Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

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Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Riggnaros on Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:28 pm

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I know for some people the encounter may be labeled as 'too easy' to be considered the end of the xpac / tier final boss, but it still has its own flavor and technical demand that keep it interesting. This guide will be based on strategy seen in our video Blood Legion vs Madness of Deathwing where you can watch and follow along with what is being explained at any point. I will also toss in a few mid-combat screenshots to help out as well. Hopefully this guide will be useful to anyone who is struggling with the fight!

Raid Comp:

Tanks (2):
1 Prot Paladin (Absalom)
1 Blood DK (Riggnaros)

Healers (6):
2 Holy Paladin (Sparan/ Bobina)
1 Disc Priest (Affinitii)
3 Resto Shaman (Xariis/ Pixls/ Bondd)

DPS (17):
3 Balance Druid (Zoomkins/ Bushino/ Acrol)
2 Frost Death Knight (Kruciel/ Ridd)
1 Survival Hunter (Dexter)
1 Arcane Mage (Ataxus)
1 Fire Mage (Zonker)
2 Affliction Warlock (Shinafae/ Shaddows)
2 Shadow Priest (Optee/ Nadrii)
2 Fury Warrior (Juveynile/ Troyzilla)
1 Elemental Shaman (Brightleaf)
2 Assassination Rogue (Grimsworth/ Kutaa)

The raid comp for this fight is somewhat strict, but you do have some room to play with when compared to fights like Spine. :| With that said, the raid comp that we used allowed us to take advantage of the raid's static locations throughout the fight when dealing with each mechanic along with maximizing our Spellweave damage output. You can afford to have a different lineup of ranged dps to an extent, but adding any additional melee would not be advised since they are penalized relatively harshly for movement and ranged can hit anything on the platform at all times.

Healing

From a healing standpoint, you should ensure that every healer you have is able to bring some sort of mitigation to the table in the form of a raid cooldown. This requirement makes Resto Druids a lot less viable when compared to a class like Shaman (Spirit Link) or Paladin (AM) and especially Disc Priests (Barrier). The Shaman are also very strong due to the high uptime of Healing Rain, Ancestral Vigor, Mana Tide Totem, and the ability to keep Ancestral Fortitude active. The Disc Priest is a must for both absorbs on tanks during the impale and Power Word: Barrier (glyphed), which gives the raid the strongest form of raid cooldown available.

Tanking

Touching quickly on the tanking portion of the fight, some classes are better than others, but any can work. The primary tanking mechanic in this fight up until the final platform is 'Impale'. Impale is mechanic that does massive amounts of damage to the tank that cannot be blocked or avoided. The only form of damage reduction comes through absorbs and mitigation (Pain Suppression/Shield Wall/etc). Thus, the Death Knight and Druid are superior (Blood Shield/High Stamina), and the Disc Priest is mandatory. Any tank comp that you may have needs to sit down and create a list of cooldowns needed (personal or external) for each and every impale. Again, a block tank (Warr/Paladin) is inferior due to not being able to block the impale, but can still work with the right external cooldowns.

DPS

This fight from a DPS perspective is all about min-maxing the Spellweave mechanic, minimizing movement, and understanding the priority of what to attack. A quick rundown this priority is as follows:

Aspect Platforms-
Corrupting Parasite > Elementium Bolt > Mutated Corruption > Blistering Tentacles > Arm/Wing Tentacle > Regenerative Blood

Final Stand-
Congealing Blood > Elementium Fragment > Deathwing > Elementium Terror

You should be getting a maximum of two Impales per aspect platform. If you are getting any more than that, it is likely that you do not have the damage output to meet the fight's DPS requirement. Also, you need to ensure you are using the Regenerative Blood to maximize your Spellweaving output (leaving them up with DoTs active, which procs the Spellweave effect to cleave damage on to Mutated Corruptions/Corrupting Parasites).



P1 Mobs, Abilities, and how they relate to your raid:

Arm Tentacle- Emits raid damage based on its HP, and spawns Blistering Tentacles at 70% and 40% health.
Corrupting Parasite- Blows up and does damage to the raid based on its remaining hp following a 10 second cast. Keep inside Time Zones for an additional 5 seconds of cast time.
Mutated Corruption- The main source of burst raid damage intake along with the Impale mechanic for your tanks.
Time Zone- Use this to your advantage to assist in killing the Corrupting Parasite (as seen in the screenshot below).
Regenerative Blood- Use these for min maxing your Spellweave damage output and helping make the fight's dps requirement.
Elementium Bolt- As long as Nozdormu is active, you have the ability to kill this while in the air and save extensive raid damage. Ensure each dps has a macro to target this for maximum uptime when needed.

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Phase 1 - The Final Assualt (Aspect Platforms)

The dynamic element to this phase comes in the order you choose to use each Dragon Aspect. While different orders are possible, some are much easier than others. Each Aspect offers its own unique ability and raid buff (similar to Yogg), and when you kill Deathwing's arm/wing on each platform, you then lose that Aspect's raid buff and aid. All of this information can be found in the Dungeon Journal, but I will list it here for the sake of convienience:

Ysera: 20% extra healing and 50% damage reduction ability for 5 secounds on a 30 second cooldown.
Alexstrasza: 20% additional HP and also nukes down both Corrupting Parasite and Blistering Tentacles.
Nozdormu: 20% haste and provides a Time Zone that assists in increasing the cast time/time between attacks of any hostile mob placed inside.
Kalecgos: 20% damage and Spellweave.

The way this translates to the fight is each platform gets harder and harder to deal with as you progress from each of the previous platforms. The difficulty level on the first platform is a far cry from that of the 4th platform. While your journey across all four platforms may feel similar, you have to keep in mind that both positioning and damage priority is the key to victory!

Positioning is very very key to ensuring your healers are able to sustain the amount of raid damage that is going out at times (especially on the 4th platform). You should try and use things like Healing Rain and such to their maximum effectiveness. You want to set up groups in a fashion that ensures only one at a time is hit by the Mutated Corruption's slap. Below is a screenshot of how you should position your raid:

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The order we chose to go was the one that offered the highest damage output possible (Ysera-Alexstrasza-Nozdormu-Kalecgos). By using this order, we were able to maintain Kalecgos' 20% damage and Spellweaving throughout the entire fight. This also allows the raid to keep Nozdormu's 20% haste and the Time Zone up until the 4th platform. This order proved to be the best option when fighting both the Cataclysm timer for each platform and the overall boss enrage timer (15 mins). With that said, I will go into a detailed overview of how we approached each platform in the order we followed:

Ysera-

As a general rule for the fight, you basically start out on Deathwing's Arm until the Mutated Corruption spawns in the back. You do not want to push the arm too low and spawn the Blistering Tentacles (spawn at 70% and 40%), thus increasing raid damage intake while trying to deal with the other fight mechanics. However, as long as Alexstrasza is active (first 2 platforms), this suggestion can safely be disregarded as she single-handedly destroys all of the Blistering Tentacles within several seconds of their spawning.

While Ysera may be the 'easiest' of the four, it is also one of the most important. Here is a quick timeline of how it should go (further explained below):

-Start Arm DPS.
-Swap to Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Player with Corrupting Parasite gets in the assigned spot to drop it off (cast time may vary - see below) .
-Parasite is killed.
-Resume Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Ranged only switch to Elementium Bolt and kill it prior to hitting.
-Send Ranged group over to Kaelcgos' platform to trim Arm Tentacle (more explained below).
-Tank picks up Regenerative Blood and pulls them near the Mutated Corruption for Spellweave cleave.
-Mutated Corruption dies and all DPS swap to the 2nd Corrupting Parasite (Bloods tanked on top for Maximum Spellweave).
-Resume Arm Tentacle DPS (Healers help DPS!).
-Arm Tentacle dies.

One thing about this platform is that the first Corrupting Parasite debuff that goes out would sometimes hit before the Time Zone spawned (thus giving it a 10 second channel instead of 15). If this happens to you, just have the melee switch off and help get the Parasite low enough that it will not wipe your raid when it explodes. Also, using the 50% damage reduction ability from Ysera will assist in any raid damage that does occur when/if the cast time finishes.

Another 'first platform only' strategy is to send a small group of dps over to Kaelcgos' platform to trim the hp down to 91% (it starts to emit a raid-damage aura at 90% health and below). This will help you meet the dps requirements when on Kaelcgos' platform later on as your are pressed to beat the Cataclysm cast by Deathwing.

I would highly recommend stressing to everyone in the raid that even though the first platforms are 'easy,' every ounce of damage gained during this time is also helping you beat the fights' overall enrage timer (15mins). Saving 1-2 seconds per platform adds up at the end!

Alexstrasza-

The second platform is more of the same, and should provide little to no problems for your raid once you have fine-tuned your positioning and raid DPS priorities. Nonetheless, here is the quick breakdown for this platform:

-Start Wing DPS.
-Swap to Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Player with Corrupting Parasite gets in the assigned spot to drop it off.
-Parasite is killed.
-Resume Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Ranged only switch to Elementium Bolt and kill it prior to impact.
-Tank picks up Regenerative Blood and pulls them near the Mutated Corruption for Spellweave cleave.
-Mutated Corruption dies and all DPS swap to the 2nd Corrupting Parasite (Bloods tanked on top for maximum Spellweave damage).
-Resume Wing Tentacle DPS (Healers help DPS!).
-Wing Tentacle dies.

A quick tip for maximizing your Spellweave damage during each platform is to only have your ranged put up DoTs on Regenerative Bloods and not actually AE them until it comes time to kill the 2nd Corrupting Parasite. Even then, your tank needs to ensure you let them heal prior to pulling them on top of the Parasite in order to maximize Spellweave cleave.

Nozdormu-

This is where things start to get a bit more interesting. You've now lost the 20% healing (Ysera) and the 20% HP (Alexstrasza) buffs along with having to pump more damage into both the Corrupting Parasite and Blistering Tentacles and tanks being much more worried about the Impale. There are some minor tweaks that need to be made on this platform, but it should still be fairly smooth as long as you've ironed out and implemented proper positioning. Here is the breakdown for your 3rd platform:

-Start Arm DPS.
-Swap to Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Player with Corrupting Parasite gets in the assigned spot to drop it off.
-Parasite is killed (melee with solid movement assist - e.g., Warrior).
-Resume Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Ranged only switch to Elementium Bolt and kill it prior to hitting.
-Tank picks up Regenerative Blood and pulls them near the Mutated Corruption for Spellweave Cleave.
-Mutated Corruption dies and all dps swap to the 2nd Corrupting Parasite (Bloods tanked on top for Maximum Spellweave).
-Resume Arm Tentacle DPS, swapping to Blistering Tentacles as needed. Single target down each Blistering to assist in eliminating raid damage intake as fast as possible.
-Arm Tentacle dies.

As you can see, we put a higher priority on the Corrupting Parasite (due to losing Alexstrasza's assistance) by swapping over some of the melee. This really should only be melee that do not lose much at all from target swapping and do not waste much time moving from one place to another (Warrior Charge/Heroic Leap/etc).

Also during this platform, you will have to pay more attention to the Blistering Tentacles due to not having Alexstrasza to assist. This will need to be understood by every DPS in the raid to ensure they get single targeted down (cannot AE) as fast as possible. You will also probably need to use a raid cooldown or two to get through the raid damage near the end. Once you are able to master this platform, you will find yourself ready to take on the most demanding part of the encounter (Platform 4)!

Kalecgos-

This platform is the hardest part of the fight. You have now lost all of the Dragon Aspect buffs aside from the 20% damage and Spellweave. This means you are going to have to deal with the Elementium Bolt without a slow and also the Corrupting Parasite without the extended cast time. The order in which everything is done on this platform is different than the previous three. I will give a quick overview and explain in detail below:

-Start Wing DPS.
-Swap to Mutated Corruption DPS.
-Player with Corrupting Parasite gets in the assigned spot to drop it off (different location than normal!)
-Bloodlust/Heroism
-Parasite is killed by ALL dps (remember, only 10 seconds instead of 15).
-Resume Mutated Corruption DPS.
-The entire raid stacks near the Wing Tentacle inside of a Barrier during the Elementium Bolt impact (minus the Impale tank).
-Nuke down the Elementium Bolt.
-Tank picks up Regenerative Blood and pulls them near the Mutated Corruption for Spellweave Cleave.
-All dps swap to the 2nd Corrupting Parasite (Bloods tanked on top for Maximum Spellweave). AE down Bloods here.
-Try and ensure that the Mutated Corruption dies prior to casting the 3rd Impale. This will help your tank out greatly in the Final phase by having more CDs available.
-Resume Wing Tentacle DPS, swapping to Blistering Tentacles as needed. Single target down each Blistering to assist in eliminating raid damage intake as fast as possible. Raid cds will need to be used during this burn to beat the Cataclysm timer.
-Wing Tentacle dies.

While the platform starts out like normal, it quickly turns into a race to kill it before it kills you. Due to losing the haste from Nozdormu, the DPS will be significantly lower; thus the use of Bloodlust/Heroism on the first Parasite. This Parasite will also have different positioning due to lack of a Time Zone. You will want this Parasite in a position as follows:

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This allows melee to have maximum uptime on the Parasite as well as Mutated Corruption. You will also notice in the screenshot/video that we kept a Regenerative Blood active from the previous platform. This was no accident. It allowed us to gain extra Spellweave (through Dots) while dealing with the Parasite and Mutated Corruption. It is not mandatory, but it does help out and there is very little penalty in doing so (slight additional tank damage intake).

Once the first Parasite is dead, you can then focus on pumping out as much damage as possible into the Mutated Corruption prior to stacking for the Elementium Bolt. Once the Bolt begins to cast, you need to have the raid collapse near the Wing Tentacle inside of a Barrier. You can see where this stack point needs to be in the screenshot/video. You can also put players who have high damage reduction abilities off to the side (as seen in the screenshot) to reduce the chance of a slap hitting the entire raid at once.

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Once the Elementium Bolt hits, the raid needs to leave as soon as possible and get back in their assigned positions to eliminate excess raid damage. During this time you will also need to kill off the Elementium Bolt which has now landed on your Aspect platform. By the time you are back in your positions, Regenerative Bloods will be spawning. These need to be ONLY dotted and left up for Spellweave cleave until the 2nd Parasite spawns. Once it is active, use cds and whatever is needed to kill it as fast as possible. Any raid damage taken from the cast finishing is almost lethal at this point in the encounter due to so much other raid damage going out as well as healers not having the haste they had on the previous platforms. Try to AE down the Bloods completely while killing the 2nd Parasite to avoid having to deal with additional damage later on. Also, as was mentioned earlier, try and kill the Mutated Corruption prior to the 3rd Impale going off. This will assist your tank greatly in the final phase by having up more cooldowns.

This short time frame is easily the most critical in the entire fight. You have the most raid damage going out combined with the entire raid moving. To combat this you will need to chain raid cooldowns (Offspec Tranqs / Hymns/ Rallying Cry / D-Sacs / AMs / etc) to ensure you do not have any deaths. Even having one death at this point during the fight will almost certainly result in a wipe due to losing too much damage when it is needed the most.

Once you are able to clean up the two Parasites and Mutated Corruption, you then just have to meet the damage requirements on the Wing Tentacle. If you can meet the damage requirement on this platform, the second phase should not present much of a challenge to you.



Phase 2 - The Last Stand

While I do admit that I wish this phase of the fight had been a bit more 'epic,' it still added its own flavor and unique style to the equation. Upon finishing the first four platforms (and assuming people don't randomly die while jumping to the final platform), you will find yourself head to head (literally :P) with Deathwing himself for a final showdown! If the other platforms were done correctly, you should have just under 3 minutes to finish this last phase before the 15-minute enrage takes place.

During this phase, you need to again be aware of which targets to prioritize for DPS and how cooldowns need to be ordered. There are four things your DPS need to prioritize, as follows:

Congealing Blood > Elementium Fragment > Deathwing > Elementium Terror

Congealing Blood- Travel towards Deathwing and heal him upon reaching (Can be slowed). Maximum Priority!
Elementium Fragment - Cast Shrapnel debuffs on raid members, inflicting a large amount of damage upon expiration.
Elementium Terror - Must be tanked. They put a DoT on the tank that deals increasing damage.

You can expect to have 3 sets of Congealing Blood, 2 sets of Elementium Fragments, and 2 Elementium Terror packs. The timeline we made for the final phase was as follows:

Shrapnel 1 > Large Adds 1 > Congealing Bloods 1(Large adds to Spellweave) > Congealing 2 (no added Spellweave) > Shrapnel 2 (no Spellweave) > Large Adds 2 > Congealing 3 (Large Adds to Spellweave) > Ignore Large Adds.

With that said, there is an element of RNG to the final phase due to how close the Elementium Fragments seem to spawn next to each other. Sometimes you are able to get major Spellweave assistance and sometimes not so much. Either way, having melee prioritize the front ones and ranged on those in the back is the key to dealing with the Fragments efficiently, and no spawn pattern is so bad that it will result in a wipe.

The most important part of the phase is dealing with the Congealing Bloods! The spawn points for the Bloods can be seen both in the video and in the screenshot below:

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Having Frost DKs for Chillblains (or some form of slow) on the adds is a must. Ensure you are not really single targeting them down as you want maximum Spellweave damage. Try to leave up the first set of Elementium Terrors and use them for added Spellweave on the Congealing Bloods.

As far as the Terrors are concerned, just have your tanks keep them inside the Time Zone as much as possible and only leave for Spellweave cleave purposes. Have tanks use CDs accordingly for the debuff damage they inflict.

Outside of killing Bloods, Fragments, and Terrors, the entire raid's focus is on dealing damage to Deathwing himself. Keep in mind that execute class DPS do really really well here (Affliction Warlocks / Warriors / Assasination Rogues / etc), but you need to also have classes that excel at burst AE damage for the Congealing Bloods. As long as your raid is able to keep the Bloods from healing Deathwing and kill the Fragments in a timely manner, this phase should not provide too harsh of a challenge.

From a healing standpoint, you will have the raid pretty much stacked the entirety of this phase (minus quick DPS swaps to Fragments and Bloods), so Healing Rain does very well here along with other splash heals. Deathwing inflicts additional damage at 15%, 10%, and 5% health. This will all go by fairly quickly (~2.5 minutes), so ensure that you have a cooldown rotation planned for your healers (SLT, Barrier, DSac, Rallying Cry, etc). I would recommend saving the Barrier for the end since it is your strongest raid CD.

Once you are able to take care of the 3rd set of Bloods and 2nd set of Fragments, it's just a straight burn until the boss dies and/or hits enrage. Have your tanks cooldown through the Terrors and push as much damage as possbile into Deathwing himself!

Remember, it won't be easy, so make sure you're on top of your game! It may take a while, but maintain your persistance, discipline, dedication, skill, and most importantly, your focus; and you too will soon find yourself standing victorious alongside your friends and fellow guild members!


*****


While there are always multiple ways to kill a boss and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, this is the one that worked for us and hopefully will work for your guild as well. There are still dozens and dozens of things that apply to each specific role (healer/tank/DPS) that I do not have the time to go over in this post alone, but feel free to post on the public forums or PM any of the raiders here at Blood Legion for any questions or comments about the fight.

A big congrats go out to KIN Raiders and STARS, who both managed to snag kills before us! You can read our thoughts on the tier as a whole and many other things in the News section of our forums. Feel free to comment or drop me a PM if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for reading this and I hope that it helps you and your guild in their quest to become Saviors of Azeroth!

-Riggs



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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Vullafuja on Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:20 pm

Congratulations on your kill from europe. :)

I got a question regarding your dps Death Knights.

Why are they frost specced? I keep hearing different things.

Could you please enlighten me?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Riggnaros on Thu Dec 29, 2011 2:05 pm

For burst AE along with Chillblains on the Congealing Blood in the final phase.
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Vullafuja on Thu Dec 29, 2011 2:52 pm

Thank you for the reply.

Another question. Are they running an unholy spec for the rest of the bosses or all frost?

Whats your experience?
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Nealia on Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:40 pm

Why are your Rogues specced Assassination?
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Nodozz on Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:40 pm

Aoe
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby cioby2k on Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:34 am

I just saw the move on youtube and wanted to congratz you guys for a very beautiful kill.
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby saty on Thu Apr 05, 2012 11:12 am

i got a few question for ur paladin tank.
1- Did ur paly tank try using bubble/BOP while impale happened? cos i have used it every week on normal mode when i eat the second spike and it works. I am not sure if the same will work on Heroics.
2- Did ur paly tank use Ardent defender alone for impale??? cos that would heal him back to 15% health. I have tried ardent defender for solo soaking on H majardomo scorpion swipe and it worked for me. But yesterday was our first attempt on H madness and I died though a AD, not sure if I used my AD too early or too late.


Thanks,
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Optee on Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:30 pm

saty wrote:i got a few question for ur paladin tank.
1- Did ur paly tank try using bubble/BOP while impale happened? cos i have used it every week on normal mode when i eat the second spike and it works. I am not sure if the same will work on Heroics.
2- Did ur paly tank use Ardent defender alone for impale??? cos that would heal him back to 15% health. I have tried ardent defender for solo soaking on H majardomo scorpion swipe and it worked for me. But yesterday was our first attempt on H madness and I died though a AD, not sure if I used my AD too early or too late.


Thanks,
Saty-US - Exodar


1. Bubble/BOP do not work on Heroic Mode of this encounter
2. AD alone will not cover the damage. There's a cap on AD, and the Impale exceeds this. You just have to use AD for the dmg reduction, rather than the life saving component.
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby saty on Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:44 pm

thanks for quick response.
Any suggestion if the firelands trink stay of execution would help over a 775 stam trink???
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Re: Madness of Deathing 25-man Heroic Strategy Guide

Postby Optee on Fri Apr 06, 2012 2:17 pm

saty wrote:thanks for quick response.
Any suggestion if the firelands trink stay of execution would help over a 775 stam trink???


Stay of Execution will be beneficial over a 775 stam trinket only when you don't have external cooldowns (i.e. Pain Suppression, Hand of Sac, and Warrior Rallying Cry)
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