it activated. You need to be smart with this ability, though, otherwise you’re going to find yourself dead more often than not. That happens for a few different reasons.
First, is the health that you lose. While 10% doesn’t seem like all that much upfront, it certainly can bite you in the butt fairly quickly when using them back-to-back. 10% can quickly turn into 20% which turns into 30%, and before you know it, you’re missing 30% of your health for what? This is why you need to be smart about using it. While his passive, Swift Mend, does help alleviate some of this pain, you still need to be weary. You can’t just mindlessly use it, and expect to be A-ok.
Secondly is how quickly you move when this ability is activated. At first glance it doesn’t seem like you’d get into trouble, but believe me, it happens fast (pun intended). Whether it be you sprinting ahead into a team on accident because you don’t realize how fast you are. Or, it is simply you running ahead of your team because you’re significantly faster than they are. I’ve had both happen already, and it can be quite frustrating. It almost makes you question why the movement speed is good to begin with if it ends up getting you killed. That, my friend, is why there are good players, and bad players.
With Octane, you’re going to want to focus more on the med side of healing rather than the shield side. If you’re smart, as you all will be after reading this guide (hopefully), you are actively healing yourself after using this ability, generally twice (20% hp loss). There’s sort of a mini game inside of Apex Legends when playing Octane. It is an incredible amount of micromanagement that will allow you to propel yourself leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the battlefield.
Octane Introductory Video
Octane Legendary Skins
Defensively, Stim is basically a no-brainer. You’re going to want to use it to get away, and get away fast (GOTTA GO FAST, GOTTA GO FAST). Using this ability in conjunction with your Jump Pad is going to really cause some confusion for your opponents which is going to allow you to heal back up, and pounce once again. Make sure that you’re using heals while Stim is active and you’re sliding. This is something that a lot of people overlook that saves a lot of time. Time in Apex Legends is incredibly important.
With the micromanagement, comes learning what you’re capable of. This is going to be a bit rough initially because you have to figure out what you can and can’t do with Octane. Simply put, you’re going to die a lot. However, it is with good reason assuming you learn from your mistakes. I’ve found myself being incredibly more confident in my play and this is allowing me to further use the ability how it should be used: aggressively. This doesn’t come without risk, though.
With additional movement speed, comes better positioning. What I mean by that, is that you’re going to be able to get, more often than not, positions you wouldn’t generally be able to get. Want to take the high ground before the enemy player? Well, now you can.
When applying Stim, you actually take less movement speed reduction from slowing effects. This means Caustic’s toxic gas, and Arc star slows. This is going to alleviate a lot of stressful situations that would generally require you to take an alternate path. Additionally, it opens up room for defensive uses.
Typically speaking, you’re going to want to be using this ability offensively. Hit a few shots, and don’t want to let them heal up? Pop Stim and quickly rotate around corners to finish the deed. With sliding being so dominant in the game for moving more quickly, that only intensifies with Stim and Octane. You can propel yourself around a corner so damn fast people will be wondering if you’re speed hacking. The best part is, it’s literally just Octane himself; no cheats.
How To Use Octane’s Ultimate Ability Jump Pad
Octane’s ultimate ability, Jump Pad, is exactly what it sounds like: a jump pad. When using this ability, make sure that you’re aiming where you want it to go, before you activate it. Reason being, is because once you hit the button, it is immediately thrown. I made the mistake of thinking there would be some sort of arc much like that in grenades, but there isn’t.
If you played the season 1 tealer Respawn recently had in place, you’ve already experienced the Jump Pad. It was located near market, in a few different locations so you’re probably somewhat familiar with how it acts.
A neat trick with the Jump Pad, is bouncing things off of it. This includes basically everything. Want to bounce a grenade? How about an Arc Star? No worries, throw it at the Jump Pad and watch it sail through the air, beautiful as ever. This opens up a lot of different angles that you normally wouldn’t have. Use it intelligently, and the options are limitless.
To add further to the grenade aspect of Jump Pads, throwing grenades while you’re flying through the air is absolutely incredible. Not only is it going to get you closer to your target, but it is going to apply the pressure needed to be able to take them out swiftly. There was an instance last night where I threw an arc star (while flying off a jump pad) into the upstairs of a building. I was able to get a knock with this, and quickly rotated upstairs to finish off the slowed enemies. Pretty neat, eh?
The most obvious use, is going to be for getting to where you want to be. This includes both getting somewhere more quickly, as well as putting yourself in a position where classes outside of Octane, and Pathfinder, are not able to get. I am referring to height. Octane’s jump pad is an immediate height giver, and you should use it as such.
This is especially helpful when considering how much of an advantage height is. Shooting down is significantly easier than shooting up. Not only that, but you’re going to have more vision up top as opposed to down low. There was an incredible scenario last night where we landed bridges, and the ship docked near the bridge.
My teammates were being blasted by a few bogies on the ship. As we all know, the ziplines are incredibly loud and it is super obvious when you’re taking them to the ship. You’re basically bottle-necking yourself. So, instead, what I did was place a jump pad on the ship, bounced off of it, and landed behind the enemy Pathfinder. I was quickly able to alleviate the pressure off my teammates, and get a few kills.
If you’re a theorycrafter like myself and my friends, you’re going to find an incredible amount of ways to abuse Octane’s ultimate. What about taking a wraith portal to the edge of the map, and placing a jump pad on the other side. So, when the enemies rotate through, they immediately are bounced off into the abyss. What about that?
If you’re more of the support player, and your teammate is knocked, throw a jump pad down. Not only is it likely going to take them to safety, but it is going to help them dodge a few shots from enemies. It is also possible that you’re just able to get to them for a revive, but know you’re capable of sticking it. Throw a jump pad down, and have them walk into it, rotating into you.
Ideal Legends To Pair With Octane
The best legends to play with Octane, are the ones your friends are best at. If one of your friends is good at lifeline, however, you’re going to have found your new best friend. These two synergize incredibly well. Lifeline will allow you to infinitely use your Stim ability without much risk. The only risk you’ll have to worry about is getting too far ahead of your teammates.