Why You Keep Dying in Dota 2: 5 Causes and Fixes

The Highground coach checks every death in a reviewed match separately: who dealt the damage, whether your team saw them beforehand, where your allies stood and what you were doing in the seconds before the first hit. Those checks produce five recurring causes. Below, each one comes with the rule the coach uses to catch it and what you can change as early as your next game.

You die to people nobody saw

The coach calls this a death without information: you were killed by enemies your team had not seen before the fight, and none of your wards were nearby. The position was dangerous before the enemies even arrived.

What to do: before every step into a dark area, check the minimap and count how many enemies you can see. Farm next to your own wards and towers, and take far camps when you can see at least three.

You saw the threat and stayed

This death came with information: the killers showed up on the map at least a couple of seconds before the first hit. You kept last hitting or stayed in the lane. It is the cheapest one to fix, since it takes no items and no mechanics, only a look at the minimap.

What to do: check the minimap every 3 to 5 seconds, especially while you last hit. If an enemy disappears from the lane, step back to your tower.

You stayed to take one more creep

A greedy death happens in a single second. Two enemies vanish, the wave is almost dead, and you decide to finish it. Those two are the ones who show up. The death costs more than the wave was worth: your gold, the time on the respawn timer and the waves after it.

What to do: decide when you leave before you start the last hit. If two enemies have been out of sight for more than 10 seconds, drop the wave.

The fight started on you alone

The coach flags that you were caught alone when no allies were nearby in the 3 seconds before the first damage on you, and the fight ended with at least two deaths on your team. Your team came to help, but the fight had already started on the enemy's terms.

What to do: in the mid game, move around the map with a teammate. If you walk alone, keep an escape ready: TP, Blink Dagger or BKB.

One death drags in the next

By the coach's rules, a death streak is three deaths in a row with less than 90 seconds of life between them, or a death in the first 30 seconds after respawning. Usually it is a rush to make up for the last death. The enemy gets gold for each death, and your team plays four versus five for most of that time.

What to do: after you die, don't run back to where you died. Wait for your allies, or farm a safe area until your next item.

What shows up most in reviews

The table is recalculated from the latest Highground reviews each time you open the page. While there are too few reviews, a note stands in place of the numbers.

All 27 mistakes with examples on the map are in the common mistakes guide. A review of your own match shows which of them keeps repeating for you.