Just before I go into anything I'm gonna drop the disclaimer that yes, I know that tooltips are not final and that things could change between now and release. But things could also NOT change, so all feedback is given with the assumption that changes will go live as they appear (since that's usually what happens anyway).

All tooltips I'm referencing can be viewed here:
https://gamerescape.com/2021/10/13/f...-on-with-monk/

Generally I think the Monk changes are positive particularly regarding the Blitz system and the new Thunderclap movement skill. But there's a number of baffling choices and seemingly glaring oversights that I just can't in good conscience stay silent about until they go live.

1. No increase to chakra cap
Retaining the max cap of 5 chakra means we are still going to be losing LOTS of chakra during Brotherhood when it flows in randomly from other player's attacks due getting more chakra than we can hold before we can spend it. This is especially true now that Brotherhood is upgraded with a trait that increases the chance to get a bonus chakra from our OWN attacks to 100%.

2. 30 second duration of Perfect Balance will lead to long prepulls.
By using Perfect Balance 23 seconds before pulling the boss, your first charge of Perfect Balance comes back up 17 seconds into the fight, meaning you can do three blitzes early on, not only getting Phantom Rush in the opener but also guaranteeing you get Phantom Rush in every 2 minute window thereafter. I'm having a hard time believing this is intentional.

3. Anatman is still a functionally useless ability.
Anatman is unchanged which means there's still virtually no use for it in any form of content. Refreshing your form is useless when Form Shift exists, and the only effect of pausing Twin Snakes is that maybe you can use a different GCD instead, which is an incredibly minor increase in potency. Considering how little opportunities there are to even use Anatman at all (a lot of extended fight downtime stuns you in a cutscene where you can't use any abilities now), it's honestly baffling that this skill wasn't changed or removed.

4. The new Celestial Revolution attack is also functionally useless
Based on potencies shown in the tooltips, you NEVER want to use Celestial Revolution as it's simply flat out less damage than any of the other blitzes while also not hitting in AoE. When I first saw the design for the Blitz system my assumption would be that there would be a AoE Blitz (Elixir Field) and a single target blitz (Celestial Revolution) for the Lunar Nadi. Instead it appears that Elixir Field is the intended attack for both AoE and Single Target, and Celestial Revolution is instead just a "consolation prize" blitz if you screw up Perfect Balance? It assures that you open the other Nadi but at the cost of significantly less damage.

I just don't understand why they'd implement an attack that you never want to use and is instead is only usable if you make a mistake. It seems like a total waste of the potential of the Blitz system. Is Celestial Revolution, a brand new attack, really just mean to be the equivalent of Monk "bunnying" their mudra-like system? I really think they should reconsider.

5. Riddle of Wind is uninteresting and uninteractive
The new Riddle of Wind cooldown only affects autoattacks, which means that there's really no other considerations to be made as to when you press it or what you do after you've pressed it. With normal damage buffs such as Riddle of Fire, you are at least rewarded with more damage for trying to use other strong skills during the buff window, but there are no actions in the game that synergize with autoattacks. Riddle of Wind is an exceedingly simple button that you press, and your damage goes up for a bit. It doesn't make the Monk rotation any more interesting, it's only value is maybe a cool animation and seeing lots of numbers pop up for a bit. Abilities like this seem like a waste, especially since over the years they've gradually cut back on simplistic flat damage skills that you just use on cooldown.


There's a few other things I could say that have to do more with the overall philosophy of Monk as a job and some of its systems like chakra, but these 5 things are the most urgent issues in terms of how fun the job will be to play in 6.0, especially the first 3. I strongly urge the developers to examine these issues as soon as possible before 6.0 releases, or as soon as possible.