Octane: Is He Too Fast!?

Apex Legends is a big game that came out with its first season recently and with it came a new character: Octane. The release of this character has led to some changes in the player base and game play in general.

What is really happening to the game play you may ask? Well, not only has it made a few characters scarce, but it has also increased aggression in play style for many players.

Why did this happen?

Octane is a character all about speed and aggression with his move set, including a movement speed buff and his ultimate being a jump pad that can launch you and teammates far distances. With his ultimate charging faster than most characters, this all combines to allow for constant pressure and mobility for not only himself but teammates as well. You are probably saying, “Well, Pathfinder does the same sort of thing for his team,” to which I say nay.

Pathfinder is a different case, in which his grapple takes a lot of practice to use effectively and his zip-line ultimate requires practice and aiming to use to its full effectiveness as well. This makes Pathfinder difficult to use in high-intensity situations and puts other players at an edge. Octane’s tactical is amazing because, aside from being a thirty percent movement speed buff, it is on a one second cool down to allow you to use it multiple times in quick trades and flanks. Octane’s ultimate is also able to be used in sudden engages because he just throws it out instead of aiming an entire zip-line. That isn’t to say Pathfinder isn’t able to apply aggression, but that Octane does it better.

How exactly is Octane changing the meta?

Octane is changing the meta in the fact that he makes aggression such a viable option. His kit allows for your team to go in deep with seemingly no effort. It is because of this that characters like Gibraltar and Caustic have fallen off and aren’t used nearly as often as they used to be. Those characters have a defensive play style that just isn’t able to keep up in a meta that supports hyper carries and mobility. Not to mention they have bigger hit boxes which makes it far easier for these impatient “Leroy Jenkins” sort of players to take them down. Is this to say that the characters are unplayable? Of course not! They are just higher skill cap because of these changes.

Is Octane a mistake?

Octane isn’t really a mistake of a character to release, but he was more the push for what was already going to happen. With the growing popularity of professional scene players, such as NRG Dizzy and Shroud, it has pushed people, just like in other games, to try and become these players. This has led to people learning skills that they don’t know how to use in the proper situations. This has also brought upon the apocalypse of random match made players that want to go overly aggressive against enemy teams. Not only do they not have the aiming and mechanical skills to pull it off, but they just force you to go hard with them or they bring the enemy squad back to you.

Octane isn’t a bad character or concept by any means, but he was just a shove in the direction that people were already heading. He is definitely not for everyone, but he is worth a try.

I hope you enjoyed the article and feel free to add me on Xbox if you want to play! My gamer tag is WarlordFAIL. I hope to see you all on the battlefield!