Lets remove/rework BotRK :D

Sherogarth··20 votes·3,249 views

Let me pick some strong (or, as some call them, OP) champions: Zed -> BotRK Irelia -> BotRK Yasuo -> BotRK Jax -> BotRK Master Yi -> BotRK Tryndamere -> BotRK Rek'Sai (nerfs already on PBE) -> BotRK Vayne -> BotRK Gnar (nerfs already on PBE) -> BotRK Lucian (already nerfed) -> BotRK Vi -> BotRK WW (already nerfed) -> BotRK and so on... even Sona (thanks for this comment TheKingDodo :D)

Ok, now some historical notes: BotRK was added in V1.0.0.150 during the preseason of Season 3 on Twisted Teeline as an item for marksmen back in era when bruisers dominated on TT (nothing changed in that anyway xD). BotRK stats back then:

  • Recipe: Bilgewater Cutlass + 1000g = 2825g
    
    +40 attack damage +10% life steal Unique Passive: Your attacks deal 4% of the target's current health in magic damage and heals you for half the amount (120 max vs. minions). Unique Active: Drains target champion, dealing 150 physical damage plus 50% of your attack damage and healing you by the same amount. Additionally, you steal 30% of their movement speed for 2 seconds (1 minute cooldown). (500 range)* In V1.0.0.152 was enabled on Summoners Rift. In V3.03 was Reworked as a counter for hp stacking meta that happend after V1.0.0.152 when Rito reworked Black Cleaver (dat 5xCleaver meta = -125% armor). It was meant to replace other Anti-hp item, (also removed in V1.0.0.152 because Rito said its useless xD) Madred's Bloodrazor (well, in fact it wasnt best item) . Rito said (in V3.03 patch notes) that: *These changes make Blade of the Ruined King a more universally useful item for Attack Damage champions and allow it to better fulfill its role in their arsenal as an item to combat **high Health *targets. BotRK's rework:
  • Recipe changed: Dagger + Dagger + Bilgewater Cutlass + 650g = 2850g
    
    Attack damage reduced to 30 from 45. Now grants 40% attack speed. Life steal increased to 15% from 10%. Unique Passive adjusted to "Deals 5% of the target's current Health in bonus physical damage (max 90 damage vs. monsters and minions) on hit.". Unique Active changed to "Deals 15% of target champion's maximum Health as physical damage (min. 100), heals for the same amount, and steals 30% of the target's Movement Speed for 4 seconds (60 second cooldown)." Unique Active range increased to 500 from 400.*

After this BotRK was nerfed **4 **times in V3.04, V3.10, V3.10a and V4.10 .

So now we know that BotRK is supposed to be niche, overnerfed (at this point), marksmen item, counter for hp stacking strategy (that happend when Rito nerfed armor by making armor penetration more popular :D) and should be hard countered by armor stacking. However it's still build by so many diffrent champions as first or second item (even if no one builds hp), still is so sucessful on them... Something went wrong Rito :D?

Thats it. What do you think? Post ur ideas for rework (maybe split it into 2 items?) and thoughts. Thanks for reading.

44 Comments

aaronconlin9 votes

Honestly, the entire item set needs to be reworked.

Rebonack5 votes

The problem with BotRK is that physical %HP damage when combined with Last Whisper means that there is now no way to defensively itemize against the thing. And that's sorta bad, y'know? I'm going to agree with Pyro on this one, it should probably be split into a new Executioner's Calling and a new item with the %HP passive, though I would argue that the %HP passive should be magic damage and get its HP stealing trait back. That was a pretty neat effect.

Something like...

Recurve Bow+Dagger+Chainmail+Combine=Madred's Bloodrazor UNIQUE passive: Deals magic damage equal to (percentage) of the target's current health and heals you for half the damage done.

ADCs could get a new AD/Lifesteal/IAS item to keep them happy.

yukumari1 votes

I'm pretty sure the %HP thing used to be magic damage, but they switched it to physical because having Magical% current HP damage made it an item that's hard to itemize against. Why would you want to build MR against someone who's otherwise primarily dealing physical damage? At that point, nothing you build helps. HP is countered by the blade, Armor doesn't help you with blades %currethp damage, and MR doesn't help you with the rest of the damage the person is doing. At least this way you don't have to split your gold up to get mediocre protection against all 3, rather than decent protection against 1. (Build armor, and you're set).

Giovarco4 votes

Remove the passive and keep the active.

Pyro11 votes

The active is fun and needed. Let's just split BotRK into two items:

  • Executioner's Calling
  • builds from item 3144 Cutlass + item 3093 Avarice Blade
  • gets the BotRK active
  • applies Grievous Wounds with the active
  • Blade of the Ruined King
  • builds from item 1053 Vampiric Scepter and two item 1042 Daggers (or Recurve Bow, or Stinger, or a new onhit Dagger upgrade)
  • gets the % health onhit passive, possibly buffed (or with option to crit)

This way there's still an option to counter health stacking (as if Warmog's was popular, lolz), but it's a respnse purchase to stacking health, not a core item that makes building health bad before you even get any.

Bharhash3 votes

{quoted}

The active is fun and needed. Let's just split BotRK into two items:

Yes. This, please. AD champs need a way to cut down the on-hit lifesteal / healer-types (Warwick immediately comes to mind).

This also allows for some champs to keep their current power, but at the cost of two item slots rather than one. This means that players have to (somewhat) make a choice on their build rather than insta-building BotRK.

Bears Dont Care3 votes

{quoted}

Yes. This, please. AD champs need a way to cut down the on-hit lifesteal / healer-types (Warwick immediately comes to mind).

This also allows for some champs to keep their current power, but at the cost of two item slots rather than one. This means that players have to (somewhat) make a choice on their build rather than insta-building BotRK.

WW doesn't rush botrk, he only wants it for the on hit effect really.

Bharhash1 votes

{quoted}

WW doesn't rush botrk, he only wants it for the on hit effect really.

Maybe. In my experience, most Warwicks seem to rush BotRK into Spirit Visage, and then proceed to tear apart anyone at their leisure.

Kuroi861 votes

Bork for the on hit with their ult, Spirit Visage for how well it synergies with his passive.

sungold1 votes

we need and spell vamp mana/mana regen item for ap like diana and seju too

supes the lost1 votes

spell-vamp is down as a result of Vladimir, if there is too many good sources of spell vamp, he has a field day with the competition.

Bharhash1 votes

[{quoted}](name=supes the lost,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5Eevyr60,comment-id=00010000000000010000,timestamp=2015-01-06T16:27:40.796+0000)

spell-vamp is down as a result of Vladimir, if there is too many good sources of spell vamp, he has a field day with the competition.

Side-track but if one character is suppressing an entire stat shouldn't that character be reworked?

supes the lost1 votes

There are other reasons, but Vladimir is a little abusive when spell-vamp is good, but he's one of the most noticeable things keeping spell-vamp down.

sungold3 votes

the day they remove the passive ALL the tanks will get a stealth buff, imagine piking your voli or nautilus, zac, shen, cho, sejuani, shyvanna...

Ñielu2lehdus4 votes

I wouldn't call V4.10 a nerf on Blade of the Ruined King. It was more of taking it towards its original purpose. Sure, the active and life steal were hit pretty hard, but BotRK wasn't about them in the first place, it was about the passive on-hit damage.

The passive on-hit damage could be changed to 4% max health from 8% current health. This would lower it's initial burst potential (as it currently deals more damage the more health the target has left).

If Riot wanted to meaningfully rework BotRK, they'd probably get rid of its life steal altogether, which would mean ditching the Bilgewater Cutlass build path. One of Blade of the Ruined King's issues is its versatility.

So back to the roots with something like this:

Phage (1325g) Recurve Bow (900g) Blade of the Ruined King (2800g) (575g) Stats +250 health +25 attack damage +50% attack speed Passive Unique - Rage: Basic attacks grant 20 movement speed for 2 seconds on hit. Minion, monster, and champion kills grant 60 movement speed for 2 seconds. The movement speed bonus is halved for ranged champions.

Unique: Basic attacks deal 4% of target's maximum health in physical damage (60 max vs minions and monsters).

Note: It could be built from Pickaxe and Recurve Bow too. I added Phage cause the item is basic attack based, so it would add some mobility to stick to targets or kite, and the health would add some survivability.

Personally I don't mind about current BotRK too much. I feel it has been taken to the right direction over time.

EnvyDragon4 votes

{quoted}

Let me pick some strong (or, as some call them, OP) champions: Zed -> BotRK Irelia -> BotRK Yasuo -> BotRK Jax -> BotRK Master Yi -> BotRK Tryndamere -> BotRK Rek'Sai (nerfs already on PBE) -> BotRK Vayne -> BotRK Gnar (nerfs already on PBE) -> BotRK Lucian (already nerfed) -> BotRK Vi -> BotRK WW (already nerfed) -> BotRK and so on...

You could do exactly the same with Last Whisper, Statikk Shiv, Infinity Edge, etc.

Cherrypicking popular champions and saying they're broken because they use this item doesn't make any sense. That's like saying Boots of Speed is overpowered because Lee Sin buys them every game.

In V3.03 was Reworked as a counter for hp stacking meta that happend after V1.0.0.152 when Rito reworked Black Cleaver (dat 5xCleaver meta = -125% armor).

For the record, 5cleaver didn't cause -125% armor. -25% was the maximum, no matter how many players had it and no matter how many times you used it - stacking cleavers just made (and still makes) the debuff apply multiple times per hit.

The reason people stacked it was because the flat armor pen wasn't a unique passive. You'd have a Talon who hit you once, took away 25% of your armor, and then subtracted 50 from whatever was left - meaning he was probably doing true damage to anyone non-tanky. Keep in mind that this seemed even stronger than it was because until S3, flat pen applied BEFORE percent reduction.

*These changes make Blade of the Ruined King a more universally useful item for Attack Damage champions and allow it to better fulfill its role in their arsenal as an item to combat **high Health *targets.

Keep in mind that before that point, there was literally no way to combat the health-stacking meta unless you were a mage - and they hadn't tweaked Liandry's into usefulness yet. It wasn't explicitly a niche item, it was designed to combat a build that was bad for game health.

So now we know that BotRK is supposed to be niche, overnerfed (at this point), marksmen item, counter for hp stacking strategy (that happend when Rito nerfed armor by making armor penetration more popular :D) and should be hard countered by armor stacking. However it's still build by so many diffrent champions as first or second item (even if no one builds hp), still is so sucessful on them... Something went wrong Rito :D?

Again, look at boots or Infinity Edge to see why it's stupid to make that argument. BotRK is cool because it gives a little bit of several stats most marksmen and many fighters want - damage, lifesteal, and attack speed. Champions who benefit from a high attack speed or on-hit build (Lucian and Vayne come instantly to mind) love it because it means they can get a bit of that without totally sacrificing damage.

If you get BotRK first, you sacrifice the sheer damage IE would provide (unless the enemy is indeed stacking health, in which case you're just building the item that was deliberately made to counter their strategy). If you get BotRK second, you aren't getting the extra crit that makes you a valuable marksman. If you get BotRK third, you aren't getting the flat damage of Last Whisper or the lifesteal of BT. Every step is a decision. Every decision has costs.

In fact, I'm gonna go back to your original list line by line:

Zed -> Only gets BotRK due to synergy with ult

Irelia, Rek'Sai, Warwick -> Loves on-hit items. And if you think Warwick was overpowered in the era of Skirmisher's+Devourer because of BotRK... then I seriously doubt your critical thinking skills.

Yasuo -> Strong because of his kit, including the double crit (which BotRK provides none of, I should add... I don't even get BotRK on him, it feels wasted)

Jax -> When was the last time Jax was OP?

Master Yi, Tryn -> Pubstompers, have been this way since LONG before BotRK

Vayne, Gnar -> Three-hit proc abilities means a bit of early attack speed goes a long way.

Lucian -> Passive makes on-hit items twice as effective, but is too damage-inclined to go pure on-hit.

Vi -> ...wait, what? Since when does Vi get BotRK?

Sherogarth1 votes

Statikk Shiv and Infinity Edge are in fact items mostly used by adcs (ranged and melee), while botrk is used by AD members of every "class" except mages and supports.

Last Whisper on other side is not build by by on-hit lovers or many attack speed lovers (gnar :D)

Also this items have clear purpose, they give 2 stats and some passive.

Ok, maybe i put it wrong my point was that u alrady have that 100% armor of yours and with black cleaver -125% it's -25% :D.

And thats it, BotRK gives u all u need and nullify threat form tanks and armor/hp stackers as a bonus for you, also with this fancy active: slow, hp steal, nuke this item is just too good. Solo Botrk alows u to outspeed enemies, catch them or run if something goes wrong, win duel by lifesteal or active hp steal, nuke enemy when u need that.

Dont ask me why i saw so many Vis with botrk i dont know xD. (dat EUNE server)

And last note... boots of speed are OP. If not then why every champ build them every game? :D But they are something that everyone is building so they are not op. Imagine if only one champ in game could build boots, they dont take slot in his/her inventory and his/her stats or skills are at the same power level as those of other champs... OP as hell xD.

EnvyDragon1 votes

Statikk Shiv and Infinity Edge are in fact items mostly used by adcs (ranged and melee), while botrk is used by AD members of every "class" except mages and supports.

Tanks don't built BotRK. Assassins usually don't either, with minor exceptions like Zed (who, again, builds it mostly so he can get a bit more multiplicative damage from his ult debuff). So that leaves ADCs, fighters, and a few outliers. It's okay for an item to be primarily focused on two roles - look at Morellonomicon, which you tend to see on pretty much any mana-using AP caster these days.

Last Whisper on other side is not build by by on-hit lovers or many attack speed lovers (gnar :D)

It is when the enemy is stacking armor, if you primarily do physical damage.

Also this items have clear purpose, they give 2 stats and some passive.

BotRK has a pretty broad range of stats, I agree, but it gives VERY LITTLE of each stat considering its cost. Its passive makes it clear when you want to buy it, too - it's there to give you an edge against someone who stacks health. The attack speed, on-hit bonus, and lifesteal together show you that it's an item designed for sustained damage, and the AD it gives is pretty much the bare minimum to make it feel valuable on someone with AD scaling on their abilities.

And thats it, BotRK gives u all u need and nullify threat form tanks and armor/hp stackers as a bonus for you, also with this fancy active: slow, hp steal, nuke this item is just too good. Solo Botrk alows u to outspeed enemies, catch them or run if something goes wrong, win duel by lifesteal or active hp steal, nuke enemy when u need that.

BotRK gives you nothing against armor. If you build Last Whisper or BC on top of that, that's several thousand gold more. It isn't fair at all to say that it gives you "all you need against armor/hp stackers" when armor is in fact a strong counter to it.

Tanks also tend to have a lot of CC. If you've bought BotRK early, you probably don't have the burst potential to lay down the law before you get beat down. The active is there, sure, but if you use BotRK active against a tank, then you can't use it against the next assassin or duelist who tries to face you.

I will say that it seems weird having a long-cooldown nuke on a sustain-damage item, but the speed drain is there to force someone to keep fighting you rather than running away.

And last note... boots of speed are OP. If not then why every champ build them every game? :D But they are something that everyone is building so they are not op. Imagine if only one champ in game could build boots, they dont take slot in his/her inventory and his/her stats or skills are at the same power level as those of other champs... OP as hell xD.

I... don't get the point you're trying to make here.

You're trying to say that everyone builds BotRK because it's OP... but that everyone builds boots which makes them not OP?

Tin Tarantino4 votes

Just bring back leviathan but make it stack up like ROA instead of line SOTO, so that you start out with Tenacity, a bit of health and 5% damage redux, and stack up to a moderate amount of bonus health and 15% redux, now you have a defensive item that counters penetration items but cant be abused via stacking, tanks are back and bruisers would need to sacrifice early damage for it so they don't end up being crazy.

Tin Tarantino1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tin Tarantino,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5Eevyr60,comment-id=000b,timestamp=2015-01-05T21:24:20.576+0000)

Just bring back leviathan but make it stack up like ROA instead of line SOTO, so that you start out with Tenacity, a bit of health and 5% damage redux, and stack up to a moderate amount of bonus health and 15% redux, now you have a defensive item that counters penetration items but cant be abused via stacking, tanks are back and bruisers would need to sacrifice early damage for it so they don't end up being crazy.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/p0bnA43G-all-hail-leviathan-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-botrk

here's a link to the concept

TheKingDodo3 votes

I got botrk on my sona!

AtheosisX2 votes

I support changes that make it a little bit less of a tank hosing item. Right now it's pretty damn ridiculous against tanks. Maybe change the damage to 6% current health and give it +10-15 AD damage so it's still viable in lane for ADCs.

Starlighte2 votes

Yes, and we take BoRK out and suddenly the league of Warmogs is back. Dunno if you were playing in the beginning of season 3, but with all due respect, fuck that noise. I don't ever want to see an ADC build a Warmogs ever again. The game was all sorts of messed up without a reasonably strong BoRK.

If you take issue with the active that's fine, the active is problematic (and is part of the reason that Frozen Mallet is a wasted item slot nowadays) and should be addressed appropriately. That doesn't mean the item itself is a problem.

Sherogarth1 votes

I was playing back then, that why at the end i asked for rework options.

All this "remove BotRK" was to bring more ppl to disscusion and i think it worked.

Also now we have more options to deal with hp stackers (linadry, some champs got % dmg in reworks or were added with some) so i dont see its removal as the ressurection of Warmogs nightmare anymore.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

What if BoRK were reworked to be something like the following:

  • 20 AD
  • 10% LS
  • Passive: Deals 2% (+ 2% per 100 AD) of the target's current Health in bonus physical damage (max 90 damage vs. monsters and minions) on hit.
  • Active (450 cast range, same as live): Creates a tether (550 range) that deals 2% (+ 2% per 100 AD) of target champion's maximum Health as physical damage every second until broken, heals for the same amount.

The idea being:

  1. It's no longer effective as a 1-item wonder on bruisers because you need more AD to be effective.
  2. No longer effective on most assassins because the drain takes time to work, rather than adding burst. Might still be effective on Zed, but that's one edge case.
  3. The active is defensive; it's designed to make a tank like mundo want to back off the adc.
  4. Might make ashe viable.
SouL1ess1 votes

Too little base stats if you are going to keep the price the same. The passive and active concepts seem more reasonable.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

It's just the concept that I'm thinking of. The stats, I think are roughly correct, to give the item the right amount of overall power. The price can be adjusted accordingly.

FalconPawwwwnch1 votes

Lol Jax

Jax is terrible atm

Irelia better in every way

Sherogarth1 votes

Whoa this helps this disscusion a lot, thanks.

Morello do hear that? We need some Irealia nerfs! :D

NorthernDruid1 votes

It's the only item which combines Attack Speed and lifesteal, making it good on champions which benefit more from attack speed than AD (at last early game).

I think at least one soft fix to the popularity of this item would be to add an item which competes with item 3046 and item 3087, giving movespeed, lifesteal, attack speed and crit. If you then give Phantom Dancer an active dash or MS steroid, you've settled PD as the go-to mobility item, SS as the one you go for to diversify your damage/get some extra burst, and the new item for when you really only want more sustain.

If you at the same time lower the lifesteal and attack speed on BotRK (or at least keep them relevantly less than the new item) it's no longer the only go-to item for AS stackers who want lifesteal and who need the extra AS and passive/active from BotRK over the extreme lifesteal and AD from Bloodthirster.

BakugoBestBoy1 votes

Zed: Can Swap Bork for Hydra or BT, people who buy Bork and don't splitpush with Zed, Stupid. Irelia: Generally can't afford Bork unless snowballing, ever. Triforce is much more core. Yasuo: A teamfighting Champ that benefits much more from BT or Hydra Jax: Ok yea, Jax needs Bork and Triforce because you want to be a God Yi: Good Pick on Yi, The slow really helps him Tryndamere: Good Pick on Trynd, The slow really helps him Rek'Sai: Why are you building DPS on a champion with such good burst and AD scaling? Vayne: Vayne is Bork, Bork is Vayne they are one in the same Gnar: Literally good with any single damage item, not limited to Bork Lucian: Much better off with Ghostblade or BT Vi: Again why are you building a melee champion with good burst and AD scaling like they're an ADC? WW: Getting reworked, but good pick on WW

Seems to me like Bork is Niche, it's good for splitpushers who rely mostly on AA's, and frankly crit and armor pen is much better at killing tanks than Bork passive is. So... what did we learn class? Build Bork on late game scaling champs and not people who use abilites! So why rework a nice item that fits a niche? IDK. lol.

Manwad1 votes

What if BoRK worked like this one item in Dawngate. I forgot the name of it, but it was like BoRK, except the % HP was on single target abilities, hit softer and had a cooldown of 6 seconds per use.

I find it silly to make anyone Vayne with their autos.

Minuano1 votes

It's really good on auto-attack based champions for sustained damage and dueling.

Narasimha1 votes

Why on earth are you build BotRk on Vi and Rek'sai?

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

Yeah I don't get Rek; I've always seen Hydra on her.

The Ruined King1 votes

Please don't touch my sword.

Omega3601 votes

They can literally solve that problem by making it so that damage done by items is not affected by armor pen.

For example:

You have a item 3153, and you are attacking someone with armor (I'm lazy and don't want to do math). Now let us assume that armor pen doesn't apply on item effects and that the target you are attacking has 3000 hp and 50% dmg reduction from the armor he has. The item 3153 passive does 8% of the targets hp, so 8% of 3000 is 240 dmg. After this is calculated, then have armor take 50% off that, which is 120 dmg (jk on not doing math). Armor pen doesn't apply in this case, so this would solve the issue of having being shredded by someone who is supposed to kill health-stackers faster as someone who stacks armor, like Rammus.

On the second case of the active on item 3153, you would have the same circumstances as above, except that it would do 10% of your maximum health. Let us assume all that is in the above case. 10% of 3000 would be 300, which would then be reduced by 50%, which would end up doing 150 damage instead.

Don't you agree that this is kind of the problem?? This changed would make armor/magic pen less annoying to deal with because of how a lot of characters get damage from items, like the devourer enchantment on jungle items or the above example.

Also if you are assuming that I am also referring to the other stats that it would give, like ad, then it would only affect unique passives, because if ad you get was mitigated by armor that isn't reduced by armor pen would be kinda weird.

Hope this helps!!

TLDR: Basically make item damage from unique passives not affected by armor or magic penetration. Buffs to items adversely affected may be necessary.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

It feels bad that the current BoRK is both a strong item for killing tanks (via passive) and a go-to item for assassins against squishies (because active). I think BoRK should really be two different items:

  1. An assassin / dive bruiser item with the active
  2. A marksman item with the passive
Leafbell1 votes

I agree with it. BoRtKitem 3153 is too strong. Created for adc, but ireliaIrelia , jax Jax use it. Excellent xD The easiest solution: take strong champs with too strong item and it can kill everything what move itself. Certain assasins haven't any weakness...Fiora ( Fiora should have disabled item: Hydra -.- ).item 3074

AGarner1 votes

I wish they would remove the passive until health stacking actually comes back, I mean who stacks health when you should just build armor (800 health warmogs might as well build two randuins.)

jamieadams91 votes

NO this item is needed to prevent the return of the league of warmogs

ALL HAIL PERCENT DAMAGE item 3153 item 3151

LankPants1 votes

Irelia -> BotRK

Good Irelia's build triforce into straight tank and ignore BotRK.

Gnar (nerfs already on PBE) -> BotRK

Brute into tank.

Lucian (already nerfed) -> BotRK.

IE-SS-LW

Vi -> BotRK

Jungle item and Black Cleaver/Youmuu's

If BotRK is OP or not is debatable but a lot of these champs are very bad examples of BotRK users. Honourable mention to Rek'sai because I don't think she typically uses BotRK I think she prefers a Brute item or a Hydra, but I haven't played against her enough to know for sure.

thotdestroyer691 votes

they should just make it deal extra damage based on bonus hp

SouL1ess1 votes

dat 5xCleaver meta = -125% armor

Oh my God.

Did people NOT understand that the only thing wrong was the flat armor penetration not being unique on BC?

On release, Black Cleaver's passive never reduced more than 30% armor. The stack RATE went up as you buy more black cleavers, not the stack limit.

This has been bothering me for a long while...do people not understand mechanics? You were NEVER able to get -125% armor on anyone with any version of Black Cleaver because the stack LIMIT is always 4 regardless of how many Cleavers you buy.

And BRK just gives everything in one item and is great for anyone that wants to autoattack.

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