Dota 2 lag and high ping: causes and fixes

In Dota 2, lag shows up as orders that go off late: you click, and your hero starts moving a beat after. In a teamfight that beat decides who lands the stun. Here's where it comes from and what you can do about it.

How Dota 2 connects you

Dota 2 is one of Valve's games, and like CS2 its matchmaking traffic goes through Valve's own network: your connection enters it at one of Valve's relays and travels the rest of the way to the match server inside it. In Europe those relays sit in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, Warsaw and Madrid.

That means two players in the same town can have very different games. What differs is the road each provider takes to reach Valve's network. A provider with a direct, uncrowded path gets you there in a few milliseconds; one that hands your traffic through another country first adds the detour to every order you give.

Dota is also more forgiving of a steady high ping than of an unsteady one. You learn to click a little early for a constant delay. You can't learn a delay that changes from one second to the next.

See your ping and loss in the game

Open the settings, go to Options → Advanced Options and tick Display Network Information. Dota then shows your ping and your incoming and outgoing packet loss in the top-right corner while you play.

• A high, flat ping means distance or a long route. Check which matchmaking regions you have ticked: the region list shows your ping to each, and a far one adds its distance to every game it puts you in.
• A ping that jumps means something is queueing on the way, most often on your own line. What causes ping spikes shows how to find it.
• Loss above zero means orders that have to be sent again. That's the stutter where units move unevenly and spells seem to need two clicks.

What helps

1. Tick only the regions near you. A shorter queue in a far region costs you in every fight.
2. Use a cable if you can. Wi-Fi's average ping is fine; its sudden jumps aren't. Wi-Fi or Ethernet has the details.
3. Pause what shares the line: game updates, cloud sync, uploads. Dota needs little bandwidth, but it needs it now.
4. Watch when it happens. Lag only in the evening, every evening, points at your provider's busy hours rather than anything in your home.
5. Change the route when the ping to a nearby region is higher than the distance explains. That's the provider's path to Valve, and it's the part your settings can't reach.

What isn't lag

Dota's frame rate can drop in big fights with many effects on screen, and that feels like lag too. If the network numbers stay calm while the game stutters, look at your PC instead: Windows settings for FPS covers the ones that matter.

Where NoSpike fits

NoSpike's Dota 2 entry is verified: Valve publishes where its servers are, so NoSpike knows which traffic is Dota's and moves only that. It measures your own route and the routes through its relays in Europe, side by side, and routes the game only when a relay is faster.

It checks again every minute and doesn't change the route in the middle of a match unless the one you're on is failing. When your own route is already the best one, it says so and leaves it alone.