Respawn has just unnerved Octane once again as the developer looks to rein in its power in Season 28 Apex Legends. While the final season was only released on February 10th, Respawn has already rolled out several patches to improve the meta character v Apex Legends.
Season 28, known as Breach, brought a few shake-ups to the characters and weapons in Battle Royale. Specifically, the seasonal update overhauled Fuse and made improvements to the Catalyst and Bloodhound kits. Despite these changes, Octane remained the game's most searched character at 17.4%, according to the Apex Legends Status database. While High-Speed Daredevil has always been a fan favorite, his popularity skyrocketed after his powers were redesigned in the Season 27 major update for Apex Legends. Not only did Respawn improve Octane's JumpPad by incorporating the buff into the base ability, but they also added a new Tactical in Stim Surge that gave the Fortified character less damage in combat.
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Apex Legends Nerfs Octane's Stim Surge
Unfortunately, this overhaul proved too strong for Octane according to many players, leading to the nerf to Swift Mend on January 23rd. While it looked like it would limit the Legend's effectiveness, Respawn wasn't done as the new update on February 23rd included more nerfs to his abilities. Notably, Fortified has been removed from Stim Surge, making the character less lean. Additionally, the speed boost Octane receives when using Stim has been reduced. However, this ability still allows the character to move faster than before its redesign in Season 27.
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When announcing the update on social media, Respawn provided some context behind the decision to nerf Octane Apex Legends. According to the developer, the character selection rate and fight win percentage were still “unhealthy”. Interestingly, Respawn waited to create this nerf because they wanted to see how the Fuse overhaul would affect the meta. However, this did not cause a substantial change in Octane selection speed as hoped. As a result, the development team has been dealing with the “high end” parts of the Legend set. While the goal is to “preserve” the usefulness of the Season 27 rework, it remains to be seen how much will need to be done to bring the pick rate back up to acceptable levels.
This February 23 update was met with mostly positive reviews Apex Legends commonwealth. Although Stim Surge was less effective after this update, players pointed out that it still has utility. Specifically, Tactical allows players to continue to regenerate health when they take damage. In theory, Octane should still have increased survivability when repositioned, but removing Fortified should reduce it in 1v1s.
Ultimately, players will have to wait and see how this latest nerf affects pick rates Apex Legends. With 27 legends in battle royale, some will inevitably rise to the top. However, the developer had issues trying to balance the meta v Apex Legends in the past, with a notable example being Ash.
It will be interesting to see what other changes are made to the Legend pool in the coming weeks. It's worth noting that Respawn has plans to release more characters in Season 29 of the game. This message was revealed as part of the road map for Apex Legendswhich gave a glimpse into the development team's plans for the rest of 2026 into early 2027. Time will tell if this upcoming Legend will be able to integrate well into the meta or if Respawn will have to release patches to improve their power like they did for Octane.
Apex Legends February 23 Patch Notes
We've just released a patch that includes the following Octane changes:
REDACTED
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Removed 'Fortified' from Stim Surge
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Reduced the speed boost provided by Stim (still an increase from pre-27.0)
Note to developers: We delayed the Octane nerf from 28.0 because we wanted to “wait and see” how the Fuse rework would affect the recent Octane boost. Looking at Valkyrie recently, we saw that Octane's rework naturally brought her back down to earth, with little Valkyrie compulsion.
Through the first week of the season, Octane is still getting picked and winning games at a rate we consider unhealthy. This is the data we needed in order to improve what we consider to be the “high-end” elements of the recent Octane update, while retaining most of the new tools that the redesign brings.
- Released
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February 4, 2019
- ESRB
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T for Teens: Blood, Violence
- Publishers
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Electronic Arts
