Some weapons eg crossbow have an increased chance to kill before knockout. If you are forced to use one of these, use dododex to check how many hits it takes before it flees, shoot it one less than this number, drop a sleeping bag and your gear and let it kill and eat you. This heals it enough to then finish it off without risk of death. Obviously requires a trap or cliff etc to do this safely. Not had one die on me since figuring this out. Before it was around 1 in 3 or 4 chance of death with crossbow. Shocking tranq darts are the way to go if you have them.

More Direbear Taming & KO Tips