Respawn plan Octane stim change to nerf Apex Legends speedster

Octane has been dominant in Apex Legends for a while now, but the devs revealed plans to nerf him by changing how his Stim works. 

Octane is arguably one of the strongest picks in Apex Legends right now. He can get in and out of a pinch in no time, thanks to the speed and maneuverability buff from his Stim. The best (or worst) part is it only costs a small amount of health, which regenerates over time.

However, the developers have been tracking his dominance for quite some time, and it seems like they’ve got a much-needed nerf on the cards. If it comes to fruition, which seems likely, it will change how his Stim ability works.

Respawn Entertainment/EA

Octane is powerful right now, but Apex Legends’ devs are planning a nerf.

The information cropped up after a developer commented about it in a patch note thread. “Octane’s pretty trackable IMO, but we need to hit him a little bit,” he said. “He’s become extremely dominant… so we’ll need to shave a little power off.”

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In his mind, the best way to do that is by “increasing the health cost for his Stim.” However, since that could break him, he wants to balance it out by “letting you stim again much sooner.”

At the moment, there’s a 3-4 second downtime between an old stim running out and a player being able to use it again. If the changes go ahead, this will probably be reduced to 1-2 seconds but cost significantly more health.”

Respawn have now confirmed that Octane’s stim will deal him 20 damage, rather than 20, but the cooldown will be reduced to only 1 second.

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Octane’s pickrate has skyrocketed to over 25%, which is part of the reason the developers are keen to bring him back down to earth a bit.

Respawn Entertainment

The nerf will target Octane’s Stim ability rather than his ultimate.

It’s bittersweet news for Octane mains, who will need to re-adjust to the planned changes once they’re added to the game. However, it’s music to the ears of just about everyone else who has had to deal with the speedster’s engage and escape.

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They’ve been begging for him to get nerfed, and it looks like their prayers have finally been answered — these changes at the start of Season 9.