Sanctuary Guardian |
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| Location | Sanctuary Garden |
| Health * | NG: 2,560 |
| NG+: 4,019 | |
| Souls * | NG: 30,000 |
| NG+: 60,000 | |
| * Recorded in PATCH 1.5 weakness:strike,lightning? |
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Sanctuary Guardian is a Boss in Dark Souls Remastered and is the first boss you will face in the DLC area.
Sanctuary Guardian Information
The white winged lion sanctuary watchkeeper, who dreaded the spread of the Abyss.
The Guardian exhibited traits of several animals other than lions, suggesting that it was no ordinary beast, but rather closer to the beings known as Demons."
The Sanctuary Guardian is a huge manticore guarding the entry to Oolacile Sanctuary. It's a powerful creature that functions as the first boss of the DLC area, and a hint for what's to come.
Notes
- * The boss itself will not respawn, the guardian does respawn after beating one of the level bosses, which one appears not to matter. When you return after beating a boss there will be two respawning Sanctuary Guardians in the garden. They give 3000 souls each when defeated, and do not drop any weapons. It is not advised to fight both at the same time, or really to fight them at all, as you are effectively fighting two late-game bosses simultaneously for little benefit.
- If you missed the tail weapon on your first run through, however, you can try for it again; preferably by taking one down with arrows while inside the tunnels connecting to Sanctuary Garden, though this is time-consuming and will aggro both of the manticores.
Drops
- Guardian Tail (Cut off tail)
- Guardian Soul
- 1 Humanity
Attacks
- Fury Attack, it attacks two to four times in rapid succession, this can be blocked or avoided by backing away. After the fourth attack, you may safely hit the beast once while it regains its stance.
- Wave Crash Attack, the Guardian slams into the ground creating a slow-moving shockwave, which drains all of your stamina if you are blocking and staggers the player. Followed by a charge attack or Lightning Shot, depending on how far you are to the boss. You can easily roll to the side of it or roll forward if you are close to the Guardian to avoid the wave and counter. Usually followed by Best moment to Flask up.
- Lightning Barrage, the Guardian shoots three to five charges of lightning at the player. Bear in mind that this causes splash damage if you stand in the water. Avoiding both the shots and their AoE can be easily done by circle-strafing in the same direction for the whole barrage.
- Lightning Shot, the Guardian shoots a charge of lightning at the player. Beware that rolling the moment the Guardian unleashes the shot won't be enough to avoid it.
- Flying Lightning Shot, the Guardian leaps into the air, firing a charge of lightning at the player, while flying straight over the player or half-circling him.
- Poison Tail Attack, the Guardian swipes with its tail if you stand behind it for too long. This causes heavy poison.
- Hoof Kick, if standing too long behind the Guardian, it will kick its hooves at the player. It's the chopped-tail version of Poison Tail Attack.
- Horn Bash, the Guardian charges the player with its horns. This is blockable or avoidable. Rolling will give you a chance to cut his lowered tail.
- Flying Horn Bash, the Guardian will flap its wings and dive to the player. The attack might be blocked or dodged with a roll. Rolling to the side is the best way to cut its tail since the chimera will lower his tail to the player's reach, recover its breath and have its back turned toward the player.
- Flying Tail Whip, the Guardian will rise in the air and dive towards the player to whip his tail at the player's face to rebound behind him. This attack can be blocked, although it is difficult to notice the first time. By holding your shield up and backing away, the tail will hit your shield rather than your head.
Strategy 1 - Melee/Dex
Equip a lightweight shield with high stability, decent lightning resist and 100% physical resist. Dark Knight Shield or Silver Knight Shield are both good options (both have 65% Lightning resist). Eagle Shield is also a viable option. Equip a light armor set with high lightning resistance, like Xanthous' yellow set. For the weapon, a strong weapon with decent recovery speed is a good option to cut off the tail in one or two hit while 2H wielding. (ex: Axes, Greatswords, Halberds)
The fight is relatively easy if you have fast reaction skills. When you enter it will most likely let out a roar and use Lightning Barrage against you. Just sprint/roll to the right to avoid this. You want to be light on your feet so you can avoid the attack and get in close without expending too much stamina.
Lock on to the Guardian and keep your shield up when you move forward, as it will likely start attacking immediately. Try to keep to the side of the monster and keep attacking over and over with a strong weapon held 2-handed. I did it with a non-leveled Gravelord Sword at level 59. Be wary of its' poisonous tail if you don't want to destroy it to get the drop. Pay attention to its' leaps, as it's easy to lose your lock-on when he does so.
NG+: Lightning attacks can be avoided by sideways moves, physical attacks can be avoided by walking backwards, then counter-attack. He has a wave which destroys your block and is followed by a direct attack, so the best would be to avoid the wave with a fast side-roll, though I can´t confirm that, [Linkkit92 on NG, less than 50% burden: the moment I saw the lion standing on its' hindlegs, I rolled once on the side and avoid the wave completely. However, a Lightning Shot followed most of the time] played a >75% equip load tank, with which the unblockable damage was bearable on NG+, about 500-750 dmg.
Strategy 2 - Magic
If you have decent INT and a little END you can make this fight a breeze. Soul Spear and Crystal Soul Spear can knock down its health pretty quickly, and while its attacks are fast there's plenty of time it just stands there waiting for you to ram a bright blue piece of your soul up its hairy fun-hole. As stated above, go for a shield with high stability, along with an armor with good poise. I chose a mix of Stone Knight Set and Channeler Set, with the Wolf Ring and of course Havel's Ring. Keep your shield up any time you're not casting, roll away from attacks, and success is inevitable.
Cutting the Tail
His tail can only be hit while it rests on the ground, and this only happens after his charge attacks. There are two kinds of charge attack, one where he flies up and then dives down, and another which is a followup to his Wave Crash Attack. Normally people avoid this latter attack by rolling to the side, but the best way to generate more openings to hit his tail is to actually get hit on purpose by the Crash Attack while not blocking (as it will not drain any of your stamina nor deal damage); if you are close to him the beast will then lower his head, preparing to charge - and fret not, he doesn't do this too fast, so you will be able to recover from the stagger and still be able to roll and dodge the charge.
Method:
Alternate Tail Cutting Method
Later, when there's two Sanctuary Guardians, equip a bow and go buy a few hundred normal, run-of-the-mill arrows. Warp to the Sanctuary Garden bonfire, and ease up the tunnel and take a shot at a Guardian's tail when a Guardian is visible. They will both attack, and if you're standing too close to the tunnel mouth their lightning attacks can still hit you. Back away until you can usually see the tips of their wings and nothing else. They'll try lightning attacks most often, but they'll regularly run up to the entrance of the tunnel and keep running for a few seconds before they turn and move back into the arena. The stinger of the tail is in plain view and stays in relatively the same spot. Just shoot it with an arrow every time one of the Guardians does this. With patience and positioning, this is a surefire way to get a Guardian Tail, and shouldn't take too many arrows (Doing 150 damage per hit, it took 20-30 arrows on first playthrough), the spares are just in case of misses and in case you want to do it again on the other Guardian.
Strategy 2 (melee + cutting the tail)
Here is a boss fight which gets a lot easier with the lock OFF, provided you do the following things. First of all, reduce your equipment load to below 25% to have the highest overall speed and get the fast roll. Equip a fast, long-reaching weapon with low stamina cost. A decent choice is the Great Scythe as it has all the aforementioned advantages. Two-hand your weapon as you won't be needing your shield in this one. Now go through the fog gate and prepare for battle.
As soon as you enter the arena, sprint straight into the boss while it does the opening rage roar. Once you get close enough (i.e. a few steps away) turn away from the boss without turning the camera and WITHOUT LOCK ON. The idea here is to wait for the boss to attack and just slowly run away from it and into the screen, keeping the camera on the boss. You don't even need to sprint from its Fury Attack. This is why your equipment load should be under 25 %, so you can avoid its attacks without spending extra stamina on sprinting or rolling. The only real danger are the lightning attacks, which require you to sprint and dodge to avoid, but the boss mainly resorts to lightning-based attacks if you are far away, and since you are only a few steps away, these attacks happen less frequently.
The safest time to attack the boss is after Wave Crash Attack - strike only once - and especially after Horn Bash, during whose recovery time you can even cut its tail with one or two 2H R2 strikes. If the tail is cut, award yourself with another strike while the beast roars in rage. You can avoid Wave Crash Attack by rolling to the side and then sprinting forth, finishing with a running attack. To avoid Horn Bash, roll to the side and sprint back to where the boss lands, targetting its tail.
These are the two safest windows to punish the boss, with little to no danger of retaliation provided you only strike once or twice and quickly get back to its front. The less aggressive you are, the less unpredictable the boss gets, and that means no surprise Poison Tail Attacks. If you need to heal, use these same two windows to flask up.
Anonymous
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The only Challenging thing about this fight is cutting off the tail
- Anonymous
Doing a SL1 (or SL3?) Sorcerer build and I have a lot of trouble with this one. There's no way around it. I just have to git gud, i guess
- Anonymous
Every time i put new armor with high defence it seems all of his attacks ignore it ( guardian armor )
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I'm 200% sure this boss' main 2 melee combos are input tracking. If you are walking backwards by the time the second attack winds down, it never follows up the combo. If you try to attack or heal, it will follow up with the full combo every time. Annoying but abusable.
- Anonymous
enjoy getting his horns up your ribs because you dared to press X
- Anonymous
So I used Goughs greatbow and arrows to shoot off its tail it took only 2 shots for it to fall off seems alot better than shooting 30 arrows like it says above
- Anonymous
Can’t f***ing dodge this f***er’s f***ing attacks!!! F*** this s***ty DLC!!!
- Anonymous
Note that the water enables the lightning bombs to have AoE. So ignore your instinct, and stay close to the entrance on dry land.
I found that makes it approach you, and use the 3 hit flurry a lot, which leaves a good opening afterward for one or two hits.
Much better time than eating its lightning out in the open, and running out of stamina and health while the abomination just flies around you.
- Anonymous
Trying to fight this guy with the Moonlight great sword is actually rough, it does barely any damage because of the magic resistance. With pure melee I didnt have too much trouble because of the low health but when you draw out the fight it actually becomes quite difficult. Its definitely one of the most aggressive fights in the game. As a mage your best bet is using soul/crystal soul spears and then it becomes fairly easy as you can kill it in a few casts. This is the first time in the game where the moonlight great sword doesn't perform well </3, pure magic damage is not good in this case
- Anonymous
I actually found this guy to be one of the easiest bosses in the game. He was one of the four that I killed first try (The others being Pinwheel, Moonlight Butterfly and Gwyn).
Although it may have been made easier by the fact that I was playing a dex build and had an easy time keeping up with his mobility.
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Will black Knight weapons do more damage? Is it weak to something?
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I beat it with iaito +15 and crest shield.
Just shield up every attack he throw excet lightning. Your attack window is when he charge, shield up, and then he will stop, then you hit wit r2.
- Anonymous
it took me 4 tries but eventually did defeat it with a +13 mace and sunlight blade. seems to be weak to lightning and strike damage
- Anonymous
i killed him on my first try.then again i also have 50 vitality and full havel's,so im basically unkillable lol
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Was a tough boss for me until I tried Soul Arrow, 4 hits takes 2/3 of his health.
- Anonymous
dont forget the rusted iron ring so you dont get slowed by the water
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Something weird just happened while fighting this boss. It jumped at me then jumped back and while it was in the air it was spinning backwards, then landed and roared, what is this attack? I’ve never seen it before
- Anonymous
No mention that this boss is a reference to the guardian angel in the bible guarding the garden of Eden? No? Ok.
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Interesting info: The two Guardian that respawn have a limited number of tails to collect in one playthrough.
- Anonymous
Does the fact that two of them show up, a while after you kill him, mean something? Or is it like a joke to make you remember the bear cats? Because you meet one of them in darkroot forest, which is Oolacile in the future, while the other two show up after a while.
Or maybe From software simply thought- "if we put bosses as normal enemies in almost all the late game areas, like the bell gargoyles in Anor Londo, the Taurus and capra demons in the demon ruins, the pinwheels in the tomb of giants and the moonlight butterflies in the crystal cave, why shouldn't we do it with the dlc too?" The only lategame area that doesn't have bosses as normal enemies is New Londo, but that's probably because you can have access to it basically at the start of the game by killing Ingward, if you are brave enough. But Still, the Sanctuary guardians have almost no lore reasons to be there, unlike the other bosses. (The pinwheels were created by the original by accident when he was trying to separate the souls that were stuck in his body; the butterflies are Seath's creations; the demons where born from the caos flame; the gargoyles are demons who are serving the gods, and don't respawn, maybe because they are not near lost Izalith, so they can't be substituted. The sanctuary guardians are probably demons who are serving the gods, and respawn, so how did they reach Oolacile if gargoyles couldn't reach Anor londo?
- Anonymous
are there any damage windows in this fight at all? If you swing at him he flaps away and then lightning breathes. If you try to cast, he charges, If you try to melee, the swipe or claws can easily push you out of the way. If you actually get to the side so you might possibly hit him, he flaps away again. There's zero openings here.
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Anybody playing the original on XB1 able to help with this boss? I'm currently around level 50 and would love it if i could get some help. GT: KieraKonners
Praise the Sun [T]/
- Anonymous
im okay with this boss but i feels a little out of place in the dlc it doesn't really fit the theme
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It says you can block the fury attack but you can’t from my experience. Just stay to the side and strafe or roll his attacks, blocking tends to give you fits, either because he drains your stamina so fast or “blockable attacks” actually can’t be blocked. Someone change the info please.
- Anonymous
Clawmark rune, Whirligig Saw transformed, fire paper, bam, done
- Anonymous
Just beat his NG+ version with GLGS. Tip: Stay at the fog gate so you don'tt get bogged down by the water, spam rolls sideways to dodge his lightning attacks, and try rolling away from his melee attacks instead of into them, just far enough so you can hit him while he's attacking. Also it's safer to be on his side than on his back as he has some attacks that hit behind him.
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Was going to whine about this boss but on my 7th go I beat it with Pyromancy, just gotta get lucky with the beginning, was disheartening to see how little damage my enchanted longsword did
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I think i'm spending more times trying to cut its tail off than actually fighting him. When i first started i almost beaten him then i realized he had a tail and wasted a whole afternoon trying to cut it off
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Havel's Set, Effigy Shield, Fire Shortsword+8, and FAP & Havel Rings. Over and done with in 4 minutes, just make sure to have some purple moss
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Fun fact, to anyone still unfamiliar with what animal this boss is: We know it’s a hybrid of a lion, dragon, goat & a scorpion, but the Sanctuary Guardian is the mythical beast known as either the manticore or chimera.
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If you have decent vitality and maxed out pyro with Crown of the Dark Sun and Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring
and it's relatively easy, just don't stand there and let it own you. Gotta roll with the punches! Also, not sure if this works with all tail bosses but I pulled off a fire tempest spell and it cut it off, no doubt because I never equipped a weapon. I was surprised but wasn't complaining lol.
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Here's some tips for dealing damage to it.
When it uses Fury Attack, try to attack during the last part of the combo where it's left wide open. Just make sure you read the combo string correctly, there are 4 variations. You can also space your attacks during the combo or trade hits, but this is more risky.
When it uses Wave Crash dodge forward into the shockwave and use the most damaging combos your weapon can do. The ending lag lasts forever so give it hell!
When you see it swoop down and try to ram you just dodge backwards and you'll have enough time for 1 or 2 R1's, including a chance to chop the tail off.
When it makes a high swipe at you just walk backwards and you can give an easy counter hit.
All the other attacks should be blocked or avoided, they are either too dangerous, or not worth the risk.
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is the tail weaker to fire than the body? I've got a +5 un-ascended pyro glove doing 71 damage to the face but 99 to the tail, but I can't tell if that's instability hits or something to do with weakness to fire... it's odd
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When you and I fight knee-deep in the water and what's your favorite attack? Lightning!
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God, I love how this boss is the exact counter to my ultra greatsword build. Having such a good time >:(
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Just beat the two of them after beating Manus because I saw them both there and I was like “Shiiiiiiieeeeeet” and I got 6000 souls out of it was it worth it? Meh. Was it hard? Extremely. Was it fun? Meh.
- Anonymous
my only complaints about this boss is the many times aforementioned "bull*****Namelly the stunlock, the instapoison tail sweep (that actually punishes you for going for a hit right after you dodged a barrage!) and the obnoxious delay on his lightning shot. Could've been a great boss on par with artorias but, you know, bull*****
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If you attempt this at lower levels prepare to get *****ed, completely slaughtered him first run at sl75 so thinking it would be just as easy I ran my second character at sl40 and died over 20 times....if you experience difficulty just go level up and come back it makes all the difference, also bleed works really well, I used upgraded lifehunt scythe at <30% EL, it was cheese
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It killed me right as I killed it on my first try. Task failed successfully.
- Anonymous
Is there a way to tell which lightning attack is going to do? I mean the big one or the many smaller ones?
- Anonymous
As a Lightning Paladin with an Occult Bastard Sword+5, all I have to say is GOD DAMN
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The real boss are two non-boss versions that start spawning after you defeat him. They're *****ing tough in NG+!
- Anonymous
defeated it on my 4th or 5th try by unequipping my armor, using gravelord sword lvl5, and eagle shield.
- Anonymous
Shitty excuse for a boss. Just spams attacks which stunlock you and take half your health. That, and the insta-proc poison with an attack that literally has no signs he's about to do it. Also the spamming lightning at you while jumping around the arena, not letting you get close. Speaking of not letting you get close, this ***** really likes jumping away every time I get near him, or uses one of his previously mentioned attacks that stun-lock me for half my health and hits me even though I'm clearly not in the way of his attacks (looking at you, headbutt). Who the hell decided to lock the amazing DLC behind the worst boss in the game? Yes, even worse than BoC. because at least with BoC it becomes easy when you know how to do it - just go to the right one, destroy it, quit, go to left one by hugging wall, make one jump, destroy it, quit, bait out sweep attack, walk slightly to the right, drop, roll through all the branches, win. This boss will always be bull*****when you don't exploit it with an over leveled build.
- Anonymous
Part goat, part bird, part lion,part scorpion... So it's a manticore tastefully without the face of an old man.
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This cut off the tail thing is a *****ing overused terrible idea in this game.
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For pyromancers, this boss is beatable at soul level 55. With an ascended pyromancy flame +5, Grass Crest Shield, Havel's ring, and Dark Wood Grain ring, and whatever armor combination you're most comfortable with (at about 22-23 equip load). Get comfortable with dodging attack patterns!
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Stone armor, crystal shield, black knight sword, and hanging near the arena entrance makes this whole fight a cheese
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Took it down in about 4-5 hits with a fully upgraded Choas Blade and 45 DEX.
That guy isn't a pushover. Took me 5 attempts to beat it. Even though Furysword +5 has higher AR than Halbert +15, the Halbert does more damage.
- Anonymous
If you're doing a Sorcery build, Crystal Soul Spear is your friend. 4-shot him at 44 int with crown of dusk and bellowing dragoncrest ring. No power within or RTSR.
- Anonymous
Dat moment when u go back to the sanctuary garden to find two of these motherf***ers
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Was a little rough as a sorcerer. Even though my Crystal Spear took off a third of his health, he's so fast that it was damn near impossible to get a cast off unless I could dupe him into getting turned around. Granted, I am glass cannon as hell, so he could three shot me as well. Was even difficult to connect with Soulmass because half the time he would jump in the air and all of the homing balls would just outright miss. Not a fun fight for a squishy, but definitely doable if you have high damage output.
- Anonymous
Cheap boss. With his stunlock, even with high lightning defense lol.
- Anonymous
So I always wondered why they referred to it as a Demon, and why a Demon would be guarding Oolacile... but I guess there's a difference between Demons and "Chaos Demons." After all, the Batwing Demons are all found guarding/serving Anor Londo, so I guess before the Witch of Izalith tried to use her soul to recreate the First Flame, she would construct Demons like this one to assist in fighting the Abyss?
When you think about it, the Dark Soul and the Witch's "Life Soul" are somewhat similar, being able to generate/regenerate souls continuously. Manus himself seems to resemble a Demon, as well as the bloated heads and even the Ghru in DS3, who are later found roaming the Demon Ruins and having slaughtered the Chaos Demons (establishing the rivalry between Dark and Chaos). And similarly to Manus, who is described as a "vicious lump of gentle humanity" prior to his awakening, the Witch of Izalith was a benign force that went berserk and took the form of a seedbed of Chaos, spawning insurmountable hordes of Demons that began warring against the deities.
I guess Kaathe tried to get the people of Oolacile to use Manus's soul (whether or not it truly is the Dark Soul) to create their own "Flame," but just like with the Witch of Izalith, it went berserk, possibly according to Kaathe's plan, and began to swallow Oolacile. This must have been the beginning of the "Age of Dark" that Kaathe mentions, which prompted Gwyn to sacrifice his Lord Soul to rekindle the First Flame after Artorias sided with the Abyss.
There's no boss insignificant enough for lore discussion, lol.
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Fellas I don’t mind if you think I’m wrong but this guy is kinda cute. Not only that, but he’s just trying to protect his crib.
Is this even a boss? I mean....i killed it today with a Demon Greataxe +14, STR 62, two handed weapon and Power Within pyromancy.....took me 3 hits to melt him down, and barely 30 seconds of fight....if you call that a fight, off course
- Anonymous
This boss took me about 4 tries to beat by two handing a estoc +10 with no gems or added enhancements it's just all down to timing and having a fast reaction
- Anonymous
This boss is also weak for divine weapons, i'm used a silver knight spear And obtained good results against him.
- Anonymous
I know most of you don't have trouble with this boss, but PLEASE put up a better guide... This is one of the ruthless bosses in the series right up next to Champion Gundyr. I have good lightning resistent armor, i have a Halberd +10 and I do enough damage, I can bear the poison, but i can NOT beat this boss, it's the melee attacks that get me, he hits me, I dodge then heal, he charges me and kills me. This is 10+ time I have died. Also I'm soul level 57.
No mention of how this boss has really funky looking animations? Like a cut enemy that was modded back into the game.
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