I've been an Octane main since season 2 (I didn't find interest initially much in him on release since, bangalore sorta did his kit better at the time. 40% speed >> 30% speed) and after maining him for 7 seasons.

When using stim, playing around cover is something an octane must do nowadays. Especially if it's around a building or a bunch of crates.

This can be in your favor if you can quickly run around cover, burst damage at someone for a second, reposition immediately and repeat.

When sprinting with his stim, looking left and right while running can really mess with the enemies' aim. Zig-zagging's pretty effective. Octanes are harder because of how their bodies sorta tilt when they run left and right. (Similar to bang's running animations)

Gold shields are good for octanes mostly because they can reset their HP to 200 fast and get back into fights immediately to support in squad-wiping. Though, some have preference in red evos, which is perfectly fine since it's got 25 HP to make up for the first stim cost.

You don't need movement techs to excel with octane, just need to form a playstyle of your own but keeping it true to aggressiveness since it's his most effective to the kit.