How many deaths is too many?

Samus72·12/19/2015, 3:57:07 PM·8 votes·8,377 views

It's been my experience in gaming that if you can do something without being defeated, all the better for you. I consider it a matter of pride to go an entire game of anything without a single death. I do so with the mindset that I'm playing smart and not just diving in recklessly. But I can still be defeated one time and be accused of feeding the other team along with comments like "u suck" and "kill yourself."

I've watched a lot of games lately including a few with the high-tier All Star "play games for a living" players and noticed that they just dive in with abandon. If they die, they die.

Which begs the question: when is being defeated too many times...too much? I feel like a complete failure if I am defeated more than three times. But the pros sometimes have thirteen or fourteen deaths before a game is over and they don't get a lot of grief from doing so.

Just curious.

38 Comments

l Helios l12/19/2015, 4:23:08 PM10 votes

At what point in the game? There's a stark difference between 3 deaths in laning phase and 3 deaths at end game.

I've always been one to say you should never die in the laning phase, especially in a solo kill. That demonstrates you lack understanding of your champion, the enemy champion, or both. That's a problem.

After laning phase, you need to focus on playing smart and around wards. If you don't have vision of a place and there are 4 Mia on the map, it's probably a good idea to not go there alone.

I can explain more if you want. Just let me know. I'd rather not leave a long post if you don't care for that much detail.

ThePartyLeader12/19/2015, 4:01:14 PM6 votes

Depends on the role and type of game and what you gain for dying

Apex Liar12/19/2015, 4:13:15 PM5 votes

There is nothing really situational about deaths. If you have more than 6 deaths a game, then you are doing something wrong.

When a Pro has more than 10 deaths it's because they are playing some fun new game mode or it's a charity event. You will only have about a 1% chance to see a pro player with that many deaths. This occurs when the other pro team isn't experience, so they don't close out the game.

charcharmunro12/19/2015, 8:19:59 PM4 votes

Depends highly on the character. Karthus , Singed and maybe Sion are likely to have rather high death counts but still be a useful member of the team.

junglerboy1612/20/2015, 1:32:51 AM3 votes

Usually I have to gauge how many deaths I'm comfortable with based on the role and champion I'm playing. Obviously, in an ideal scenario, you want to go for zero deaths, but that isn't always attainable and not even the best for your team either.

For instance, if I'm a tank or tanky support, I'm usually okay dying as many as 6-8 times a game as long as I'm A: not feeding needlessly, and B: Racking up a lot of assists and a handful of kills. For instance, I'd say as a utility tank, a final score like 3-7-18 is solid. It might not look good on paper, but if each of those deaths had meaning like saving a carry's backside so they could win the larger fight, or peeling for my team to make a retreat in one piece at my own expense, then they are okay.

As a Carry, I usually aim for 3 or fewer deaths throughout the game. Your job in that role is to stay alive as long as possible while dealing a ton of damage. If I'm dying to frequently, it is usually because I'm getting caught out, or my positioning is bad so my tanks can't peel, or there is a fed assassin on the other team who's made it their sole purpose to tear me a new one.

As an assassin, I'm usually okay with a surprisingly high death count (although to a lesser extent with the new kill streak mechanics) because as long as I start off a fight and take 1 or 2 carries with me, my team has the advantage. However, this doesn't apply to all assassins, nor does a high death count mean the same for every assassin. As a Katarina or Kassadin, I'd be okay with a high death count as long as I still snowball into late game, because those early deaths have little impact once you start rolling hard.

Just as a rule of thumb though, if I ever die in lane, I have to either have a really strong team that I can communicate well with to get myself back into the game (meaning irl people over headsets type of thing) or I have to be on a champion that I'm extremely comfortable with who can snowball easily, and no matter what, I always make it a point to make up at least 10-15 more CS than whoever killed me for each death. In fact, that tactic has won me many seemingly impossible trades because the person I'm playing against doesn't realize that while they scored 3 kills on me early and started roaming that I gained a 50 minion lead and can one v one them and win.

ModKnightsKemplar12/19/2015, 8:21:03 PM2 votes

Bad question, honestly. You're only going to get inaccurate answers, because this depends so widely based on the game.

Sometimes, if you have to die to get a good trade, it's worth it. Other times, it isn't. The final value honestly doesn't mean much, as long as your are getting more for each death than you are giving. Other than that, you really should try never to die, obviously, but that's not realistic.

SlytherinUmbreon12/19/2015, 6:10:36 PM2 votes

Karthus NEVER! GET ALL OF THE DEATHS!

I GANK LANES12/20/2015, 1:56:38 AM2 votes

i literally have at the most 5 deaths on all my champs that i play frequently; 273 games on lee and avg deaths are 4.8

ive always preached about people playing the game like cod and they still do. you shouldn't be frequently dying with ANY champ, it's just not how you play league, and yeah, it applies even if you're not ahead

[(http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Nerf%20my%20Q)]

Miku Lv9912/21/2015, 9:04:44 AM1 votes

No amount is ever too much. Even if you're 0-20, if every time you died, the enemy dove you so far that your team killed at least 2 enemies just for you dying, they still lost that trade. So you shouldn't fault yourself for any of those deaths and you don't have too many.

But if you have more than like 3 deaths in the first 17 minutes, then you have too many and your have really messed up the game for your team.

AyRe CoNteMpT12/19/2015, 6:50:34 PM1 votes

nobody took the all-star games serious. i hope you didnt either or god help your soul
every death that doesnt accomplish something very valuable is too many. for example, if you fight 3on3 and you die while your teammates kill the 3 enemies so its a 3 for 1 trade, then your death was "worth". but ONLY and ONLY! if your sacrifice was the key part that led your team to killing the enemies and ONLY if there was no way for them to kill you without dying and they just all died because they missplayed it too.

if you do the absolute maximum of what benefits winning the game and you die, that is absolutely a good and heroic death. if you ever die without it being unavoidable and neccessary, that is a bad death and you can improve on your play.

to help you understand i will give you an example. lets say you are malphite top vs jax all right. you lane against him and on level 6, which he got one minion before you, he all-ins you and kills you and you waste your flash for it too.

now you come back to lane and since jax pushed it in after killing you, the wave is now pushing back to him and hes freezing. you get lvl 6 from that but hes lvl 7 and just stronger now because of the items. you cant farm anymore except with your Q and you dont have flash while he does. he jumps on you and all you can do to survive is to ult away. he didnt even break his freeze for that so he just continues to freeze and you are effectively unable to lane or gank for the next 3 minutes and after 3-5 minutes of farming in which you got a maximum of 5 cs, he pushes you in, recalls, finishes rageblade and cutlass and comes back to lane.

now the scenario looks like this; either your team can get a lucky gank onto him or he will eventually take your inhibitor. your single death made you unable to control your lane and thus lost you the game. sure you can probably cheese yoruself back into it by ult ganking somewhere or something but technically you lost despite only dying once.

this is an extreme example but every death can have a big aftermath that you dont even realize.

Hotlin3 Fling12/19/2015, 7:13:14 PM1 votes

5 imo. I'm basically a feed2win player

TurquoiseYoshi12/19/2015, 7:32:23 PM1 votes

It heavily depends on who you are, how the game is going, and how your teammates are doing. I would easily take 70 deaths if we had their Nexus turrets down and have super minions in every lane. If I'm the support (or even a tank jungler), I'll gladly take a few deaths to give the ADC more kills.

KGBcommunist12/19/2015, 8:16:50 PM1 votes

Im all for not dying and playing safe but i cannot fucking stand when my ap or ad carry play like panzies and run from team fights to preserve there little kda. To many times have i seen enemies simply 4v5 us because our jinx was to scared to fully engage. Were all dead and we see her prancing away with full health.

Daedalus87112/19/2015, 4:32:30 PM1 votes

I'd say more than 1 deaths/2 minutes is intentionally feeding.

1 death/4 minutes and you should probably reevaluate how you're playing.

TehNACHO12/19/2015, 4:10:53 PM1 votes

Yes.

On a more serious note, if you have any kills to your name, any at all, don't die. If you do not have kills and do not need kills like Supports and most utility Tanks, it doesn't really matter. The reason is because of the gold exchange for your death - if your death leads to a much more valuable kill on the enemy team (say a -3 tank on your team dies initiating a dive on a +3 Carry) then obviously it's not necessarily a bad move to sacrifice the small amount of gold to the enemy team to slow down an enemy's snowball or straight up win objectives because their strongest teammates are now dead.

On the other hand, being a carry with absolutely reckless abandon is terrible. A 10/10/0 teammate probably fed the enemy team far harder than a 0/10/10 teammate, to put things into perspective.

Makior7212/19/2015, 4:01:29 PM1 votes

Imo 3 or more deaths by the end of lane phase is too much. Other than that it is all pretty situational.

Humphrey0712/20/2015, 1:35:28 AM1 votes

All of them.

Maximum Morde12/20/2015, 1:36:28 AM1 votes

Samus7212/21/2015, 9:50:55 AM1 votes

I watched the IEM Cologne tournament. Those folks made real attempts to not die needlessly. They also did not chase for kills too much. Interesting.

The Bearded Bard12/20/2015, 1:57:00 AM1 votes

Nightshade1712/20/2015, 3:45:07 AM1 votes

I'd say like, 4 by 20 minutes You die once, you either didn't understand a situation, or made a mistake that you understand. You die a second time, you're behind, but you can probably do something. If you die a third time, it's much harder to come back, and you'll most probably need a gank or two. Of course, these all assume you're in laning phase.

Samus7212/20/2015, 10:47:31 AM1 votes

Deaths are far more a complex issue than I thought. Much to consider here. Thanks all.

morris112/20/2015, 2:08:00 PM1 votes

It's very bad if you go 0/8/0 in the laning phase, but personally, I've always had this "illusion", that you can disguise a "feeder" with some kills or assists. Between 0/8/0 and 3/8/1 there's a pretty small difference, yet it's making me think of said person less as a "feeder" and more as someone who just was unlucky in-game. The limit barrier for me though is 10 deaths with less than 10 kills. I don't know why, but someone who is 5/9 seems rather good then someone who is 5/10 makes me utterly nervous (same applies to my score, getting 10 deaths puts me on huge tilt).

Dirty Roleplayer12/20/2015, 3:45:07 PM1 votes

Less deaths is better than more deaths. It's a fact so keep that in mind.

AL00012/20/2015, 5:32:02 PM1 votes

there is two different kind of death is worthless or worth...

usually efficient death meant you peeled for you team well so assassin can finish them.. you got some assists (gold)

useless death meant you died for nothing.... (you give them gold)

Reichtor12/21/2015, 12:24:57 AM1 votes

"1" - Lux

BloodStone12/19/2015, 4:38:16 PM1 votes

I'd say more than 4 deaths is pushing it. You should maintain a minimum of a 2 KDA imo.

Aeolian Melodies12/19/2015, 5:51:45 PM1 votes

Depends on;

Your role (supports and tanks deaths are generally more excusable than carries death)
Your kills and assists (1-10-2 obviously sucks, 18-10-22 shows a lot of participation)
Who you're dying to (dying to the carries is worse)
Why you're dying and what both teams get from that (dying for an objective or an ace is fine, dying alone where you should never have ventured and your team gets swooped after isn't)
Whether you mean during the laning phase or on the end game screen (5 deaths during laning phase is a lot, but on the end game screen is generally okay)