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Guide So many classes, what will you choose? (Class picking guide)

Discussion in 'Annihilation' started by Bakbagel, May 23, 2014.

Guide - So many classes, what will you choose? (Class picking guide)
  1. Bakubagel Platinum

    XP:
    8,552xp
    Whilst there are many guides to picking classes floating around, most judge the classes by their cover, and barely even play them before stamping "USELESS" and going back to Warrior or whatever else requires as little thought as possable. As a result, I present to you a guide all built from personal experience (as I own every class).

    Bakugoneman's Impartial Guide to Classes!

    (As opposed to some guides out there, eyes officialn00b)
    Now, let's get picking!
    Tip: This is very long, so hit Ctrl + F and then search through it for whatever class you're interested in, or if you just wanto browse through em all, get readin'.

    Succubus:

    A very underrated class, instantly killing people at 40% HP and absorbing their health to keep fighting is a invaluable skill, however, it has a high learning curve, and the two minute cooldown on it really stings. Don't let that stop you however, as it is very useful to catch bow-spamming players, and regain whatever damage they would'ave dealt to you (It has a range of 3-4 blocks) and stopping fights dead in their tracks (It's a lot easier to drain people than to hit them) when someone is hard to hit, merely drain, you do not have to hold the Rose Red (It only tells you the cooldown remaining, or if it's ready), you can drain people with anything, thus making for some fun melon kills, you can also use it to drain leathers for 1 dose of free HP per raid, which is extremely valuable when you dont have regen pots, people argue Vampire is better, but Succubus has a guarenteed quick heal of up to 4 hearts whenever you need it, though Vampire gets more health in the long-run, as it lacks cooldown. Another unintended use of this class is that it's very good for catching regen cheaters, as you can hit them then attempt to drain to check their HP (If they are above 40% health and you attempt to drain them, it will allow you to see what health they had left in a message, along with hurting you for the exact ammount of health they had remaining) , allowing for you to report players you hear might be regen cheating and be absolutely sure of it, so that you don't waste admin's time.

    Engineer:

    Let's take a look at Engineer from a standpoint of it's own class.
    Whilst i'm sure this class will be buffed since it can be achieved with any other class, it does have it's uses currently.
    Free redstone materials, (Invaluable if you really know what you're doing)
    Free stone sword to defend yourself while setting up traps
    You can always /kill to get more resources and keep building traps.

    Overall, if you wanto get in on it early and use it to it's fullest extent until the buff comes, then it's still useful, however, if it's your first class/you want a exciting and fun class, I woulden't reccomend it.

    Thor:

    The lightning is an extremely useful weapon, free damage in fights, only 2 hearts of damage, but 2 earts of TRUE damage, that cannot be blocked or negated by anything, striking in a crowded area can cause massive damage and help greatly in your fight, untop of that, it's instant and never misses, it allows you to swiftly gain the upper hand in the fight without having to draw back a bow for midrange, and remember, it strikes everyone nearby, no limit, it allows you to scare away people in large groups, strike strafing low HP scouts, and catch runners with no chance of missing them (And you dont slow yourself down to do it), and of course catch those cowardly strength rushers attempting to flee from your base after the kill, or if they give up. This class is very difficult to use (The main downside being the lengthy two-minute cooldown on the strike), but it is a lot of fun and very useful for helping fend off Strength rushes if you can get it right! What's more fun that raining divine judgement on your foes?

    Farmer:

    Despite the seemingly boring/useless perks, it's actually an extremely useful class. The Saturation on foods is very useful in PvP situations, allowing strength rushers to tank a ton more hits thanks to better foods instead of being stuck with merely melons.
    And untop of an already decent ability, Farmer gets a lot of useful items for creating this food, which is useful in itself, ores, XP bottles, books, overall, it's a very good support class, however, the problem with it, is it's as simple as mashing grass and growing crops, it's useful, but it's not exactly fun, if you wanto play a nice little support role and screw around, it's a good class for you, but unless spamming click to break tall-grass and crops is your view of fun, then it's not going to be exciting.

    BloodMage:

    Underated. One word that describes this class, it is VERY useful for professional strafers and the extra true damage is amazing if you can use it right, nothing is more dangerous on the field than a skilled BloodMage, knowing when to leave it on and when to turn it off is a crucial skill for sacrificing, as you don't always wanto be hurting yourself! This class is especially good on defense, allowing you to almost counter strength provided you aren't too hugely outnumbered, and even then, you can usually take one down with you or leave them all at low HP for your teammates to easily deal with, (Or yourself when you respawn), to top off an already amazing class, you gain back one heart of health after every kill, making you extremely dangerous on strength rushes, giving you 1/2 a heart back for every leather you kill, providing you one-hit them, however, you will need another person to retreat behind in order to eat, and a fast miner, as you can tank, but you're hurting yourself trying to, so should you get too low, you'll kill yourself before you can regain enough health.

    Vampire:

    Oh, vampire, how I do love thee.
    You can regen 1/2-1 heart per hit (30% chance) upon hitting a player, which makes you extremely hard to kill if you strafe and combo people (Or at least a lot tougher), if it gives you an idea of how powerful this class is, in full diamond/iron with diamond sword, you can kill the either boss Golem on your own, taking them from full HP to zero in melee and come out with full health if you're good at it, however, to balance this out, the 30% chance is relatively low, meening it's all a gamble, a useful tip is running out of fights to punch animals and use them to regain your lost health, sneak attacks at low health is, in fact, a better strategy than hiding out for health regen for Vampires, provided there's no animals nearby, it allows you to quickly regenerate your health, if needed, you can merely retreat after they attempt to fight. You also spawn with a 8 minute potion of Night Vision, allowing you to get straight into rushing during the night.

    Lumberjack:

    Want wood? Need wood? This class will fulfill all your wood-loving dreams.
    Really wish it was unlockable, but hey, x2 wood is amazing for building defenses on the go, sturdy bases anywhere you want, with high efficiency gold axes and any source of wood around, a Lumberjack can set up huge bases in a matter of minutes, the axe it spawns with is also extremely useful for chopping off things like the tower bridges on Coastal. The ammount of resources you get for quickly building is invaluable, it's a really, really good class for defending. Did I mention wood?

    Whilst builder gets immediate building materials, Lumberjack gets much more in the longrun, it's a very useful class if you wanto play support/defense!
    Wood wood wood wood wood!
    WOOD!


    Builder:

    Every 3 minutes, you can open a book called "ResourceDrop" as if it's a chest, it contains random ammounts of wood, smooth stone, clay bricks, and XP bottles, sometimes very few, sometimes quite a lot, XP Bottles usually come in groups of 7 or under, never seen it go higher than that, but it's not specifically listed anywheres and I can't tell what the max is myself. You also gain a few bars of XP every time you place 8-10 blocks, allowing you to rack up level 30 from building a few bases, including the XP bottles within your drop.

    It's a very usefull class for building quick and small defenses instantly, it's kind of a counterpart to Lumberjack, this gets smaller ammounts of resources faster, Lumberjack gets more but slightly slower, since you can gather large ammounts of wood with Lumberjack, Builder gets less, but it gets it instantly, the downside being it can only be activated every 3 minutes.
    Great for support and defense, obviously.

    Defender:

    Like defending? Defender is probably for you!
    You get one level of XP per kill in defense of the nexus, and regen I infinitely while around it, plus rainbow particals! Who doesn't want rainbow particals!

    You spawn with a shovel to get a bow for defending quite quickly, mostly useful on maps where you can shoot strength rushers effectively (Kingdoms, Coastal, and Canyons are the most effective ones)
    It basically takes one potion off your defense list if you wanto defend hardcore, it's also very useful for gaining the upper hand while fighting leather-rushers, if you're only in spawn-gear yourself, it also allows for you to withstand quite the beating from TP rushes, it is also the only class that spawns with different armor from the others, having a Chain Chestplate on spawn.

    The regen I lasts 5 seconds, but renews every 5 seconds as long as you're near the nexus, so it will take 5 seconds to start once you've went into the nexus area, this is to prevent you from leaving the nexus with the regen and abusing the class for things besides Defending.

    During TP rushes you can really rack up the levels, 30 leathers = 30 levels.

    IceMan:

    It's a whale! It's a shark! No, it's Ice-Man!
    Skating around maps such as Coastal and Andorra is extremely useful when you don't wanto run the risk of being bow'd to death, it also allows you to drown tough opponents as long as you can keep them under the ice, but be careful, once you dunk into the water to get the gear from your fresh kill, you will be unable to start the platform up again until you get unto land, you also have a approximate (It is not specified, and I coulden't get a answer from admins) 25% chance of inflicting Slowness on your enemies on hit, for 5-10 seconds.

    It also allows you to transport your teammates over the water aswell, providing safe bridges, another useful tactic is bringing a Scorpio along with you in watery maps to pull people in, knock them off the ice platform, pull in, knock off, and keep them unable to properly hit you.

    A very useful class, however, it is map-based, even if it is quite fun to freeze your enemies over and prevent their escape with the slowness effect.

    Tinkerer:

    Again, underated!
    You spawn with 2 blocks, one coal and one redstone, the redstone one being a speed PowerPad, and the coal one being a Haste PowerPad, each gives it's respective buff for 40 seconds, and this class is the only way to obtain or give anyone the Haste potion effect currently, these pads will last until you die and give you 1 bar of XP per person who steps on them, so 2 bars per person who steps on both, it's good to just leave them at our base/infront of a TP and rack up the XP while you do other things, not much to it, but it's a very useful class for support, extremely, in fact.
    Another use is to leave your pads infront of launchers at the end of skybridges on maps such as Skylands, allowing the players launched down to both get to the nexus faster and mine it faster, a good way to do it is to set the speed at the base of the bridge and the haste before the launcher, allowing them to reach the end faster and then mine faster once they get there.

    You can also leave them in mines early-game to allow the resource collecters to gain their supplies more quickly and your team will have tougher full-iron players early than other teams.
    Another thing to mention is that the pressure plates automatically go untop of the blocks after they are placed, and your powerpads cannot be teamgriefed as they return to your inventory the second they are destroyed.

    Transporter:

    This class is mis-used and beat on a lot more than it should be.
    People tend to live to TP people, that's not how you play Transporter effectively, it's a very flexible and interesting class, my saying on things like this is "Wrap your perk around your playstyle, not your playstyle around your perk."
    Think of it this way: There are four basic uses of Transporter, i'll name them "Combat-TP", "Briefcase fulla backup", "The plan B", and "Basic Transporting"

    Combat-TP: Leave your transporter on the ground during a fight or someplace you think you will have a fight at, mid-fight, place your transporter on the ground and use it to warp behind your enemy and gain a few free hits, then warp back if he hasen't broken your TPs, break them, rinse and repeat if you feel it is needed, this is very difficult to pull off, but is a unique way to combat with this class, which is otherwise a support class.

    Briefcase fulla backup: Leave a TP labled whatever you like at your base, make sure it's visible, and just think of your transporter like carrying your team in a briefcase, if you need backup raiding or going into a fight in the Canyons, or something like that, just place it down and ask for help, simple as that. One man is easier to sneak in than an army in a raiding situation, keep that in mind.

    The plan B: Leave your TP at your base or a secret area, if you need a quick escape, put down TP, warp, break, this also allows you to keep a underground storage area with no entrance and acess it to store extra gear, as you can keep one-time warps to it when you need to, it's a great way to save your gear and prevent the enemy from getting it, much more reliable get-away than scout or acrobat.

    Basic transproter: Leave your TP at base, put it somewhere else your teammates need to be, forget about it, simple as that, it allows you to keep a link between to areas of the battlefield to keep a continual flow of teammates into it and save tons of time is a very useful strategy for capturing key game areas such as mid or the bossmobs, untop of allowing a quick escape for your teammates should a player with Strength raid your midbase or the boss areas.

    Spy:

    Oh, spy, oh spy, one of the least under-rated yet still under-rated classes around, whilst it is under-rated, it's less so than most, to put it plain and simple, you can easily kill people that you hide from with a whopping 25% damage bonus when attacking from behind, on a day-vampire this meens you'll be doing 50% more damage at most, it also allows you to COMPLETELY hide from anyone after you, a very good strategy is rounding corners/sprinting through gaps then vanishing and letting people go right by before making your escape. Bypassing rushes or hiding from the strengthers that come out of your nexus if you fail to defend, it's a great class for surviving and getting the jump on people, remember this class isn't "Free stealth take a few stealths", it just assists you, most of the time if you're spotted, you can just vanish and let people go right by you then stab them, also allows you to break a nexus, hide, then break again, you can usually do this a few times before a team will notice something is up, you can also use it to single out players from a group, kill them, then vanish and sort through the loot, bothing hiding yourself from his team and allowing you to stab any soul unfortunate enough to attempt to collect the loot of the fallen. It has a 5 second warm-up time after sneaking, but once you're vanished, until you move, unsneak, or right-click a block/fire a bow/hit someone, you will be completely invisible,no particals, and, in fact, it hides any particals from any potion you may have on you, it's exactly the same as the /vanish command, even hiding you from the server list.

    Acrobat:

    You take absolutely no falldamage from anything, so fear nothing when it comes to heights.
    Attempting to jump again mid-air will engage a Double Jump, which will lift you 5 blocks into the air at max, and it can be used as a lunge foward and over opponents, if you're a good shot, you can also shoot mid-air and bring yourself out of reach just long enough to get some free damage, you also spawn with a bow and 6 arrows, allowing you to have a ranged advantage at the start of the round. The cooldown on the doublejump is 10 seconds, which isn't much, for the advantage it can give you in a fight and the mobility it provides.

    Another use of Acrobat is jumping into the void then using it to wrap around walls with the jump, a very sneaky tactic to bypass defenses without being noticed, it's also a very effective class for defense on the Andorra map, allowing you to jump to the side towers in order to break TPs, being a mobility class, it allows for easy TP breaking anywhere, Andorra is just my personal favourite use of it. (Jumping out the window from the nexus room allows you to get straight to the side towers without hitting the ground, break the TP, then jump off with no falldamage)

    Pyro:

    Another under-rated class which doesn't deserve the 'omg useless' it gets, you can deal 1/2 hearts or 1 heart through fire with any weapon, this allows lighting people up for easy damage with your spawn-kit, and practically blinding them provided they dont have a low-fire texturepack, you are also completely immune to all fire damage, which is insanely useful in a fight where someone would normally burn your health down with a flame-bow or hit with flamesword then retreat, the fire immunity really is amazing, and you also knock people away a bit further than usual when the fire activates, allowing you to burn people's HP off as they try to close the gap once more, so even once you've gained a fire aspect sword, this class is still very useful, a good combination of weapons is this and Firwen or Celariel's Greatsword of Venom, it allows you to have constant damage through both Fire and Poison, really lowering people's health as you strafe/if they try to run, it also allows effective use of Firwen or Celariel's Greatsword of Embers, which would normally burn you aswell, however, with Pyro, you are immune to it, allowing you to burn groups when outnumbered without the normal downside of the sword. Another great perk is that, every single bow that a Pyro fires is lit up, even plain bows will have fire on it, no chance of activation, all fire, besides an already amazing class if you really like burning stuff, you get a blaze charge named 'Fire Storm', which is an AOE fire attack that lights all enemies in it's radius on fire, with a relatively small cooldown of 40 seconds.
    You spawn with a health pot just like warrior, so it's extremely useful for early-game rushing to capture mid as early as possible.
    Scorpio:

    Spawns with a nether star called "Hook", upon right-clicking, it'll be thrown in a rather large arc similar to a half-charged arrow, if it hits nothing, it will dissapear after a few seconds, if it hits an enemy player, that player will be teleported to and slightly above you instantly, as long as there's room for that player to go there without it becoming stuck in a block, if it hits a teammate, you will be flung towards that teammate. Another feature is that any player pulled by a scorpio gains 10 seconds of fall damage resistance, so you can't just dump people off high areas for instant kills.

    It's a very useful and balanced class, practical, but nothing special. The only reason it gets that is that people get angry when a scorpio hooks them back after they attempt to run, and is able to steal their precious gear, the class is very useful if you practice up aiming the hook, allowing you to reel in those pesky scouts that try to get away and steal your glory, a very useful strategy me and Kabagel figured out is "Support scorpio", one person is Archer or another ranged class/a class that's useful with a bow, gets a bow, and shoots the enemies while the Scorpio flings itself off the shooting player getting into the combat and keeping the enemies away from the player providing ranged support, once the scorpio is low on health, he can grapple back to the shooting player and take cover while said player picks off the remaining enemies.

    Very useful class if you want something for action and straight up PvP.
    Berserker:

    You start each life with 9 hearts (1 less than the normal 10 that other players have), however, for each kill you get, you obtain 1 extra heart, it's a full heart, not absorption, and will regen again once it is depleted, you can gain a maximum of 13 hearts (3 more than the normal), allowing you to tank hits like crazy, untop of that, once you are at 25% HP or under, you gain a 40-45% (Estimated) damage bonus, it's very useful for tanking the hits for your teammates and obliterating players that manage to bring you down enough to almost kill you, however, this works against you for players playing Succubus, as they will know you are weak and able to be killed in one shot from their drain, since once you are under 25% HP, you begin spewing flame particals, which would normally help by scaring some enemies off. This class is best used with backup, allowing you to take the hits while other classes deal them out, even if it's still very useful for overcoming the odds when outnumbered on your own. There's not really much to say about the class, it's one of the simpler ones around, just tank and smash people to bits when you get low, the only unique strategy I could think of is intentionally keeping your HP low once you've reached enough hearts for it to be effective, just to keep your damage bonus up, a dangerous gamble, but an effective one.
    Enchanter:

    A very simple class, not much to say about it, no strategies, a purely support class, you can gain levels to enchant you and your teams gear extremely quickly at a huge 50% increase in XP gained, there's approximately 1-5% chance of getting a XP bottle for each resource you mine (Ore, wood, gravel, anything like that)
    If you like enchanting your gear very quickly and keeping your team stocked with highly powerful gear to rule the others, enchanter is for you!

    Rumor busted: The probality of getting enchants such as Sharpness is not increased while using this class.

    Hunter:
    You spawn with 3 pressure-plates, Fire Trap(6 fire-ticks), Damage Trap (2 hearts of true damage), and Slow Trap(5 seconds of slowness). Placing any of them will result in a wool block of your team's color going underneath them and a message in chat telling you which trap you placed, should an enemy step on any trap, it tells you the name of the player who stepped on it, which one they stepped on, before returning the trap to your inventory with a cooldown of 60 seconds before placing it again, be sure to have 3 spots of inventory space at all times while your traps are up, as if you don't, they will be lost untill you kill yourself and respawn, for every kill you get (with a sword, bow kills do not count), you gain a new wolf besides the one you spawn with, up to a maximum of 6 wolves, they are invincible to teammates, and attack anyone who attacks you/you attack, they're extremely useful for solo raids/solo fights, allowing you to have the advantage of multiple, fast, though slightly weak players, while being merely on your own. Another useful thing, is if you use splash strength, your wolves will be affected aswell, allowing multi-man strength rushes from merely you, as your wolves can in fact defend you while you mine provided you can tank, you can also 'Defend' without being in the nexus, as if you leave your wolves sitting there, should a rusher hit them, they will hit him before teleporting to you, thus allowing you to deal damage to people attempting to mine your nexus without them even being there, provided they attempt to hit your wolves, untop of that, your traps can be left in the only entrance to your base, which, if combined with an invis-checker, meens no incoming invis players will be able to get through, if your walls are high enough, Acrobats/Assassins will not be unvanished from the drop, but they will be from the fire/damage/slow traps, it also seriously injures any incoming strength-rushers and makes it harder for them to get to the nexus.

    Assassin:
    Ahhh, Assasssin, it's like if a class tried to be Acrobat, coulden't do it, tried to be Spy, coulden't do it, then combined it's abilities into one class that's somewhere between the two, though not as good at either, despite jumping higher/further than acrobat, it's cooldown is 4x as long, despite being able to vanish instantly, it's extremely easy to see because of invis-particles/Haste particles/Speed particles, the upside being that it will put your armor back on automatically, it's 40 second cooldown is reduced by 10 for every kill it's good for, as it says, assassinations and escapes, an extremely simple class that basically explains itself, it's good for surviving drops by leaping at the last second, pretending to jump off an edge, leaping back up, then stabbing the person chasing you, it's all about offensive stealth, Spy is better at stealth having no particles untop of having a Backstab bonus, Acrobat is much, much more mobile, however, it has it's own little uses as a combination of the two, jack of all trades, master of none, and is a very fun class to play, despite it's downsides.

    Swapper:
    Ahh, Swapper, imagine if Scorpio was much harder to play, less practical, but filled it's own unique and different role, which is a absolute ton of fun, with a cooldown of 20 seconds, you can swap place with an enemy within 15 blocks, ish, giving the player you swapped 3 seconds of slowness II, making it massively hard for them to escape any teammates nearby, it allows you to swap running players into your group and stand infront of them, or merely just stand in their way yourself, someone bow-spamming you from high up? Swap with em! A useful strategy on defense is creating a trap made of wool/dirt, standing in it, then swapping strength rushers into it in order to allow teammates to shoot them, negating any strength rusher that does not carry shears/a shovel. Untop of that, it can swap with Invisible players, allowing you to make it clear where they are via the puff of white particles, and give them slowness 2 to assure their getaway is difficult. All in all, a mainly team-based, simple class, that can be extremely useful in the right situations, however, is much less practical than Scorpio.

    RiftWalker:
    RiftWalker is another extremely simple class, clicking on your Blaze Rod will open a menu of player heads, hovering your mouse over one will tell you who it is, and their distance away from you, clicking on one will begin to open a Rift, which stays open for 10 seconds, and is closed if the RiftWalker dies or leaves the area, the RiftWalker and up to two sneaking players are transported to the player who you clicked on's location after the ten second delay, and are given Weakness 2 for five seconds. It can be used as an escape tool on low health after raids, merely hiding and opening a rift, it can be used to support players who need rescue, and it can be used to bring people close to a nexus for raid-support, RiftWalker is a very useful team support class, with tons of potential. The cooldown on Rifts is dynamic, 30 seconds if only you travel, 60 seconds if another person travels with you, and 90 seconds if two other players travel with you. A fun strategy is getting a scout/acrobat to run into an area near a nexus, and having multiple RiftWalkers take several people into the nexus area. Untop of all that, RiftWalker is a really, really cool name for a class, and makes you feel really cool gettting kills with it, what more could you want?

    Immobilizer:
    Immobilizer is potentially one of my favourite classes so far, it allows you to instantly freeze anyone within approximately 6 blocks, for up to 5 seconds, provided the stun isn't canceled. Thus making them unable to move, barely able to jump, not even enough to travel up one block, and unable to hit people/shoot them with a bow, however, you yourself are stunned during the time, and if either you or the player you have stunned are hit, the stun is canceled, allowing both of you to be free, it allows you to catch runners for your teammates, catch invisible players, stopping them right in their tracks and making them plainly visible via a beam of crit particles between you and the player you're stunning, it's amazing for disorienting players chasing you, halting fights in their tracks, saving teammates, and even stopping Strength rushes, an all in all amazing support class.
    --------------------

    That's about it, I hope this guide was informative, and most of all, happy playing, and I hope you enjoy whatever class you decide to pick!
    This guide will be updated as new XP classes are released/classes are changed, so i'd appriceate you guys keeping it bumped.

    Special thanks to:
    HumusTheWalls, for figuring out info and testing rumors that I coulden't do myself due to certain issues.
    The_Orange_Bird, for testing aswell.
    AcidTooch, for providing information to be tested and a few facts nobody else could figure out
    Lizze__, for proofreading.
    jujupesto, for moral support.
    Kabagel, for moral support and help proofreading.
    ultislasher1, for help with formatting.
    MintKirby9, for testing some facts I was unsure of.
    CeleryCat, for helping me test Hunter's exact trap effects.

    Text color changed to dark fuchsia-ish to ease the eyes on the long read, clashes with the black moreso than grey/white, it gave me a migrane looking at the wall of bright text.

    Please no flame wars on how this guide is "wrong" on the balance of a class, this isn't a place to suggest changes. Remember, these are just my opinions!

  2. fhana Platinum

    XP:
    88,275xp
    Great guide baku.
  3. kaiomann Gold

    XP:
    63,790xp
    Awesome overview! Great job!
    (Just one little error I spotted, killing a guy with a bow does give you a wolf when playing hunter :))
  4. Bakubagel Platinum

    XP:
    8,552xp
    wat. i tested that personally, i play the class alot, never once have i gotten a wolf from a bow kill..
  5. eternalmars Gold

    XP:
    180,386xp
    Civilian is the best.

    Crafting table of freaking doom.
  6. ThemRandomNinjaz Platinum

    XP:
    209,860xp
    Fantastic guide! =P

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