For the inexperienced Octavia [Mini Guide]

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

If this is too long before you get into it, itś me explaining a more active playstyle, how her abilties work for the most part, and how you should probably mod her along with what weapons to use. This is for the players who have just got Octavia(Prime) and maybe need some help with understanding her concept also, if you disagree with some of my points please point them out and explain why, I hope someone finds this helpful. Have a good day everyone! : ))

 

So far the new Octavia Prime fellas are getting annoying to say the least, I mained her for two months probably and it pains me to see them using that  disco ball with the default song. I try to tell new Octavia players that she isn't boring, too many people just play her as a stationary DJ and that's fine n all. But I recommend not using her for defense as much as people would tell you that you need to. She isn't a defense frame, she's a aoe/buff frame, "same thing" well no not really.If you play her as defense you'll find yourself bored and wondering why you chose to use a music based frame. You should have primed flow, energy siphon, not too high of duration, decent efficiency, good range, and strength you can just ignore. Primed flow lets you be able to use her 4th ability often with saved energy, energy siphon combined with her energy regen passive makes for some decent efficiency/energy return, and the duration should be a bit up but at 130-145% is perfect. 150ish range is perfect so the regular stretch mod is what you want, but you can put primed if you wanna be fancy.

 

Use her 1st ability as a timed grenade, play Mot with her and toss that bad boy in the middle of a group of enemies and watch them disintegrate(she can take down lvl 40 enemies at level 15 with 0 mods fyi). Use her 2nd ability to pretty much put your mallet on patrol, it picks up your mallet and is very useful on maps that aren't designed with a huge area or clogged spaces where they don't have a line of sight with it(think Kuva ship) and that little ball will hunt them down while adding to Mallet damage. Keep in mind this is preference, Octavia players I have talked to prefer not to use it but play with it yourself! Keep in mind if you have a resonator active and you try to place a mallet the resonator will take it elsewhere. Use this with that thought in mind. Her 3rd ability should be used mostly for the speed and invisibilty, activate it when you and ya boys are running to extraction or trying to escort a rescue mission, simply bullet jumping should activate it if your melody is constant. Now, her 4th ability works based on the ambient sound, but in reality it works best from the sound made from your abilities. Her and her allies damage are increased by quite a bit, you can get if even higher with strength if you want, I keep mine at 130% and it gives me a 260% boost. But honestly? Don´t worry too much about that aspect of the ability, worry about using it with your 1st ability, since it increases itś range by a f**k ton. Power isn´t needed much since her damage scales from the enemies, thats why she can take out level 40 when sheś barely level 15, because the damage your 1st ability causes is reflected damage.

 

Imma try to go more in depth of her abilities and honestly Iḿ not sure if you need this but if someone else does maybe theyĺl like it. Her 1st ability has saved damage, lemme explain this. The very first time you toss it down in a mission it causes 0 damage, but if an enemy shoots it, it saves damage from the damage it recieves and saves it, it then reflects that damage back on every beat of the percussion. If you have less beats in percussion then they do more damage per beat, if you have more beats in percussion it does less damage per beat. In simple, it divides saved damage between beats of your percussion. Also, if it has overkill damage, that saved damage that wasn´t used the previous time you used her 1st ability will be reflected the next time you toss it down. So then if you have saved damage from your last use and toss it near enemies it will do damage before the enemies even start shooting it, usually this saved damage is small but noticable.

 

Now weapons, she has her own weapons now so use those : ). But if not use a good 1 shot weapon, think shotgun or bow, because often times theres some cheeky grineer who is shooting you from outside your abilities range, basically they aren´t being affected. Use your shotgun/bow to pick off the stragglers who aren´t being affected by your ability. Everything else is up to preference. You can find songs that work well if youŕe in sync, but honestly songs that have a constant melody work best for her buffing, the other two sounds can be preference, just turn her melody volume down so it wont be annoying. Now that the melody is constant it will be 10x easier to activate the buffs. Fyi each ability uses different sound sections of a song. 1st ability/percussion, 2nd ability/bass, 3rd abilty/melody, 4th ability/uses other ability sounds or ambient sounds.

 

Try this build out also! 

 

Also for music and Octavia tracks(including pop songs and famous tracks) this man @Buff00n is your god

 

 

[LillyRaccune]

Leqesai's build and strategy looks good for solo or team endurance content. I can see this in combat situations where AoE damage easily affects the Mallet + Resonator combo and "room control" is vital to not dying.

I think Apoll0's build and style is good for casual players (to whom this guide was addressed). In casual content it is my experience that the Mallet + Resonator combo moves around too quickly for the enemies and they don't deal any significant damage to proc Mallet's reflected attacks.

Sometimes I have found my Resonator "afk-ing" one or two rooms away, hogging the enemies and not keeping up with me. So in that situation I do find it a detriment to the mission.

To address the "Octavia is boring" topic: yes if more new players became aware of the many buffs and team-enhancing strategies available, I think the public opinion of Octavia would improve. (On PS4 when Octavia Prime was announced, it was a common complaint in my alliance).

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

7 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

But...

But what is active about a stationary mallet? The whole point of attaching it to the resonator is so you can move and bring your mallet with you...

Like I said, I usually run room from room tossing the mallet in a group of enemies and moving on, to toss it into another group. With the resonator it is dependent on whether it is following you or searching for enemies. Also the damage only affects enemies who have line of sight, which is helpful on certain maps like I said but having the mallet in the center giving all enemies in that group/room a view of it to me has always been better then having the ball go across the room and alternating between angles and who it is killing. I'm going to add your build to the OG post so others can play with that too, but like I said I find the stationary tossable mallet more effective in the sense of how fast it takes down the overall enemies in a room.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

Wont be adding anything else, just Buff00n and such, but I will still answer questions to the best of my ability

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

48 minutes ago, LillyRaccune said:

Leqesai's build and strategy looks good for solo or team endurance content. I can see this in combat situations where AoE damage easily affects the Mallet + Resonator combo and "room control" is vital to not dying.

I think Apoll0's build and style is good for casual players (to whom this guide was addressed). In casual content it is my experience that the Mallet + Resonator combo moves around too quickly for the enemies and they don't deal any significant damage to proc Mallet's reflected attacks.

Sometimes I have found my Resonator "afk-ing" one or two rooms away, hogging the enemies and not keeping up with me. So in that situation I do find it a detriment to the mission.

To address the "Octavia is boring" topic: yes if more new players became aware of the many buffs and team-enhancing strategies available, I think the public opinion of Octavia would improve. (On PS4 when Octavia Prime was announced, it was a common complaint in my alliance).

I'm going to mark this as the "answer" so people can see it and understand what differs and a good explanation on Leq's build while also seeing why people tend to stay away from resonator, it was very useful hearin this view point

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

36 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

This is pretty helpful. For some reason I just was not picking up on this.

Yes that is what I meant, it's easier to build up the damage when it's stationary, I am glad I have a build to link with my post also, enjoyed the discussion and I hope new Octavia's benefit from all of this

[Leqesai]

2 minutes ago, LillyRaccune said:

Leqesai's build and strategy looks good for solo or team endurance content. I can see this in combat situations where AoE damage easily affects the Mallet + Resonator combo and "room control" is vital to not dying.

I think Apoll0's build and style is good for casual players (to whom this guide was addressed). In casual content it is my experience that the Mallet + Resonator combo moves around too quickly for the enemies and they don't deal any signification damage to proc Mallet's reflected attacks.

Sometimes I have found my Resonator "afk-ing" one or two rooms away, hogging the enemies and not keeping up with me. So in that situation I do find it a detriment to the mission.

To address the "Octavia is boring" topic: yes if more new players became aware of the many buffs and team-enhancing strategies available, I think the public opinion of Octavia would improve. (On PS4 when Octavia Prime was announced, it was a common complaint in my alliance).

This is pretty helpful. For some reason I just was not picking up on this.

[Leqesai]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

I have tried explaining to you my playstyle, you don't seem to understand and I have no way to give gameplay atm either. I reworded my post because I realized the advice was poor and was based on preference, and I personally think Resonator emphasizes the mallets mobility but not a mobile playstyle opposed to recasting mallet. That is my own opinion and playstyle and obviously we differ. That all being said, I reworded the post and even linked your build so people can see if they like how yours plays. I'm not posting a build rather I wanted to guide new octavia players to a playstyle and how they should build their own Oct.

I do understand your playstyle.

I just don't understand the logic behind it. You've explained it multiple times but it still seems illogical to me to use Mallet the way you describe.

This doesn't mean you are wrong or that there is an issue. It just means that I don't follow the logic of this.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

1 minute ago, Leqesai said:

My goal is to try and understand your thought processing behind your build because I don't really understand your logic. 
You say it is an "active" build but it doesn't use the ability that emphasizes mobility. 

One of Octavia's most powerful components is her ability to CC. As you can see from my build, there are no dedicated survivability mods because Octavia's CC is so strong with Resonator (and in my case shooting gallery) you can use shield gating really really easily. Mallet's agro is pretty good on its own but Resonator increases the agro making Mallet take more damage (and thus outputting more damage). 

 

There is certainly nothing really 'wrong' with how you're playing Octavia but recommending people to not use resonator is pretty poor advice IMO. It is a very powerful ability and just because it doesn't suit your build or playstyle doesn't invalidate its power. 

I have tried explaining to you my playstyle, you don't seem to understand and I have no way to give gameplay atm either. I reworded my post because I realized the advice was poor and was based on preference, and I personally think Resonator emphasizes the mallets mobility but not a mobile playstyle opposed to recasting mallet. That is my own opinion and playstyle and obviously we differ. That all being said, I reworded the post and even linked your build so people can see if they like how yours plays. I'm not posting a build rather I wanted to guide new octavia players to a playstyle and how they should build their own Oct.

[Leqesai]

13 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

You seem to keep wanting to disagree with me in some way, I suggest moving on from this post. It is supposed to be a basic "active" type of build guide and playstyle, the stored damage decaying isn't noticeable and both builda re effective

My goal is to try and understand your thought processing behind your build because I don't really understand your logic. 
You say it is an "active" build but it doesn't use the ability that emphasizes mobility. 

One of Octavia's most powerful components is her ability to CC. As you can see from my build, there are no dedicated survivability mods because Octavia's CC is so strong with Resonator (and in my case shooting gallery) you can use shield gating really really easily. Mallet's agro is pretty good on its own but Resonator increases the agro making Mallet take more damage (and thus outputting more damage). 

 

There is certainly nothing really 'wrong' with how you're playing Octavia but recommending people to not use resonator is pretty poor advice IMO. It is a very powerful ability and just because it doesn't suit your build or playstyle doesn't invalidate its power. 

This conversation is very similar to discussions around Revenant where people do not fully understand how his abilities synergize and builds end up hyper-focused on one or two abilities instead of the entire kit (Revenant, like Octavia is really well designed. Both of their abilities work very well together, for the most part. No single ability is "bad" when you consider how they interact with one another).

 

I mean. I think Metronome is not very useful outside of the invisibility (which is something I never need on Octavia anyway due to how her CC works) but that doesn't really mean Metronome is garbage. It just means I either don't know the ability well enough or don't use it in my builds in a way that has convinced me to its usefulness. I know lots of people swear by Metronome.

Also, the clarification regarding how mallet's stored damage decays is something you should be aware of. It is not something meant to attack your ideas or your build options in any way.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

10 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Mallet's stored damage decays over time not usage.

You seem to keep wanting to disagree with me in some way, I suggest moving on from this post. It is supposed to be a basic "active" type of build guide and playstyle, the stored damage decaying isn't noticeable and both builda are effective

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

12 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

I'm still interested in seeing your build to better understand what you're going for with your build.

My build is very very basic with it not really directed at anything, im not "going for" anything, it is an all around build with relatively low stats, but adding even higher stats isnt needed tbh, I haven't even forma'd my Octavia lmao. In fact this is directed towards new octavias who have yet to forma or add potatos

[Leqesai]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

While this is true, like I said earlier it saves unused damage! Great consistency with this ability

Mallet's stored damage decays over time not usage.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

4 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

The longer it is out the higher its damage potential.

While this is true, like I said earlier it saves unused damage! Great consistency with this ability

[Leqesai]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

I do all sorties with this build : P or my Nidus, so she takes down level 1-120 enemies. Also I meant to think of it as a grenade, it just gathers damage and blasts it everywhere, but it is indeed not a grenade haha.

I'm still interested in seeing your build to better understand what you're going for with your build.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

2 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

What level content are you using your build for? You mentioned level 40 enemies. Have you tried taking your build against sortie level enemies or higher? How does it perform in higher level content? Level 40 is pretty low, all things considered.

I do all sorties with this build : P or my Nidus, so she takes down level 1-120 enemies. Also I meant to think of it as a grenade, it just gathers damage and blasts it everywhere, but it is indeed not a grenade haha.

[Leqesai]

Just now, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

Like I said, I usually run room from room tossing the mallet in a group of enemies and moving on to toss it into another group. With the resonator it is dependent on whether it is following you or searching for enemies. Also the damage only affects enemies who have line of sight, which is helpful on certain maps like I said but having the mallet in the certain giving a view to all enemies in that group/room to me has always been better then having the ball go across the room and alternating between angles and who it is killing. I'm going to add your build to the OG post so others can play with that too, but like I said I find the stationary tossable mallet more effective in the sense of how fast it takes down the overall enemies in a room.

Yeah. I see what you're saying. I don't really think Mallet is functionally similar to a grenade. Sure you might be using it for this purpose but Mallet's damage is dependent on stored values. The longer it is out the higher its damage potential. Having it attached to Resonator allows for higher damage scaling as you're moving from room to room. It functions like a companion so if you zoom way far away from resonator it will warp to you.

What level content are you using your build for? You mentioned level 40 enemies. Have you tried taking your build against sortie level enemies or higher? How does it perform in higher level content? Level 40 is pretty low, all things considered. Most builds work against level 40-60 enemies even if they are poorly thought out or generally inefficient.

[Leqesai]

Just now, LillyRaccune said:

Do you mean decaying dragon key? That's the one for shields and shield gating, right?

Yeah thanks that's what I meant

[Leqesai]

10 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

I'm seeing now it has to do with playstyle, like I said my goal was to make a less "Octavia is so boring" playstyle and for it to be more active, I find the resonator to be more of a roomba aoe, and I use the mallet and amp as a grenade which I can usually just toss in group from group easily, the resonator really does have a mind of its own and isn't as precise, I will reword the post soon

But...

But what is active about a stationary mallet? The whole point of attaching it to the resonator is so you can move and bring your mallet with you...

Mallet STORES damage it receives. So if you're just tossing it out randomly you are resetting the stored damage every time you toss one out. Resonator allows it to more consistently maintain the stored damage as you progress through your missions. Especially in enemy-dense mission types such as survival (especially steel path survival).

[LillyRaccune]

12 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Bleeding Dragon Key

Do you mean decaying dragon key? That's the one for shields and shield gating, right?

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

4 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Yeah... I don't think you're going to convince me. Having plenty of experience with Octavia I don't think you've really explored her enough to recognize how good Resonator+Mallet really is. Your issues with resonator seem to (I can't verify because I don't know your exact build) be related to how you've built your Octavia in this discussion.

There is certainly a build that doesn't use resonator but I would never use it because the mallet+resonator play style works for all mission types. 

For the record, this is the build I recommend with Octavia.

Aura: Brief Respite

Exilus: Power Drift, Cunning Drift or Primed Surefooted depending on playstyle

Main Mods:
Primed Continuity
Blind Rage/Umbral Intensify
Primed Flow
Stretch
Augur Message
Augur Secrets
Augur Reach
Over Extended

Arcanes:
Arcane Energize
Arcane Eruption (or whatever you prefer here)

Subsumed:
Shooting Gallery to replace Metronome
(Personally I dislike metronome unless I am using Octavia for a spy mission for invisibility). Shooting Gallery gives an additional damage buffer and boost to weapon damage (and benefits a teammate as well). Very very useful but it can be viewed as counterproductive if you are relying on Mallet for your damage.

(Also, go with burst laser on your sentinel and slap more augur mods on there. Pretty easy to have 350% energy to shields and 200% energy to overshields)

You can go with Bleeding Dragon Key or not depending on how you want to play. Personally I don't bother with it unless doing Steel Path or high level content where the extra invincibility is beneficial.

With such a build your resonator and mallet both have AOE range that is large enough to offset the wandering issue you're likely experiencing. Coupled with Amp, the agro of Mallet gets to be quite large.

 

I'm seeing now it has to do with playstyle, like I said my goal was to make a less "Octavia is so boring" playstyle and for it to be more active, I find the resonator to be more of a roomba aoe, and I use the mallet and amp as a grenade which I can usually just toss in group from group easily, the resonator really does have a mind of its own and isn't as precise, I will reword the post soon

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)Sir Sponks Alot said:

Ehhhh with range mods there is no problem using her 1 and 2 together, and it does help a lot in more diverse rooms/areas that aren't just big flat open spaces. When she came out long ago the AI for the ball was garbage but for the last year or more I really haven't had any problems with it actually tracking and going after groups of enemies. Personally, I just use Octavia when the team im playing with needs some crowd control (I.e. mostly deimos now lol) and since energy is such an easy hurtle to overcome, I spam abilities nonstop with her. 

I really agree with you, it's not as bad and from what I'm seeing it seems to be preference, I still find a stationary mallet to be more effective and precise but if you want an aoe roomba then yes : ), I will reword main post  soon

[Leqesai]

32 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

Not at the moment, no. Resonator has always been unpredictable for me, because it attempts to follow you at times when you bullet jump around and if you try to use mallet in a specific spot it will come up and yoink it, taking it elsewhere. This is for a more active and moving build, think survival/extermination, resonator works well when you're on defense or more area specific missions since it pretty much goes on patrol but placing down a mallet with amp in a big room pretty much shreds all the enemies in that room in seconds. Resonator does too but since it's harder for enemies to hit and usually goes from one group to another i have always found it less effective, other players usually agree with this point but if you like resonator and find it more effective maybe it's preference because I don't think the build affects it much, sure you can add damage but it still wont be as much as the scaled damage of a stationary/easy to hit mallet.

Yeah... I don't think you're going to convince me. Having plenty of experience with Octavia I don't think you've really explored her enough to recognize how good Resonator+Mallet really is. Your issues with resonator seem to (I can't verify because I don't know your exact build) be related to how you've built your Octavia in this discussion.

There is certainly a build that doesn't use resonator but I would never use it because the mallet+resonator play style works for all mission types. 

For the record, this is the build I recommend with Octavia.

Aura: Brief Respite

Exilus: Power Drift, Cunning Drift or Primed Surefooted depending on playstyle

Main Mods:
Primed Continuity
Blind Rage/Umbral Intensify
Primed Flow
Stretch
Augur Message
Augur Secrets
Augur Reach
Over Extended

Arcanes:
Arcane Energize
Arcane Eruption (or whatever you prefer here)

Subsumed:
Shooting Gallery to replace Metronome
(Personally I dislike metronome unless I am using Octavia for a spy mission for invisibility). Shooting Gallery gives an additional damage buffer and boost to weapon damage (and benefits a teammate as well). Very very useful but it can be viewed as counterproductive if you are relying on Mallet for your damage.

(Also, go with burst laser on your sentinel and slap more augur mods on there. Pretty easy to have 350% energy to shields and 200% energy to overshields)

You can go with Bleeding Decaying Dragon Key or not depending on how you want to play. Personally I don't bother with it unless doing Steel Path or high level content where the extra invincibility is beneficial.

With such a build your resonator and mallet both have AOE range that is large enough to offset the wandering issue you're likely experiencing. Coupled with Amp, the agro of Mallet gets to be quite large.

 

[(XBOX)Sir Sponks Alot]

Ehhhh with range mods there is no problem using her 1 and 2 together, and it does help a lot in more diverse rooms/areas that aren't just big flat open spaces. When she came out long ago the AI for the ball was garbage but for the last year or more I really haven't had any problems with it actually tracking and going after groups of enemies. Personally, I just use Octavia when the team im playing with needs some crowd control (I.e. mostly deimos now lol) and since energy is such an easy hurtle to overcome, I spam abilities nonstop with her. 

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

10 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

What is the build you're using? Can you post either the frame stats or exact mods?

I have never found mallet+resonator to have unpredictable effects. Resonator rolls around like a companion (so it doesn't really just dart off really far away. With high range your amp radius and the charm+agro radius of resonator will generally remain in the desired zone)

 

Not at the moment, no. Resonator has always been unpredictable for me, because it attempts to follow you at times when you bullet jump around and if you try to use mallet in a specific spot it will come up and yoink it, taking it elsewhere. This is for a more active and moving build, think survival/extermination, resonator works well when you're on defense or more area specific missions since it pretty much goes on patrol but placing down a mallet with amp in a big room pretty much shreds all the enemies in that room in seconds. Resonator does too but since it's harder for enemies to hit and usually goes from one group to another i have always found it less effective, other players usually agree with this point but if you like resonator and find it more effective maybe it's preference because I don't think the build affects it much, sure you can add strength for damage but it still wont be as much as the scaled damage of a stationary/easy to hit mallet.

[Leqesai]

5 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

What?? People including me dislike it a lot because it's really unpredictable, they tried fixing it by making it an augment to guide it, but half the time it doesn't go in any real direction and has a mind of it's own, its better to use only the 1 and amp it with the 4th, it gives way more range and makes it easier to gather damage since it's stationary, making it easier for enemies to shoot and add damage. While the resonator does damage off the bat based on enemies around it, it's simply not as effective, it's useful in situations where the enemies are more spread out and the map calls for it. Otherwise no, I'd recommend not using it.

 

Look at it this way, simply put:

Mallet+Amp = More range and accumulative damage, more controlled area

Mallet+Resonator= Unpredictable, oftentimes less damage, moves over an area and past obstacles that would usually interfere with mallet

The amp affects the Mallet/Res combo but it's drastically reduced

 

Edit: Plus sometimes it gets chaotic when your goal is to kill enemies and they run off to some random room/ or direction following your irresponsible Resonator

What is the build you're using? Can you post either the frame stats or exact mods?

I have never found mallet+resonator to have unpredictable effects. Resonator rolls around like a companion (so it doesn't really just dart off really far away. With high range your amp radius and the charm+agro radius of resonator will generally remain in the desired zone)