With the Halloween update from earlier today, you now have access to the special event mode called the ‘Diretide‘ that allows you to be a part of a brand new Dota experience for this festive period.

You can sign up to a match on Diretide just like any other ordinary game from the Play Tab. Once you have signed up, you will be matched up and placed into the game.

The primary objective of the game is to bring down the big and bad candy loving Roshan at the end but the game kicks off with you having to collect the Greevil Taffy’s from the Confectioners of Yhauron and taking them to your basket which is located at your respective Ancient Creeps pit.

Greevil Taffy‘s are basically candies that drop in the game from Roshlings that spawn along with the mobs, by killing enemy heroes, neutral creeps (after the 10 minute marker) or by just bashing at the enemies Candy Basket. Once you have these candies, all you need to do is to take them to your basket and deposit them there. Sounds simple eh? But here’s the hitch. Carrying each candy comes with a penalty. Every candy you carry lowers your HP by 7.5% and also increase your teleportation times. So be very careful as to how many you carry or you can risk getting one shotted by your enemy. You will drop your candies if you die.

Why should you collect candies? For two very important reasons. The first being that the more the candies in your basket, the more map gold and XP your team gains allowing them to farm up items required for the big boss fight that awaits them at the end of the road. Candies are also require to feed Roshan when he comes along (explained below) which helps you fend him off but adding to this sugar rush. Secondly, having collected more candies may have a special prize waiting in the form of a reward.

Now with the candies explained, time to get on and talk about Roshan – yes, that crazy candy lover.

While you are busy collecting candies, Roshan is dormant for the first ten minutes. His restraint dies after that time and he enters the map looking for his share of candies. Now with you showing so much interest in the candies, he will come after you and ask you for some. You will need to give a candy to Roshan to fend him off or you can sit there and take his thrashing. Either way you prefer it. Remember the feeding Roshan will send him away and help you concentrate on gathering candies but it will add to his sugar rush which you will have to deal with later.

The targets being chased by Roshan will show up in between the candy counter as depicted below.

Roshan alternates between both the teams for candies for the next ten minutes. He is invulnerable during this period and will only move around eating the candies that you give him.

At the 20 minute marker, Roshan’s love for sugar gets the better of him and he will rush to one of the forests (depending on which team is leading on the candies) and wait for you to bring him down there. The locations are marked on the map below. You can teleport to these locations.

The Roshan you face here is no ordinary Roshan that you meet daily in your games of Dota. With his enchantments broken, he is a tad bit crazier. Ok, who am I kidding, he’s just mental so you’ll need to join forces with your enemy here.

This Roshan comes with a lot of abilities such as heavy nuke arsenal of sunstrikes, massive AOE deafening blasts and many more. Be sure to buy all the inventory you may need before going to face him because he is waiting with 150,000 HP and 5,000 MP that regenerates pretty rapidly.

Once you have managed to bring him down, you will all be rewarded for your valiant efforts in the art of war pretty handsomely.

Everyone in the game will walk away with a little token but the lucky ones may even stumble on some eggs that I will talk about later. If you are quick enough to kill the beast, you may even get into the Sugar Rush Hall of Fame for everyone to witness your amazing feat.

Have fun in the Diretide mode.