Thoughts and Discussion: Soraka

Stacona··9 votes·1,512 views

Do not freak out. Do not assume anything. This post is being made for a greater long term goal in mind and not what is happening in the here and now. Share your own thoughts and give proper feedback that works towards improving Soraka for the future on multiple perspectives.

The cools and not-so-cools with Soraka:

~ Someone that swoops on in and makes clutch heals to save an ally from death.

~ Lack of skill expression is a bad thing. If we improve on this then it should also make her less frustrating to play against, especially in lane.

~ Soraka is super frustrating to play against and turns laning phase into a super passive snooze fest that goes no where. Give Soraka more rewards for being active and interacting with the enemy would give Soraka more to do to have her more exciting to play as and actually be able to be dealt with by the enemy to greatly reduce her frustration levels.

~ Saving an ally across the map is cool, but in the form of an AoE click ultimate (you don't even have to point to make the skill even more brainless) is not so cool. Adjustments to a new ultimate to keep the cool cross-map clutch saves, while incorporating some kind of skill element / thought process to it would smooth out Soraka's balance.

~ Let's really hone into Soraka's battle cleric identity which looking at her kit right now you will never in a million years guess this is what she is supposed to be.


(Numbers are strictly to paint a better picture, they hold absolutely no weight here.)

Basic Attacks: Cleaned up and improved, a lot less wind up time and less floaty Movement: 340 units per second [from 325]

Star Shard (Passive): Range: 550 units; Pick-Up Range: 350 units Whenever Soraka inflicts an enemy champion or epic monster with a basic attack or ability a Star Shard is dropped for the next 60 seconds.

Soraka picks up a Star Shard whenever she gets near it causing it to heal herself and nearby allies for 2(+10%AP) health and permanently granting herself +1% increased heal power.

Champion takedowns grant Soraka 5 Star Shards.

Current Bonus Heal Power: X%

Starcall (Q): Cooldown: 10 seconds; Cost: 45/50/55/60/65 mana; Range: 800 / 600 units; Star Radius: 200 units Passive: Picking up a Star Shard refunds Starcall's cooldown by 10/12.5/15/17.5/20%.

Active: Soraka calls down 5 stars based on her location in a line at the target location, each dealing 40/50/60/70/80(+20%AP) magic damage and slowing by 15% for 1 second, stacking up to 45%. If at least 3 stars hit enemy champions and epic monsters then all nearby Star Shards are called in to Soraka.

Astral Blessing (W): Cooldown: 2 seconds; Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana; Range: 550 / 1100 units Passive: Collecting Star Shards stores them for up to 120 seconds, allowing Astral Blessing to be cast. A Star Shard is created and comes to Soraka every 100/85/70/55/40 seconds [lowers with CDR].

Active: Soraka heals the target allied champion for 23/26/29/32/35(+30%AP) health for every Star Shard consumed. Only a maximum of 5 Star Shards can be consumed at a time.

Casting Astral Blessing against the same target within 10 seconds reduces the healing to 20%.

Equinox (E): Cooldown: 20/17/14/11/8 seconds; Cost: 80 mana; Range: 550 units Soraka creates a zone around her for the next 1.5 seconds to silence enemies within and for the duration causes Soraka to be immune to damage from enemy basic attacks.

After 1.5 seconds, the zone collapses dealing 100/140/180/220/260(+80%AP) magic damage to enemies.

Beam of Wishes (R): Cooldown: 150/130/110 seconds; Cost: 100 mana; Range: Global Soraka blasts a giant healing beam in the target direction healing all units struck, ally and enemy, for 100/150/200(+20%AP) health and brightening them for the next 4 seconds.

Astral Blessing against brightened allies gains a global range and increases the healing by 100%, removing the brightened effect against it afterwards.

Brightened enemies that are damaged by allies are dealt 15/20/25%(+4% per 100AP) maximum health as magic damage and become stunned for 1.25/1.5/1.75 seconds, removing the brightened effect afterwards.


UPDATE:

Astral Blessing: Removed double range against allies below 40% health.

Beam of Wishes: Created another new concept for an ultimate.


30 Comments

TyrekGoldenspear4 votes

Hey! As a Soraka player that's working towards Mastery 6, I would love to talk about this!

The cools and not-so-cools with Soraka:

I agree with most of your list. I love making clutch heals and saving my friends. The skill expression is there however, just not as apparent.

For example, a new Soraka would stay behind the ADC and heal when they get low, probably max W first as well for more heals.

A more experienced Soraka would harrass with Q, and save their heals for when they land Q to get more bang for their mana and health costs.

A new Soraka would stop ganks by throwing a silence right on top of the enemy jungler, no matter who it is.

A more experienced Soraka would foil ganks by throwing down a silence field in front of where they would walk to take advantage of the silence.

A more experienced Soraka would also throw down a silence in a pit to negate a smite steal from an enemy. You get the basic gist so I'll stop there.

You are correct in saying that it is possible to play passive with Soraka, but imo that is a suboptimal way to play her unless you're in a difficult matchup. I play Soraka very aggro, maxing Q and making my opponents dance to avoid stars. But I don't believe that shoving Soraka completely away from playing passive is a good thing. Everybody doesn't want to play a high-octane lane all the time, some people just want to chillax and play peacefully, and I feel we should give them the option.

Now then, onto the kit!

Star Shard (Passive): Range: 550 units Whenever Soraka inflicts an enemy champion or epic monster with a basic attack or ability a Star Shard is dropped for the next 60 seconds.

Soraka picks up a Star Shard whenever she gets near it causing it to heal herself and nearby allies for 3(+15%AP) health and permanently granting herself 3 ability power.

Current Bonus Ability Power: X

I see you want to encourage Soraka to play more actively by giving her bonus heal when she gets a little close to the action. It's already more interesting than her old passive, but I fear that her permanently stacking AP will lead to her building tanky, which is the opposite of what we want. We don't want her to build tanky, she should build squishy to focus her heals and to be a viable target for an assassin.

Star Call (Q): Cooldown: 10 seconds; Cost: 35/40/45/50/55 mana; Range: 1000 / 150 units Passive: Picking up a Star Shard refunds Star Call's cooldown by 50/60/70/80/90%.

Active: Soraka calls down a star to the target location dealing 60/80/100/120/140(+25%AP) magic damage and slowing down by 80% for 1 second.

So this is basically a nerf to Q's damage and utility, but at the same time it lets her get more active heals from her passive, which leads to more Qs, which leads to more passive Star Shards.

I like the old Q better tbh. It slows and gives Soraka a regen buff she can pass on to her allies, meaning she can display skill and mana management by saving her heals for when she lands Q to give her allies a regen and way to escape enemies. The Q and W interaction is meant to increase her interaction in lane, and imo it works fine for what it is.

Astral Blessing (W): Cooldown: 2 seconds; Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana; Range: 550 / 1100 units Passive: Collecting Star Shards stores them for up to 300 seconds, allowing Astral Blessing to be cast. A Star Shard is created and comes to Soraka every 140/120/100/80/60 seconds.

Active: Soraka heals the target allied champion for 12/14/16/18/20(+12%AP) health for every Star Shard consumed. This cast range doubles against allies below 40% health. Only a maximum of 10 Star Shards can be consumed at a time.

Woah who turned Azir into a support? Overloaded jokes aside, this is a very cluttered ability for when you just want to heal. If the cooldown is only 2 seconds like you suggest, then constant Q's will create more shards which creates heals faster than current Soraka, which can be problematic. But if the heals are too small, then it's worthless and a mana sink, like Taric's heal.

I think you made this ability to complex in the name of interaction.

Equinox (E): Cooldown: 20/18/16/14/12 seconds; Cost: 70 mana; Range: 550 units Soraka creates a zone around her for the next 1.5 seconds to silence and blind enemies within.

After 1.5 seconds, the zone collapses bringing all nearby Star Shards to her location and dealing 120/160/200/240/280(+50%AP) magic damage to enemies.

Hmm. This looks like a smaller Amumu ult, and already I don't like it. The fact that it silences and roots at the same time will shut down anybody that comes near with no counterplay. This doesn't really display skill like her current E either. With this one:

If you get close, I hit E and disable you for 1 and a half seconds with no way for you to react.

Equinox (E): Cooldown: 20/18/16/14/12 seconds; Cost: 70 mana; Range: 550 units Soraka creates a zone around her for the next 1.5 seconds to silence and blind enemies within.

After 1.5 seconds, the zone collapses bringing all nearby Star Shards to her location and dealing 120/160/200/240/280(+50%AP) magic damage to enemies.

This certainly looks fun to use, but I think this will hurt more than help her. If you blast all the way to top lane for example, what's going to stop the enemy bot lane from shoving in and crushing your lone adc and taking tower? I certainly wouldn't want her global presence to be mitigated by the fact that she can only heal people around her and she has to be somewhat near to help you out.

Overall, I like to give this a 7/10 for effort, but this doesn't feel like how Soraka should play to me. The Star Shard interaction seems like it makes her abilities needlessly complex for what basically amounts to machine-gun healing at best, and pitiful potion level healing at worst. Her E becomes useless unless she throws herself into the enemy team, forcing her to build tanky, in addition to her passive and ult wanting her to get waaay to close to the action for a healer imo. I don't know if you intended for her to build tanky, but if this kit was implemented today, I would play her tanky and spam them Q's to get stacks like Veigar, and eventually I will heal for a ton while being really tanky and hard to kill. And if you dare come close, I say LOL and hit E to make you free food for my team.

Stacona1 votes

My Astral Blessing's cooldown is a false cooldown, the true cooldown is collecting Star Shards, also it is pretty simple since it is just a point and click heal and gives a free Star Shard every so often.

That old Wish was you can go to an ally and if you want can cast it again to return to her old location.

LostFr0st2 votes

One cannot discuss Soraka while leaving out the new item 3083 . It's actually disgusting.

Stacona1 votes

Well I removed health costs in an attempt to give ideas to balance her without the need of health mitigation (which the health cost made her even more passive, so its better to remove it and stick with a mini-game to make it more fun to play a support [I like the mini games as support, Bard is fun for this reason and the new gold item quests, support Veigar also has a mini game as well]) and simply mitigate Soraka with mana costs.

LostFr0st1 votes

I think her health costs make her more fair though. Her Q minigame also forces her to get into the thick, but Warmogs removes that interaction mid/late-game which is where the problem lies with Soraka.

Also, Soraka players don't really seem the type to enjoy minigames. They've completely changed their starting item to Spellthief's to avoid said minigame. Forcing them into it won't make them any happier, it'll just make them have to bait themselves for the stars.

Regarding the above kit specifically, it would be a very heavy shift to her playstyle. The passive and E suggest she should remain in the front/mid-line, but her W and R make her more of a jungler/roamer than anything else which is a heavy shift from the Raka playstyle.

Sidenote: the E is too powerful; as is the Q slow. I'd play the above iteration as an AP offtank laner or jungler, not a support.

Interested in what others will post though.

Stacona1 votes

Bard, Thresh, and support Veigar are fun giving them something to work towards; I don't play Thresh however.

Her E is already an area silence, just less range and follow Soraka instead to make her play in front of her backline rather than miles behind them spamming heals; I added a blind to it so that she doesn't need to build tank, she can walk up and be aggressive with it. Her passive will have a short range to the pick up rather than having to walk over them, E detonation will vacuum them up at her basic attack range.

Q slow is a very low duration, but at max rank can essentially perma-slow them when being aggressive and picking up your Star Shards, kind of like Olaf Qs except harder to land since it isn't a line skill shot, only a placement skill shot raining down the star.

For the ultimate to make sense as a support, there is an 8 seconds window where you can return to your previous location to not completely abandon your duo-laner, the initial cast is near-instant with a travel time and the return is just an instant teleport back.

LostFr0st1 votes

Let me put it a different way.

If someone builds her tank, they will get far more mileage out of the new Q and E. It's similar to release Ekko; supposed to build AP, but way better in practice when he could build tank and keep spamming the slows and stuns.

Live E currently has a range and isn't around Soraka so that she doesn't need to sit beside the Katarina/Talon to stop them. If she needs to sit beside them, she will need to build offtank at least. With the permaslow Q, she will want to use it as much as possible, so staying alive longer with resists is good there too.

Yeah, I do see where it makes sense as a support, but I think this champ would do really good in a lane to get gold. Top lane would be ideal, since she can abuse the lane matchups and get her items faster so she can better help her team, and there would be only one person to attack her/for her to zone off when she goes in to vacuum up the stars.

Stacona1 votes

I made changes to my ideas.

Q is a 5 mini nukes short range skill shot, but can be placed anywhere within a longer range to Soraka, so she can play at more of a distance for a sudo-passive element (but still performing an action) if she lands the skill shots, if she can land all 5 on champions/epic monsters (meaningful targets) she vacuums all the Star Shards currently in play to her instead of walking to them, more useful in teamfights, but you can get 5 stars to land on two champions at just the right angle with the two champions space apart accordingly, mostly it helps gather star shards for teamfights. Q also no longer slows, decided I like her being a dedicated healer and not double with CC, that can be Nami's job and Soraka just over does it with heals instead and with a silence for she can still disrupt.

E I removed the blind and just made Soraka immune to basic attack damage for the duration (just damage, so can still get stunned for TF and Leona for example), most effective being full squishy / AP acting as a sudo self shield, encourages to play aggressively.

Passive I changed to a heal power increase (like shield and heal power, but only amps heals, stacks additive with shield/heal power), instead of ability power so the base values can not be so high and ratios a bit higher, this also makes the ap ratios on her heals scale insanely well with AP allowing for even weaker base heals to better discourage tank Soraka.

LostFr0st1 votes

I'd be interested in knowing what the cast/skillshot for the new Q looks like. Are there any similar casts in the game yet?

if she can land all 5 on champions/epic monsters (meaningful targets) she vacuums all the Star Shards currently in play to her instead of walking to them [...]

I don't think you need to make it an "all 5 hit or nothing;" that will make her too unreliable in higher skill brackets and will punish her very hard if the opponents just juke 1.

Q also no longer slows

It doesn't need to be 90% slow or 0%. You can go between the two. Part of what gets/allows Soraka to be aggressive in lane is the landing of Q giving a slow and allowing Soraka to disengage and the AD to follow-up. Without it, it's not as satisfying to use.

In addition, the slow gives her a way to initiate and respond to a trade without using her long cooldown and high mana cost E.

E I removed the blind and just made Soraka immune to basic attack damage for the duration (just damage, so can still get stunned for TF and Leona for example), most effective being full squishy / AP acting as a sudo self shield, encourages to play aggressively.

^This made me laugh so hard XD. I just pictured a Soraka running full-tilt into a Vayne. With Vayne having no way to kill her for the duration of the E. I know it's not realistic and I do appreciate the changes; it's still funny to me though.

Passive I changed to a heal power increase (like shield and heal power, but only amps heals, stacks additive with shield/heal power), instead of ability power so the base values can not be so high and ratios a bit higher, this also makes the ap ratios on her heals scale insanely well with AP allowing for even weaker base heals to better discourage tank Soraka.

Interesting shift; I appreciate that tweak.

Stacona1 votes

it be a mix of yorick E (unless his E is the trap, i can't remember) and viktor E except they can only move away from Soraka The Q is not all or nothing, you are just heavily rewarded for using the Q optimally, but they still grant Star Shards for land a portion of the ability on champions. For how powerful the vacuum would be sucking up the star shards it should have the appropriate level of skill requirement, in teamfights it would be really easy to pull off so it ends up mostly just a lane mitigation tool to not make Soraka ridiculous.

Maybe something else on the Q could be good.

LostFr0st1 votes

If it's like Viktor E that wouldn't be so bad. Was worried it was something like Veigar stun :P

I stand by thinking 100% star pickup being OP, especially if it's for landing on 5 only. It needlessly puts a chasm between 4 and 5.

Perhaps Q always picks up shards already on the ground but doesn't pick up new ones? So Soraka has to chose between getting more or picking them up (unless the enemies stand in one place but that's their problem).

Heroquet1 votes

I don't feel the appeal of warmog on her.

I get you'll regen so you can perma heal, yeah. Has to be super useful in sieges, but I almost never find myself in an extended siege situation (solo queueeeeeee... + burst meta, assassins & divers all the way).

But in teamfights? I'd better stack all +% heal / shield on her so i burst heal for more to keep people alive. You'll use R and you'll get a huge fuel refill regardless of what happens in the fight.

I guess the build is sigtstone > redemption. From here, you can either grab warmog for fountain statut, or censor (AP + 10% boost + passive) / mikael (+20% heals) to boost your burst like crazy.

Sioxor2 votes

I read your post thoroughly and I like the concepts of this new version of Soraka that you have proposed but as a support main I truly believe that Soraka is balanced the way she is and here is why:

  1. Soraka is a healing passive support and although she makes the lane dull and passive, focusing her in lane shuts her down as well as taking ignite.

  2. Soraka's kit is balanced in the way that her heal costs health. You can heal your team all you want but if you keep doing that you basically kill yourself so you need to be smart about it in team fights.

  3. You are a target with no escape. If a team has a Soraka, that is the main focus of the team fight for the other team because if not then you will lose the fight. (most of the time but not always)

Believe it or not Soraka takes a lot of skill in team fights because of how active you need to be with your abilities while maintaining actives that you purchase from the store, along with your own health bar. I love your innovation and I think it would be a good idea to try in PBE but I like the Soraka we have.

Stacona1 votes

Soraka was never supposed to be a passive champion, she was always meant to be a battle cleric super healer, so clearly she needs a rework since this has missed the mark immensely and went in the completely opposite direction.

Health cost healing isn't a proper way to balance Soraka and is the thing that makes her play so passively, so better to stick with mana and come up with something else to balance the heal.

Easier said than done, this also creates the frustrations of playing against Soraka, plus she has no reason to build squishy right now and just go tank soraka with warmogs. It is better to have the dedicated healer to play up close for a pvp game like League, in a MMO it may be different since its PVE, but for League there needs to feel like there is some kind of counter play and a realistic way to kill the healer.


To say Soraka is "balanced" right now is questionable, but you can never say definitively that she is balanced.

Does Soraka have issues that needs to be addressed? Absolutely she does, especially to improve playing against her, but we can also make her a little more fun to play as to get more players playing an immobile healer / support.


Balanced when it comes to Soraka is this, if players do not feel like they want to kill themselves when against a Soraka she is in a decent spot for the game, this isn't the case right now. It is not a matter of what she has or what she does, it is more-so of how she does things and how she gets played is her problem and why she is never fun to play against.

LadyRenly2 votes

i like having a drunk you can play champ with. I don't think she needs to be flashy like Rakan.

I would like to see hp soraka die in place of ap raka, I'd rather see fat heals over an endless amount.

Soraka's not even that bad. Sure, she requires you to change how you play a little, but nowhere near as bad as Blitz.

Sexy Jack Rabbit1 votes

Instead of making her Q a lame 1 skillshot. Why not make it a line down in front of her that fire 3 stars in a line? The closest landing the quickest and the furthest landing the slowest. That way the ability might feel more cinematic.

I like the new passive, but I don't think W not consuming health would ever happen. It's pretty thematic to her character at this point. Lastly I don't really know where an infinitely stacking passive works with Soraka though.

I don't want a worse version of Shen Ult for Soraka. I don't like the ult, the current one is pretty iconic and works really well. It doesn't have gameplay health issues, and actually adds to her skill cap somewhat (Knowing when to ult is important), It's probably the one part of her kit I would never change. Maybe lowering the base heal and putting more dependence into stars would be interesting though, and make people think more when using it.

Stacona1 votes

Her heal doesn't need a health cost at all, collecting Star Shards is a better mechanic for her heal to balance it out to give Soraka something to do and have her actually interact with the enemy, the health cost makes Soraka play even more passively so might as well remove it for real gameplay and something that feels rewarding and fun for the player all at the same time.

My changed Wish may not be correct, but I definitely would change it to how it is now to have it feel more skillful - I will come up with a new idea.

For Starcall bringing the heal cap to consuming 5 star shards instead of 10, with more emphasis on ap ratio than base heal, and have Starcall bring down 5 stars in a line at the target location (so a line skill shot that doesn't start at soraka's location all the time, kind of like how Yorick's e works) would add synergy to star collecting and the heal since if all 5 stars hit champions then you get 5 star shards from 1 Q.

option paralysis1 votes

I loved the old Soraka, took me quite a while to get used to the new one. Your ideas are cool, but I don't think riot will ever do something like that, at least not in the near future. We can talk all we want, but I think riot will leave her in the dust, unless she becomes overwhelming again. You saw what they did when she got a bit popular again, literally DOUBLED the cd on her W lvl 1. LOL That's a sign of hate.

I think her Q and E needs bigger changes if we're looking into a bigger rework. W can be like on the old Soraka, higher cd but with no healt cost. R should stay the same. But as someone said, I'd play her in solo lanes without health cost, and meaning others would too, so she'd become toxic to play against again and the cycle repeats.

Stacona1 votes

Riot is planning to do another rework on Soraka. Also W cannot be self-cast still, and this concept rewards Soraka for hitting champions and not minions so support would 100% be better than anywhere else. Soraka mid I am perfectly fine with, but this concept kit doesn't make it very good at all.

Also Soraka doesn't need health costs at all, that was a panic decision that wasn't thought out at all and Riot realizes now that mana mitigation and/or some mini-game mechanic would be the better thing to do to balance the heal out.

LostFr0st1 votes

Riot is planning to do another rework on Soraka.

Wait, what?

Moonfall Saber1 votes

I actually like a lot the star shard mini game you came up with. However I don't think it should give ability power.

Stacona1 votes

Ability power makes it so we can tone back her early game / early game heals and still be powerful in the late game since we can tune the damage ratios to be low to ensure is more about being a healer and not a damage dealer. The reward needs to be something the player wants to acquire, otherwise it discourages them from participating into the mini-game, plus again the ability power makes it easier to tune Soraka for the early to mid to late game power.

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

Drop the health cost. Lop .25sec off her E detonate. Work her heal back into a CD gate, not a health gate. The problem is that Soraka's not terribly punished for leaning into a gross health build. She needs more incentive (and reward) for crunching AP.

It's just the health gate, man. It's completely unique to her and completely unnecessary. They'd literally accomplish the same by just making it gated by CD; old Soraka had no latent cooldown reductions on her buffs so she relied a lot on itemizing into it. It was a pretty solid system I thought?

Stacona1 votes

I originally was just going to do no cooldown and star shard mitigation for the heal, but I liked the thought having the W as a one time super heal every so often and have her passive being the micro healing every time she picks up a Star Shard. So Soraka can burst heal one time to save allies and when playing aggressively does a bunch of micro healing constantly for herself (since she is being aggressively can self heal) and for her allies.

The problem with the health cost for the heal is that is makes Soraka being more passive, I rather have the health cost be about taking champion damage than Soraka damage herself because this way it makes Soraka mortal since the enemy can actually get to her, also reducing her mobility helps too - she doesn't need the movement speed passive and all it did was increase the game's mobility creep further.

Baka Red1 votes

Since global ultimate without even having to target anything isn't really that beautiful, here is a wild idea (no numbers of any kind - idea will have to suffice) Disclaimer: This is a wild idea with pretty much no thought given to it before seeing this thread maybe half an hour ago.

Soraka Star Beam-u (R) Soraka calls a beam of healing light from the stars! The beam travels from point A to point B similar to Victor Laser, except with global range, wider hit box and slower movement. The beam is like a satellite laser, except it constantly heals allies at some rate and looks shiny to the enemies. The beam moves at a speed depending on the distance between points A and B - the longer the distance, the slower the laser moves. Cooldown of the ultimate begins only once the star beam has reached point B. The beam location and direction indicator would be visible only to the allied team on minimap. Both teams would have to use their vision to see the actual effect.

Options Healing effectiveness could be dependant on the speed of the beam. Faster beam would be less powerful than slower moving beam. Maybe. Healing area could be dependant on the speed of the beam. Maybe it could grow wider while it travels. It might cause some light debuff on enemies like 10% slow. Warwick (ally or enemy) might start howling at it, revealing him for as long as he remains in the beam. ;)

Scenarios Well timed slow moving beam could give a big bonus to an objective. Badly timed or aimed it would be as useless as my Ezreal ults. Quicker beam would be useful for less anticipated combat and could be used more often.

Limitations The spell would need some of course; for example how far point A and B can be from each other - unlimited does sound fun though, but .. well, balancing is for someone else to do. :)

I have rambled enough about this wild idea. Feel free to take the useful parts of the idea and use it, or forget ever seeing this if you wish. mutters now how about a Karthus Death Beam as ultimate...

Friendly Ram1 votes

i like the latest change to goat mom so i'm against the proposed changes.

bICdIK ro1 votes

[deleted]

Stacona1 votes

Janna is worse than Soraka to play against, this is about Soraka though.

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