An Apex Legends update has seen the game's most popular character nerfed again.

Respawn has nerfed Octane again as the developers try to control his powers in Season 28. Apex Legends. The latest season only released on February 10th, but Respawn has already released several patches to improve the character meta. Apex Legends.

Season 28, known as Breach, brought several changes to the battle royale's characters and weapons. Specifically, the seasonal update reworked the Fuse and improved the Catalyst and Bloodhound kits. Despite these changes, Octane remains the most chosen character in the game at 17.4%, according to the Apex Legends Status database. High-Speed Daredevil has always been a fan favorite, but his popularity soared after his abilities were reworked in a major update for Season 27. Apex Legends. Respawn not only improved Octane's JumpPad by incorporating upgrades into his base abilities, but also added a new tactic to Stim Surge, allowing Fortified characters to take less damage in combat.

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Apex Legends Nerfs Octane's Stimulation Surge

Unfortunately, this rework for Octane proved to be too powerful according to many players, resulting in a nerf to Swift Mend on January 23rd. While this seemed to stifle Legend's effectiveness, Respawn wasn't done, as a new update on February 23 included more nerfs to his abilities. In particular, Fortified has been removed from Stim Surge, making the character less tanky. Additionally, the speed boost Octane receives from using Stim has been reduced. However, this ability allows the character to move faster than before Season 27's rework.

Who is that character?

Check out the silhouette before time runs out.

Who is that character?

Check out the silhouette before time runs out.

Easy (7.5 seconds) Medium (5.0 seconds) Hard (2.5 seconds) Eternal Death (2.5 seconds)

Respawn announced the update on social media, providing the reasoning behind their decision to nerf Octane. Apex Legends. According to the developer, the character's pick rate and combat win rate were still 'unhealthy'. Interestingly, Respawn waited for this nerf because they wanted to see what effect the Fuse rework would have on the meta. However, this did not result in a significant change to Octane's pick rate as expected. As a result, the development team tackled the “sharpest” parts of the Legend kit. The goal is to “preserve” the usefulness of the Season 27 rework, but it remains to be seen how much more needs to be done to bring the pick rate back down to an acceptable level.

This February 23rd update received mostly positive feedback. Apex Legends community. Despite Stim Surge becoming less effective after this update, players have noted that it is still useful. Tactics in particular allow players to continue regenerating health even after taking damage. In theory, Octane should still have a good chance of survivability when changing locations, but removing Fortified will reduce Octane's overwhelming power in 1v1 combat.

Ultimately, players will have to wait and see how this latest nerf affects pick rate. Apex Legends. With 27 legends taking part in the battle royale, some will inevitably rise to the top. However, the developers had trouble balancing the meta. Apex Legends In the past, Ash was a notable example.

Apex Legends Update Horizon and Octane Nerfs

It will be interesting to see what additional changes are made to the Legend Pool in the coming weeks. It's worth mentioning that Respawn has another character that will be released in Season 29 of the game. This news was released as part of the roadmap. Apex LegendsWe looked at the development team's plans for the remainder of 2026 through early 2027. Time will tell if the upcoming Legend can adapt well to the meta, or if Respawn will have to release patches to tweak its performance like they did with Octane.

Apex Legends February 23rd Update – Patch Notes

We've pushed a patch that includes the following Octane changes:

Adjusted

Removed 'Fortified' from Stim Surge.
Stim's speed boost has been reduced (still increased from before 27.0).

Developer notes: We held off on the Octane nerf in 28.0 because we wanted to 'wait and see' what effect the release of Fuse's rework would have on Octane's recent surge. Looking at Valkyrie recently, we can see that Octane's rework has seen little need for a nerf to Valkyrie and is naturally bringing her back to the ground.

Even through the first week of the season, Octane is still being picked on and winning battles at a rate we don't think is healthy. This is the data we need to nerf what we believe to be the 'most rapidly increasing' elements of Octane's recent update, while retaining much of the new utility his rework brings.