Apex Legends Octane abilities, tips and tricks

Want to learn how to win games as Octane in Apex Legends? Well, that depends. Do you love to be a playmaker who can spin circles around your opponents in Apex Legends? Octane has always been the option for that but has recently seen a huge resurgence, with his usage rates skyrocketing up the charts - and it doesn't look like his recent nerf with the Apex Legends Evolution patch notes will do much to curb his dominance.

Learn all about Octane's abilities below, along with his backstory and some useful tips and tricks to get the most out of the speedster.

On this page:

• Apex Legends Octane abilities
• Octane tips and tricks
• Octane Passive tips: Swift Mend
• Octane Tactical tips: Stim
• Octane Ultimate tips: Launch Pad
• Apex Legends Octane backstory

Meet Octane – Apex Legends Character Trailer

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Apex Legends Octane abilities

Octane, like every other Legend, has three abilities: Swift Mend (Passive), Stim (Tactical), and Launch Pad (Ultimate). These combine to make Octane the most mobile hero in the game and a dizzying opponent to go up against. He is classed as an Offensive Legend alongside Wraith, Bangalore, Mirage, Revenant, Horizon and Fuse.

If you want to make plays and win fights quickly, Octane and you are a match made in heaven. His ability to get around the map and get to places first means he often has the best pick of the loot and is able to make some truly insane rotations. Speed is helpful in and out of combat, so at least personally, you should be able to get value out of all of his abilities. His health management will come into play though, so mastering these abilities will be very important to winning fights.

Octane tips and tricks

Octane is somewhat of a balancing act, as his speed makes him powerful in fights, but it’s also easy to isolate yourself or not manage your health correctly. Octane can win matches or lose matches, so here are some general tips to make sure you don’t become the ire of your team.

• Manage your health. Octane’s Stim ability makes you exceptionally fast but also costs some health. If you are repeatedly using the ability, make sure you aren’t about to get caught out with a ton of health missing. Also, Octane generally needs less healing equipment. Swift Mend is surprisingly powerful and negates a lot of healing you might have to do after a fight.
• Learn to A/D spam effectively while under Stim. With a 30% movement speed increase, your "A/D spam" can soar to ludicrous levels of "impossible to hit" if you're quick enough. Never stay still while under the effects of Stim, because you're literally just wasting the ability - and your Health.
• If a fight is lost, do what Octane does best - run. In ranked, if you are trying to climb, living to fight again is always a good option. If you feel a fight falling wildly out of your favour, don’t be afraid to hightail out of there. Then, from afar assess the situation. Can you reengage when the enemy team is looting, or can you swing by and get your team’s banners without getting finished? Your team might be mildly annoyed you abandoned them after they were downed, but if you bring them back and win the match, you’ll be hailed a hero.
• Don’t get caught out alone. Octane’s greatest strength is his ability to move around a map very quickly. It also has the chance to be his greatest downfall. If you’ve stimmed several times away from your team, run into a house at half health and you bump into a team, you’re going to die. Express some caution when moving into unknown areas, and never get too far from your team with no resources to get back.
• Don’t steal all the loot. This is more a social tip, but don’t use your speed to steal all the best loot, all the time. Octanes can get a bad reputation for running to the next rotation and hoovering up all the loot before their team gets there. Take what you need and leave some powerful items for your teammates. It’s in your best interest to have your teammates well-kitted so don’t hamstring them by being selfish.
• Make up for Octane’s lack of team support with communication. Octane by design is a somewhat selfish hero. His abilities are almost entirely designed around himself, with Launch Pad being the only ability providing any value to the team. However, Octane has a great ability to run ahead and scout situations. If your team is planning to move somewhere, safely zone it out and tell them what is happening. Octane gains information by sheer coverage of the map, so put that to good use
• Pair with Revenant for an extremely powerful pushing synergy. A popular tactic in ranked matches is for a team to use Revenant's Death Totem and then place down a Launch Pad to jump on an enemy team. Deal as much damage as possible, zip back to your Totem when you die, and then immediately jump on the enemy again before they have time to heal.

Octane Passive Tips: Swift Mend

Description: Automatically restores health over time.

Octane’s passive is deceptively powerful. It will rarely win you games or strongly influence your fights, however, it provides tons of value over the course of a match. He heals for 1 health every second. This is a passive ability that will almost constantly be getting use, especially as you Stim to run around.

Few Legends' passives will see so much constant use. It means Octane doesn’t need to waste tonnes of time healing after a fight or carry so many healing items. Just make sure your shields are charged up and you can heal up to full in no time, no matter how low your health is.

Octane Passive tips:

• This ability limits your need for syringes and Med Kits. It’s useful to have a couple of each if you need to heal in the middle of a fight, but after an engagement, you can just recharge your shields and wait for your health to come back naturally.
• This passive makes Octane one of the most survivable outside of the ring. If your friend’s banner is stuck outside, you should be able to speed into the ring and get out as long as you have some healing resources and it’s not too far.
• The heal also does not replenish your Health while you are using your Tactical, Stim; but it does reactivate immediately after the Stim has worn off.
• While Knocked, if you've been damaged by enemies, you will slowly regain your "knocked Health". However, it won't stop you from bleeding out, because that is a separate mechanism from your Health while knocked.
• While it will rarely win you fights, taking a couple of moments in the middle of one to get a little health back while recharging a shield could save your life every once in a blue moon.

Octane Tactical tips: Stim

Stim is the ability that really defines Octane's playstyle. Octane is all about speed, and this is what gives him that speed. At the cost of 20 health, Octane will be 30% faster at normal speeds and 40% faster while sprinting. Obviously, there is a bit of a balancing act between using the ability and not depleting your entire health pool, but for most situations, it’s a perfectly reasonable trade-off.

However, the ability has more use than that too, as it negates most slowing effects on the character. This ability makes Octane exceptionally hard to pin down unless he is silenced.

Octane Tactical tips:

• This ability removes the slow effects from grenades, Caustic’s gas and Wattson’s fences. If someone is trying to pin your down, do what Octane does: Run!
• One movement slow Stim doesn’t negate is the reduction to speed when healing. However, you can mitigate this. If you use the momentum of the speed boost and begin sliding down a hill, then start healing, you will be moving much faster than you would normally be.
• You can’t kill yourself with Stim. If you have a little health, you can use the Stim safely, with it bringing you down to 1HP. This is never ideal obviously, but if it’s life or death and you think you can dodge all incoming bullets, feel free to use it to get out of a situation.
• Stim opens up much longer and more complex flanks than other Legends are capable of. If your teammates are under fire but have the attention of the opponents, perhaps consider running a long flank to get an unexpected off-angle to surprise and down them.
• Octane's Stim allows you to move faster with a gun than other characters can run while holstered.
• Bunny Hopping is faster and more useful while Stim is active. If you're not sure how to Bunny Hop, check out our Apex Legends advanced movement guide.
• Octane's Passive will not heal you while you are Stimming, so you'll need to give yourself time to heal between Stims to replenish your Health.
• Make use of the speed bonus. I've seen many Octanes Stimming up to reach an encounter, and then more or less standing still during the fight itself. 130% movement speed allows you to dance around and A/D spam like crazy while firing, so take advantage of it.

Octane Ultimate tips: Launch Pad

Description: Deploy a jump pad that catapults you and your teammates through the air.

Launch Pad is Octane’s ultimate and is the only ability he has that provides value for his teammates. The pad can be used to get to unexpected places or have everyone rotate during a fight. This ability increases the maneuverability of everyone, allowing the team (or any player) to travel quickly.

It also has a ton of surprising and strange interactions that can become helpful in certain situations. Use it to get downed teammates to you or bank grenades in otherwise impossible ways. There’s a lot to experiment with as the ultimate messes with several physics in the game.

Octane Ultimate tips:

• The Launch Pad will launch all thrown objects. This goes for Grenades, Bangalore’s smoke Canisters, her Rolling Thunder missiles, Gibraltar’s Defensive Bombardment, Caustic’s Nox Gas Grenade, Gibraltar’s Dome of Protection, Lifeline’s Heal Drone, and even other Launch Pads.
• The Launch Pad can be used by downed Legends, allowing players to try and get a little closer to you to get picked up.
• Launch Pads can be destroyed. They have 200 health, so be careful it doesn’t get blown up before you use it.
• You can double jump after using the Launch Pad. This allows you more options while flying, either changing your trajectory or waiting to use it to get just a little more distance.
• Placing a Launch Pad in front or behind a door will make using the door awkward and unpredictable. If you are being chased run into a room, place a Launch Pad to discourage pursuers.
• Crouch-walk or slide over the Launch Pad to jump in a lower, longer arc, which is better for covering long distances; or run over it to jump in a higher, shorter arc which is more useful for clearing the tops of buildings and taking high ground.
• When placed below a Wraith portal, players who exit via that portal will actually exit a short distance from the portal, rather than right on the portal as usual. I'm not sure how this is useful, but there you go.
• You can change your vector on the second jump to move in a different direction, particularly if you tap-strafe just after jumping the second time.
• While the Launch Pad provides a quick and useful team repositioning tool, your arc through the air is fairly predictable and you are therefore easy to shoot if enemies see you jump.

Apex Legends Season 2 – Battle Charge Launch Trailer

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Apex Legends Octane backstory

Unsurprisingly, Octavio Silva is not one to sit around for very long. The son of Silva Pharmaceuticals' CEO, he had capital and few responsibilities. To fill his time he grew a strong social media following by performing high-risk stunts and escapades. That lifestyle eventually caught up to him with one stunt.

Octavio decided one day to try and set a new record in a Gauntlet. However, to eek a little speed to beat the record, he used a grenade to propel himself across the finish line. (Side note: This is a fun callback to the record held in the Titanfall 2 Gauntlet, where players would use grenades to cause extra propulsion.) It worked… a little too well.

The damage he sustained from the grenade left him without legs. However, that didn’t stop the speedster. He was far from hanging up his daredevil ways, so convinced Ajay Che, known as Lifeline, to create prosthetic, bionic legs for him. This made him faster than ever and gave him the confidence to join the Apex Games. Unlike other Legends in the games, Octavio isn’t in it for a dark, personal grievance he is trying to right. He just loves the thrill of competing in high adrenaline situations and the fame that comes with that.

That's pretty much everything we've got on Octane for now, so hopefully you've learned a thing or two about how best to utilise his unique skillset. For full details and opinions on all of the characters together, take a look at our Apex Legends characters guide.