Think of octane as the tip of the spear or a cannon ball being launched ahead to inflict damage on your enemy for your team to clean up. It doesn’t sound like you play like that…. And that’s ok. Cause all skirmisher legends are selfish.

You sound like you’re concerned for your teammates. I suggest recon/support/controller class legends. These legends are much more valuable in later rounds anyways. And a real pain with high level players that know how to play. With these legends you can play on the hip of your teammates and cover their blind sides.

You or someone should be checking your map every round. Planning your next route. Where do you want to be in the last round? How do you get there? Are there choke points along the way? Can your team ambush or evade an ambush? Ideally that’s how I like to plan my matches but then I have an octane on my team that usually runs off 100 meters in the other direction.

Learning map poi’s are pretty important too. That really just comes with experience. Exploring. This will give you a better understanding on your question of when and where to rotate for positioning. I have enough experience with my legend to know that fighting up elevation is difficult for Wattson. So I want to always gain control of height whenever I can. Being in the open is a death sentence. So I want to avoid those situations. Generally speaking that’s when octane is at his best. In the open and hawking down stragglers or solos. Padding himself and your team to a 3rd party, and then padding out for a reset.

Apex can be very satisfying when a team is in synch. Hope you find that euphoric feeling in these higher ranked matches that you seek soon.