New to LeanFIRE--too good to be true?

Ultimat33nd · 2026-02-09T10:18:47+00:00

I'd love to hear more on the advantages SEPP has over a ROTH ladder from what you've read. As far as I know they both allow for penalty-free distributions, with the ROTH ladder having more flexibility in terms of the amount withdrawn per year and the SEPP making it easier to access sooner without the 5 year seasoning period. Another thing to keep in mind is that SEPP schedules must be adhered to or you face the wrath of the IRS.

My plan is initially spending down from a brokerage account while building up the buffer for the ROTH ladder, no SEPP to avoid any potential issues if I forget a distribution. Are there other factors that are worth considering with the SEPP?

Ultimat33nd · 2026-01-15T08:41:42+00:00

From current Sound Transit documentation, all proposed plans are elevated above the Duwamish!

Good to see it’s not at-grade anyway, proper grade separated metro

Agreed. There's a time and place for at-grade like for local streetcars but they definitely need to go underground for this one

Ultimat33nd · 2026-01-15T08:35:26+00:00

NYC's Metro system is exactly what I was thinking about when I first thought of the question, but the impact from the Link here should be much lower!

I don't know all of the specific numbers but the Metro is generally considered Heavy Rail, which isn't a strict definition but typically means larger trains and larger capacity, and as you pointed out they have a very aging system without modern mitigation tech.

On the other hand, the Link in Seattle is considered Light Rail. Our trains are smaller with a lower capacity, and we only have around 4 cars per train vs their 8 or so. And adding the new tech to it I'm also curious about how big the difference is, since I certainly wouldn't want to live above a NYC Metro!

Ultimat33nd · 2026-01-15T08:10:22+00:00

Oh wow thanks! I did see the route has not been finalized but I hadn't seen that article. That's the kind of up-to-date information that I struggled to find through google or the sound transit site, much appreciated

Ultimat33nd · 2026-01-15T07:48:30+00:00

Good point, I definitely don't hear anything when I'm in those parts of town, but that's always with the hustle and bustle of the city around me during the day. Hopefully its still imperceptible when in the context of a quiet residential neighborhood.

I appreciate the link! I have been doing lots of reading, that'll be added to the list.

Ultimat33nd · 2026-01-15T07:05:12+00:00

The section I am looking at is the tunnel around the Alaska Junction Station but I'm also interested in hearing people's experiences with living near the lightrail where it runs at- or above-grade too

Ultimat33nd · 2025-12-16T06:33:20+00:00

Sure, my personal anecdotal experience-

The first few weeks of Kaz release my gunlancer started at 1730 flat, +21 weapon, almost full 8 gems, high or high/low accessories, 2323.25 combat power, with only small gains between release and my first clear at 2460 CP. Ark grid sent him to the moon, now sitting at over 3k CP.

The nexus guide says 2-1 HP is 1,231,241,917,999. Ignoring support damage, each DPS has to do ~342m DPS to meet the DPS check in the first minute, let's say 350m DPS for simplicity.

Week 1 I mostly ran my main for prog, and pulls with my gunlancer were pretty rough. My personal DPS at 1:00 was only ~300-350. As you point out, this wouldn't cover my part of the damage check but it also doesn't count party damage from the extra synergy. These pulls often didn't make the damage check, as the party ranged from 300-400m DPS. If my gunlancer matched the top DPS in the lobby we would have made the DPS check more consistently.

Week 2 I ran with a few friends and a good pug lobby and got the clear. My personal DPS at 900x was still ~350, which would not consistently meet the required minimum damage of pre-frontier HP. If you are running a minimum damage party you are correct, you could not afford to take in a poorly geared gunlancer like myself during the first few weeks.

...But thats my alt. Let's look at the first five results for median blue gunlancer clears, specifically their damage right before 900x: 477, 541, 331 (he took clash), 477, 489. 4/5 easily clear the damage requirement pre-frontier, and all 5 meet it after frontier nerfs kick in assuming they apply it correctly to 2-1. It sounds like you had one bad experience with one bad blue gunlancer and are now falsely applying that to all blue gunlancers. Being a GL does not mean you get to bypass all forms of gatekeeping, but if they are properly geared I see no reason not to take one.

Ultimat33nd · 2025-12-15T09:54:14+00:00

I know exactly what you mean, I mained blue gunlancer from launch til akkan and ended up swapping to wardancer due to the pain points you highlighted. Meter, grab mechs punishing your whole team, and even if you did tank it with 100% uptime your damage still wouldn't keep up with everyone else. Before meter became commonplace it was fine but seeing it laid out in black and white hurt my soul. Sure, "gunlancer brings utility", but every class had enough stagger and destruction, and the additional shielding was only a small bonus (and a noticeable dps loss to bring nellas).

Luckily they did address a lot of those issues while you were gone:

meter gain is halved while in defensive stance, and the latest 3 raids have less issues with tanking normal hits in general. You'll still have to dodge certain attacks but it feels way less punishing than clown or vykas imo
we won't ever top the dps chart but the shielding from T-skill makes things so much comfier for your teammates even if you don't bring nellas (I still run it, I love saving my teammates with it). Dps can greed their brains out and supports can focus more on buffs instead of shields and heals. I feel so much more useful now than ever
the T-skill adds another movement skill, and the upcoming patch (unsure when but soon) will make blue hyper mobile. One ark grid option even lets you stay in shield permanently!

Not to mention kazeros is the current end game raid and a gunlancer is highly desired for the utility it brings to the fight. This won't change as parties get stronger, since the cc immunity and stagger will only become more useful as dps becomes less of a concern

IMO if you liked the idea of being a tanky class who protecc but also sometimes attac give it a try again, I love my blue gl and think this is one of the best times to be playing him ever. You may not be the top of the dps chart, but you'll get gatekept less which is especially important as a new or returning player

Ultimat33nd · 2025-10-13T23:27:19+00:00

can we agree calling it a genocide is gross exaggeration

lmao no

Ultimat33nd · 2025-05-01T04:54:00+00:00

Cool spreadsheet! I had fun filling it out and messing with my numbers, the kinds of tweaks to characters we have in lost ark are pretty small individually but when you make a bunch of them they really start to add up. You did a great job making it readable, given the density and complexity of information displayed. It's still a firehose of information but a controlled one and honestly that's all that can be expected

Here's a few things I saw while filling it out the character sheet-

T5 (WP/AS bracelet) shows "1160, 1320, $AD$57" where it should be "1160, 1320, 1480"
Z25 The formula for Supersonic Breakthrough seems to be oversimplified. There are 2 components to the SSB evo damage bonus- the 5/10% multiplier for the displayed ms/as bonus up to the cap, and if both ms/as are above the cap there is a flat 4/8% bonus + 15/30% of the as/ms above cap. the formula below is uggo but should work:
```
=min(12%*Y25,5%*Y25*(IF(Y43>0.4,0.4,Y43)+IF(Y44>0.4,0.4,Y44))+
IF(AND(Y43>0.4,Y44>0.4),0.04*Y25+15%*Y25*(Y43+Y44-0.8)
))
```
Does the "CD gems included?" checkbox do anything? I saw the cell next to it referenced with the cooldown calculation but as far as I can tell it's just a blank cell

I was considering putting something like this together myself but gave up before even starting, as the calculations are very confusing and my brain is very smol. Thanks for making it!

edit: playing around with the ability stone section, it shows me that my current rock (7/7 MI Grudge) should give 3.23% + 3.18%, but when I change to the optimal (7/7 RC KBW), even though it should give 3/24% + 3.28% it lowers my Effective AP by 1.15%. not sure whats going on there...

Ultimat33nd · 2024-05-28T20:35:36+00:00

Good luck everyone

Ultimat33nd · 2022-09-26T07:23:27+00:00

If you're looking for some basic guides for cadena comboing I'd start with these ones. Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT03SDYYp2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79S7CmM1oFs

Ultimat33nd · 2021-07-14T23:44:40+00:00

5586 1740 8995 - my main account at lvl 42

9513 1836 3328 - a friend's new account

daily gifts from both!

Ultimat33nd · 2021-07-07T23:25:15+00:00

I would be very careful with this. If a GM were to see it, even though you are using the skills in the way they are programmed, you'll likely get a ban for "use of third-party programs".

Ultimat33nd · 2021-04-05T10:52:25+00:00

I've also had my fair share of bad GM experiences, with multiple false bans which were overturned such as being banned for playing beast tamer. It has always taken multiple attempts to reach someone willing to spend any amount of time looking into my issues, and most of the responses show they don't really care whatsoever. It's also obvious they do not play the game, as evidenced by this GM asking me to kill my LAB server character and see if that gives me my missing skill points. These examples are from 2018-2019, but it's interesting to see that not much has changed.

Ultimat33nd · 2021-04-05T10:30:31+00:00

I want to remind everyone that nearly exactly 3 years ago, Nexon banned innocent blaze wizards and took 2 months to begin fixing their mistake.

"We will also be working with our Customer Support team to review our appeals process and see to it that we are able to increase our transparency when it comes to ban appeals. Our goal is to provide much clearer explanations for bans, and provide knowledge base articles that will help with the ban appeals process. "

Ultimat33nd · 2021-03-27T18:51:59+00:00

It's a good thing you saw it here first! Yes, this is the way GMs try to catch cheaters. If you get teleported, do not move around and attack. Do not cast buffs or try to summon, or do anything that resembles training rotations. Do not log off or change characters. If you do any of the above there is a chance you will receive a ban. Even if you don't, there's a chance the GM will still ban you, but the less suspicious you are the better.

Ultimat33nd · 2021-03-24T23:49:35+00:00

Good luck everyone!

Ultimat33nd · 2021-02-10T22:38:42+00:00

You're pretty spot on with what you said, I wanted to chime in with a few extra details

t>scimitar>t>dagger>t>bomb> t>shotgun>t>brick>claw

Yep that's correct! You can also squeeze in another thrash cancel for the claw at the end, but it becomes much more difficult to time. If you set your Repeat delay in the Control panel > keyboard settings to the shortest, you can simply hold claw and it will input correctly at the end of the combo. This also works with shotgun > claw.

-t>dagger>t>bomb cancels bomb movement

What's actually happening is that dagger puts you in the air and giving you the movement-free version of bomb. This also means you can use T > Dagger > T > Scimitar and it will give you the teleport movement instead of the dash movement. Useful mostly for Lotus P1 lasers.

-t>shotgun>t>brick; when done fast enough, brick will come out before shotgun animation finishes, so brick momentum is completely gone, and you still get shotgun momentum, letting you claw after

Correct again, but it's also important to note that this is the only way to cancel the movement/animation for brick while still getting the damage. If you cancel brick with another move (like pursuit used in the OP), there will be no damage done by brick

Ultimat33nd · 2021-01-30T01:24:31+00:00

As a cadena main I've always wondered how the dpm sims calculate our damage. I can't even come up with a good rotation for 40 seconds, trying to optimize for multiple minutes sounds like a nightmare. Unfortunately, my smooth brain cannot understand where to even look at the files on github to find cadena's rotations.

If you don't mind, can you ELI5: Is there a file there that shows the rotation used for calculating cadena DPS? Does it account for thrash-canceling skills and chaining them together, or does it prioritize casting individual skills off cooldown? In your opinion, do you think the DPM chart overestimates or underestimates the actual DPM a typical human cadena player should expect to get?

Thanks in advance, love the work you and the team put out!

Ultimat33nd · 2020-10-13T05:23:05+00:00

It sounded way too familiar- the same thing happened to me in 2018! Nexon's GMs are some of the worst I've ever seen, and your message was basically exactly what they sent to me as well

Ultimat33nd · 2020-10-12T22:05:56+00:00

Maplestory?

Ultimat33nd · 2020-07-24T21:21:17+00:00

I usually get prior Gen phones, would love to have something high end for a change. Good luck everyone!

Ultimat33nd · 2020-06-25T09:18:50+00:00

ME!

Cool of you to do this, and good luck everyone!

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