The Certain Death Tournament.

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Roadkill kept on fissuring through the flayer jungle, picking up Hsarus Boots along the way. Into Kurast, Oak Sage gives a nice life buffer of more than 300. There was only one stair trap in the temples and with defiance and p8 resulting in a silly level difference it was pretty safe to stand there and cast fissure on my toes :)

Hawkmail dropped in Travincal and presented to Zanarhi. That should boost his killing speed against CE critters. Meph was taken at p8 and fissured from the other side of the moat. Yeah, cheap I know. He dropped Isenhart's Parry and Goreshovel which is actually a nice little axe for a lycanthrope.

The two Izual skill points boosted oak sage to slvl9.

Hellforge gave a perfect and a flawless topaz (and a tal) - someone up there likes us I think. Re-reading jianson's MF guide reminded me that I could shop some better boots which I did (33MF), along with a slightly better belt of the tiger given +26 life now.

Unsurprisingly for the end of act 4, we came to the chaos sanctuary and Diablo. I was trying out my battle gear and forgot to switch out the amulet of the tiger for my mf ammy (23MF) throughout the sanctuary. Drat. Including the seal bosses it all seemed perfectly safe (can you spot a trend?).

For Diablo, I decided to drop to p3 and put on my battle gear.

Bloodfist (+40 life)
Amulet of the Tiger (+26 life)
Socketted Large shield with 1 normal diamond and 2 flawed for 27 resist all.
Triumphant ring of the sentinel (2MDR and 1 mana / kill)
White Falcon Mask with +3 fissure
Extra fire resist charms totalling +16.
Grand charm with +18 mana.

I am already using a grand charm with 18LR, a small charm with +7 life / 7FR and my MF ring has 2DR. This gives Roadkill the following:

249 base life
>430 life with Oak Sage :)thumbup:)
50 fire resist
45 lightning resist

That should hopefully be enough...

[HIGHLIGHT]Roadkill, Level 36 Fire Druid, Fighting Diablo in his Sanctuary[/HIGHLIGHT]
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

I'm taking a break from my druid while I work on my 1.07 sorceress. :)
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Trixie died on her 2nd foray into the desert, thanx to a beetle with a name which I've forgotten...Seethe something. I've gone through 4 characters, so I am most certainly dead. Time to move on to something else with a larger life globe. :) Thanx, wakiki, for an excellent tournament, I've really enjoyed it.

[highlight]JayeM, Trixie, bladesin, Lut Gholein, 20[/highlight]
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

I'm really bad at writing updates so I'll make it quick. Also it takes ages to load screenshots here, so none of them.

Well yesterday I went from Outer Cloister to killing Andy and stopped for the day. Now he's sitting at lvl 28 with 1 tomb left to clear (the real one).
After having the stupid A1 merc for a whole act it was a relief to get an A2 merc. I rolled a nice Savage Halberg I think it was on first roll, with 76 max damage. Nice. Corpse Explosion is starting to prove useful with 7 points in it. Terror, Amplify Damage, Decrepify (sp), Attract, Dim Vision and Life Tap are all useful curses. I decided to get bone armor so my last 2 levels went into armour + bone wall. I'll probably max bonewall later.

Items found;

  • Arctic belt - stashed incase I need CR for hell or NM.
  • Shopped a bone shield of deflecting = easy max block.
  • 22% MF amu dropped and is in use.
  • Unique Voulge dropped (steelgoad?), and I tossed it right away.
  • An interesting rare ring mail with 2 sockets, 2 dexterity, 15% lightning resist dropped. This might prove useful later.
  • Civerb shield dropped - tossed it right away.
  • Unique Trident dropped - it got intersesting mods (slow) but unfortunately, useless. Tossed it.

[highlight]WitchOfEndor the CE/Curse necromancer with mercenary, level 28 about to kill Duriel. ~90-100 life.[/highlight]
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Well cleared the Bazaar, but before I pumped my BF up to 13 points, really have to say it made things much, much smoother, I will max it and see how it fares...
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Act 3 really didn’t offer up many obstacles for Helen. Up until Mephisto the biggest problem was a nasty trap at the entrance of the Forgotten Temple where there were plenty of regular monsters and two unique snakes (one extra strong, the other lightning enchanted). Helen had to use some potions and a combination of Freezing Arrow and Strafe (for the widespread knockback) to keep from being overwhelmed. Mephisto was a very different type of problem . . . he had plenty of hit points . . . Helen had next to no damage. The solution was the ever popular moat maneuver and an endless hail of Freezing Arrow and Strafe (I really couldn’t decide what was doing better damage). The battle was long and boring and the drops were not so great . . . useless to be exact . . .

There were however better drops leading up to Mephisto. My favorites were probably the Gidbinn Reward Ring (tri-resistances!) and a rare helm found moments later (I’ll probably socket it with two flawless topazes heading into NM if Helen is still going and her resistances are otherwise sound). The best set item found was the Angelic Ring (now if only she could find that amulet). Other set items found included: Berserker’s Axe, Hsarus’ Buckler, Arctic Gloves (Iratha’s would have been better as I also found . . . ), Iratha’s Belt, and another Berserker’s Axe. There were two Gem Shrines that resulted in Helen’s first Perfect Sapphire and Perfect Ruby (crafting stuff trumped MF in my mind . . . Helen has 133 MF and isn’t really in a big rush for more).

Here were Helen’s stats at the end of Act 3.

Act 4 continued to be pretty easy (up until Diablo). Players 7 and full clears was still the name of the game. Freezing Arrow continued to be amazing (though more than a bit mana consuming) and no monsters could slow Helen’s advance towards Big D (the merc didn’t even die once before Diablo . . . everything including the Oblivion Knights were frozen :evil: ).

Drops were less than amazing. The best find was an Ort Rune . . . the Forge dropped a Tal Rune (an Amn would have been nice but oh well). The only set/uniques were a Berserker’s Armor (to complete the useless set) and a Goreshovel (useless doesn’t even begin to describe this weapon).

But enough about bad drops! . . let’s talk Diablo. Mephisto had been really slow at Players 7 so there was some temptation to drop the players setting for Diablo but as some of you might remember my Fire Druid was killed by Diablo at Players 7 and so I felt I had to go and get my mojo back by killing Diablo at nothing less than Players 7. So Players 7 it was . . . and it was messy! Diablo was really scary and every one of his attacks really hurt. The merc and the decoy were next to useless except as momentary distractions so all the damage dealing fell on Helen (oh noes). Strafe was clearly not an option so Freezing Arrow was the preferred attack (I tried to shoot Guided Arrows around the corners at Big D but couldn’t get it setup and didn’t nearly have enough hit points to spend too much time trying to position/reposition Big D). So mostly Helen ended up rehiring the merc, positioning so that Diablo was at the very edge of the screen, shooting Freezing Arrow a couple of times (until the merc died) and then starting the process again . . . not really the way I wanted the battle to play out (it seemed really cheap using the merc that way . . . but I wasn’t looking for a repeat death at Big D so I went with the cheesy easy way). The battle probably lasted nearly twenty minutes so there was still plenty of danger throughout. Considering the danger the drops were disappointing and for some reason I didn’t even get Diablo’s death animation . . . hmm, at least I got my mojo back!

Here were Helen’s stats at the end of Act 4.

[highlight]Helen, FA/Strafer, Harrogath, Level 35[/highlight]

EDIT: Hmm, I only now noticed that the Berserker's Armor and Helm gives a bonus of AR by level and more importantly 50 life . . . that might be worth using on Helen . . .
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Tilsit started to continue her adventures from Cold Plains wp at 22:05 sunday evening and ended them at 5:50 monday morning to Dark Wood wp.

She started by pestering Akara for insurance, but Akara wouldn't sell what she wanted. Akara offered lower insurance or full insurance with added benefits that Tilsit couldn't afford(1). After three days and three nights in the wee hours of the morning she relented.

With the insurance purchased Tilsit took the wp to Cold Plains and started to explore. Almost immediately she met a boss pack of corrupt rogues and the boss dropped her first rare amulet which she still wears proudly. Shortly after that she had her 8th birthday and she hired cold rogue named Basanti.

With her she went to the Monastery Graveyard where they met Blood Raven who dropped nice spear(2) that Tilsit stashed for future. Into the Crypt they went and there met Bonebreaker who dropped her first jewel.

After the Mausoleum they resumed the clearing of the Cold Plains and she found a campsite with Bishibosh who dropped some rares. The leather gloves were used up until the first gambling session. The modus operandi of the pair against fallen was that Tilsit ran against the fallen and cast frost nova. Then she moved between the frozen fallen next to the shaman and usually casted a new frost nova and started to smash the shaman's head in. Meanwhile Basanti would snipe at the fallen straglers OHKing most of them. If there were more shamen Tilsit ran them one after other casting frost nova once in a while. If there were other monsters, like corrupted rogues, in the mix they were ignored until all shamen were killed. After that Tilsit started to bash them with her trusty scepter. As frost nova kept all slowed there normally were no problems.

As she was only eleven and hadn't found but two topazes, of which one was upped, she decided to postpone the clearing of the Cave. So they went onward to the Stony Field. There they found another gem shrine, but Tilsit didn't have any topazes to upgrade as she had greedily put the upped topaz and a second chipped into her helm. So she left the shrine alone and returned there when she found a topaz somewhere in the Undergroud Passage. But before she ventured there she had found the Cairn Stones which were guarded by Rakanishu who was promptly killed. The drop wasn't anything to celebrate.

What she celebrated was her 12th birthday during the clearing of the Stony Field and she celebrated it by gambling all her money to Gheed. Very early she gambled nice rare boots so she stopped gambling boots and gambled only leather gloves. The last gamble resulted this. With these new armor pieces she ventured underground. In the Underground Passage on the second level she found that the tp she had made didn't work from the Camp, so she had to take the Stony Field wp and run all the way to the second level again. Re-entering the tp she could make the journey back with the tp. Don't know what caused this, but I've met the same bug once earlier.

The Dark Woods was just repeat of the stony field. The Tree of Inifuss was guarded by skinflints. With the scroll she could make the portal to Tristram and so she did. Entering the portal and taking few steps she was in the middle of her biggest battle today. There were three packs of carvers with their shamen mixed with a champion pack of the shamen, some returned and night clan. First she had to backpedal so that the returned and night clan followed with some carvers. Frost nova and smashing ensued. After some time she was out of mana and manapotions, but all returned and night clan were dead and several carvers were smashed or sniped(3) into puddles. Venturing forward when she had enough mana for one frost nova she met first of the normal shamen. Frost nova and smashing. The shaman dropped a minor mana potion and the clearing could continue. Half way the champion pack the dynamic duo attracted another pack of returned and backpedalling commenced. Eventually all opposition was cleared. The rest of Tristram had one pack of returned that dropped Tilsit's fifth chipped topaz, resulting these armor pieces, one boss pack of returned, the central clearing had champion pack of night clan and then there were the customary two packs of carvers. One near Wirt and one further up near Griswold who was accompanied by night clan pack. His drop would have been more suitable for a paladin. After Tristram was clered from monsters Cain was rescued and Akara rewarded Tilsit. Maybe she rembered the pestering.

Now that Tilsit had reasonable MF (76) she ventured back to the Cold Plains and into the Cave. There she met Coldcraw who dropped something suitable for a necromancer(4) and something that Tilsit was exited about, but which in the end was Charsi fodder.

Having done two missions and full clears of several areas Tilsit thought that the Tower and the Malus can wait. No S/U dropped this session.

[highlight]UllaV, Tilsit the blizballer with her cold rogue sidekick Basanti, Dark Wood, level 15[/highlight]

Another oddity happened. What is the probability that two jewels that drop side by side are so similiart:

Jewel of Avarice
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 4
Fingerprint: 0x1006f32e
25% Extra Gold from Monsters

Jewel of Avarice
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 5
Fingerprint: 0xe62b74a8
25% Extra Gold from Monsters

(1) Several +3 Freezing Armor with minor magical additions, like 1-2 fire damage, that were about 300 too dear. Forgot to take pictures.

(2) Atma readout:
Deadly Spear of Self-Repair
Two-Hand Damage: 3 to 18
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Dexterity: 20
Required Level: 3
Spear Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x61b6478e
+23% Enhanced Damage
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds


(3) Basanti's long bow has one emerald, one ruby and one shappire.

(4) The wand was the only 5000 item found.

@wakiki: As I'm used to identify charms as soon as they drop I had two large charms of life in my inventory for that brief period that I'd just identified the new one and realised it. I immediately picked it up and dropped to the ground. This happened twice in Dark Woods on that ruined building area. Is that ok or should I in the future postpone such identification to town?

Ulla

EDIT: Just realized two things: It took two hours to write this message and that I totally forgot to use static against all those champions.

U
 
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Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Thanks for the updates, everyone.:thumbup:

UllaV, Hydra is one of the Sorceress' most stylish spells. I say go for it! ;) (Even as a scout it's still very stylish) [highlight]EDIT:[/highlight] (You made your post at the same time I made mine), I generally avoided ID'ing them before town until the Horadric Cube. Now I ID them when I get them (if I happen to have a scroll) and just toss them in the cube if they are life charms. It's not a big deal unless you have an NDE with two life charms of the same size in your inventory. That would be really depressing.

Lozhinge, that sounds really scary! I would recommend putting a point into Life Tap. If you do, your merc can take Duriel single-handedly. If you can't spare a point, you could shop a wand with +1 life tap on it. Your merc will also be able to take down Mephisto this way. Diablo has more damage output, but with Life Tap you only need to use 1 red as he casts his lightning hose, and a purple if he casts it again before your merc has healed himself. That's my experience so far, anyway. Life Tap rocks! :punk:

EmperorMoo, RIP for melikecake. I'm guessing Howl doesn't work on the Frenzytaurs? Ouch.

I hope you come back! Look deep into my eyes. You will come back. You cannot resist. The tournament is calling you. With the voice of a cow. Moooooo(etc)

jiansonz, welcome to the tournament. :) It was partially designed with you in mind. Now we just need InsaneWayne to appear.

About attract: you can cast other curses at will. What it means by "cannot be overridden" is that if you attract a monster, then cast Amp Damage on the entire pack, the monster that you cast Attract on will still have the first curse, and monsters will still be attacking it. Attract targets one monster, and monsters in the curse radius will attack that monster. You cannot cast it on bosses. I don't know that bosses will fall for it if you cast it on a minion next to them. If so, that seems abusive, so I doubt it. If I'm wrong, let me know...

I had considered placing Nihlathak's temple further along, but I decided to go more with the storyline. :\ I will probably do the same as you in later difficulties.

ancalagon, the red carpets made me laugh. :)

JayeM, RIP for Trixie and thank you for playing. The fact you entered four times is just awesome. I'm guessing you died in the Rocky Waste...correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

@wakiki:
I'm guessing you died in the Rocky Waste...correct me if I'm wrong.

That's right, she didn't make it far into the desert. I listed Lut Gholein, as that was the closest WP she made it to. She did manage to clear the sewers and kill Radament.

I'm developing a serious allergy to beetles. :)
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Quickie update on TheAragorn,. Sadly no screenies because I'm at work and my internet at home is acting up. He's plowed through Act 2 and is halfway done with the Arcane Sanctuary (2 of the wings cleared, one of which housed the Summoner, so the final WP has also been snagged). Nothing really to report...scarabs were annoying with a whopping 7 lightning resist until I found the "safe spot" from which to fire with abandon. Found the Angelic Mantle in the Dry Hills, Unravelers and their ilk are easypie with Holy Freeze shattering all their minions.

Maggot Hole was a pain to navigate with the merc as always but I cheesed Coldworm to death by parking in the hallway and killing him from afar. Anybody know how long it takes for it to be "safe" to enter that room? I popped in to clean up with the merc after the death throes and still got caught in his wonky poison aura. On the bright side, I've got Shocking Aura and some points dropped into Resist Lightning, though I'm keeping Freezing Aura as my aura of choice. The slow is incredibly helpful in dancing out of melee range when I get mobbed.

Had my first NDE in the Ancient Tunnels at the hands of some Horror Mages and their Multiple Shot leader. Generic Prayer Merc bounded forward at a T intersection to take on some Infidels or whatever they're called, and in doing so activated the boss and its mob. GPM decided to gaily head down the tunnel skewering pathetic four-armed dudes (seriously, three arrows at /p8 takes one of them down, and they freeze up and back away when they get to about half health) while I'm dodging waves of lightning and taking potshots in their general direction whenever I can. Worse than D1 succubi. After a couple reds and a hastily-hammered purple GPM (he's not worthy of having his real name spoken, not with how overall unhelpful he's been outside tanking ranged hits) finished up on the ineffectual side and did what he should have done from the beginning.

Fangskin was incredibly easy. He spawned at the "south" end of the room and slithered right up into the pit with the altar. A few of his buddies went around to either side but vipers only took TWO arrows at /p8, so it was largely GG.

Horror Archers in the Harem were annoying as always, but with the merc serving as a damage magnet I could slink around to the archers' flanks and pick them off one by one. Fire Eye spawned in that large room at the south end that has the incredibly awkward means of entrance, but which can be fired in upon from that first hallway near the entrance to the level, so a few dumbfired arrows brought his mob my way, where they were slaughtered.

The Arcane Sanctuary has given up a few runes so far (El, Eld, Tir) but mostly it's consisted of parking the merc, letting him take fireballs to the face and firewalls to the groin, and namelock-killing the Ghoul Lords once they bobbed into view. The Summoner was simple: I drew off and slew his Specter/Hell Clan retinue, then ran my heart out to reach the back of his platform. TP to town, TP back, head to one of the corners while the merc merrily freezes, and unleash arrowed death.

Like I said, two more wings to go--the "square room" one and the godforsaken "stairs" one. Hopefully I'll finish up Act 2 tonight. I'm a little worried about Duriel; I suppose I could shop a wand with Life Tap charges to keep the merc hale and hearty, but I have essentially 0 gold through circlet gambling. I've got screenies of some incredible rare circlets that may see use in NM and possibly Hell, though, as well as an unbelievable partizan for the merc once his Strength gets high enough. I've been cubing up amethysts to reach the 126 milestone. Still no Circlet of Luck, though.

[highlight]TheAragorn, Ranger Paladin, Level 26, Arcane Sanctuary[/highlight]

@ UllaV: Namelocking is when you click to attack an enemy with a ranged attack or spell and hold down the mouse button. So long as the enemy's name/lifebar stays at the top of the screen, you'll keep firing away, even if it goes offscreen. A big help versus critters that like to run from melee attackers, like Corrupt Archers, or who randomly weave on- and offscreen while attacking like Ghoul Lords.
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Helen isn't to the end of Act 5 yet but I couldn't wait to share . . .

Nice, a Skystrike! Unfortunately its roll was atrocius, 158% Ed, that’s 8% off the worst roll :yuck:.

Helen would be more than happy to take that substandard weapon off Drake's hands . . . um, when wakiki isn't looking of course :badteeth:

Guess what Helen found . . . 156% Ed . . . only 2% Ed off Morathi's . . . what are the odds? :D


 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

@ UllaV: Namelocking is when you click to attack an enemy with a ranged attack or spell and hold down the mouse button. So long as the enemy's name/lifebar stays at the top of the screen, you'll keep firing away, even if it goes offscreen. A big help versus critters that like to run from melee attackers, like Corrupt Archers, or who randomly weave on- and offscreen while attacking like Ghoul Lords.

OK. I do that on Blood Raven everytime, but didn't know that that tactic has a name. Thanks!

Ulla


 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Sparkles has progressed from level 14 to level 25. Currently she has reached the Flayer Jungle and killing the little buggers, and big tree thingys with consumate ease. Her survivability however balances on a knife edge with "certiain death" but a 1 shot away.

Sparkles, Lite/Orb Sorc, Level 25, Flayer Jungle
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

There once was a man who's career soared high, whom every man wished to be and every woman wished to be with. He could do no wrong, whether in Top Gun, Risky Business, or Speed. Then, out of nowhere, his star fell, his career teetering on the precipice. So, out of recent failures such as Valkyrie, seeking to regain his lost fame, I present TomCruise!

To show he's worth, he's determined to beat the entire game statless, naked, and single-pass. Sure, he'll be but a side-kick in his reclamation of fame, but an important one none the less.

Why TomCruise, the Barbarian. Because nobody else can jump around screaming the enemies into submission while his minion does all the dirty work. I just told him to pretend the entire world is Oprah's couch and none of hell's minions believe in Scientology. The rest just happened naturally. I swear hell's minions start running at the sight of him, let alone at the crazy jumping and sound.

He recently defeated Blood Raven and is resting in town, reliving his glory with Gheed (this meaning Visala the Rouge's glory, naturally). Blood Raven was hardly a worthy foe, no match for his ranting and raving. All-in-all, naught but two healing potions needed to be used. He simply leap directly at Blood Raven, smacked her once, jumped again, smacked her again, and kept going until Visala finally killed her. In his defense, however, he was doing 6 poison damage, so he *could* have killed her... yeah, right.

The rest of the journey to Blood Raven was basically uneventful after Visala joined him. Before that he punched everyone and everything (I think he even smacked Akara a little bit, but we're just going to pretend it didn't happen; perhaps she'll even give him a little trinket later out of fear) and occasionally shouted the word of science, sending whole hordes fleeing.

Rest well, last of the samurai, for tomorrow evil rears it's ugly head again.

[highlight]TomCruise, Leap/Howl/Ward (aka Cruiser) Barbarian, Level 12, Stony Field.[/highlight]
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Wow, mattinm, it'll be interesting to see how far you get! You sure you wanna go statless? I'd get some energy so that you can spam leap. And ALL energy naked barb! Hah! Great write-up, too. (And welcome to the tournament :))

LoL at the Skystrike. That's just freaky.

Anyways, I'm really exhausted. Made some progress on S_S and my Gw/E character, but not enough in either to update. I'm refreshing the table then going to bed. Good night everyone.
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

There once was a man who's career soared high, whom every man wished to be and every woman wished to be with. He could do no wrong, whether in Top Gun, Risky Business, or Speed. Then, out of nowhere, his star fell, his career teetering on the precipice. So, out of recent failures such as Valkyrie, seeking to regain his lost fame, I present TomCruise.

Speed? Did you mean Days of Thunder or am I missing something? :)


 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

@MBlade - Indeed that's the one I meant :doh:. I'm saving some other movie references for later... I guess I'll have to double-check that I get them right now :)
 
Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

EmperorMoo, RIP for melikecake. I'm guessing Howl doesn't work on the Frenzytaurs? Ouch.

I hope you come back! Look deep into my eyes. You will come back. You cannot resist. The tournament is calling you. With the voice of a cow. Moooooo(etc)

DAMN YOUR MAGIC HYPNOTIC POWERS!

I'm coming back in with an Assassin. I really can't stand assassins, but I need to make one for the Sept. tournament, so what better wasy to get acquainted with the good and bad sides of a class than trying to make one with no vit?

[highlight]Emperor_Moo,Magrat_Garlick,trapsin, lvl1, Rogue Camp[/highlight]

edit: Question about Fade - I assume it is allowed as long as it doesn't take resists above 50 (i.e. base resists + fade <=50)? I won't use it until this is decided upon. EM



 
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Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Resists: you can't go over with those skills. I'm thinking like this: when you get those skills in normal play, you are aiming to get your resists to 75, and getting those skills allows you to use slots for other mods when they would have been used for resists. Here it's the same, the target is just 50 is all.

@EmperorMoo That is the ruling about Fade from page 2 or 3. So, yes, base resists + fade <= 50 (which can be extremely annoying if you have a point to much in fade...)

My Throwbarb Clodius is parked for the moment since at the moment my GwE Trapsin is just more fun. Once I've killed her I will continue him for sure though.


 
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