I still feel that those 3 skills deserves at least a little bump up in damage, with how all the skills are in terms of skill factor and how these skills now play out in the whole picture.
From those numbers, it also means it deals at least 1666% per second. In context with all the re-adjusted skills on all classes, it feels weak with how 3000%-10000% skill factor DPS skills now exists everywhere and that one can easily make a build with a full skill rotation of such skills. In the end, Energy Blast without Arts is and still is 240% x 8 damage in a timespan of 3-4 seconds, and Arts System is the only reason why the damage is now viable (increasing its almost-nonexistent DPS multiple folds). Even by current standards, its current damage is utter garbage, being worse than Double Punch alone and almost the same as simply Auto-Attacking normally with buffs. Its damage now with the Arts Attribute is also not as strong as one thinks (mostly Melstis + Drakonas Frieno carrying the damage killing mobs in CM runs, damage falls hard in a boss fight) and it requires all that set-up to deal proper damage. I don’t hope it to have as much DPS as or more DPS than the burst of Palm Strike + Hand Knife as I can see a Monk playstyle where one focuses on Energy Blast when mobbing and using Palm Strike + Hand Knife when bossing, but I still hope for at least a small damage bump in Energy Blast to make the gap closer with how exaggerated the current skill factor adjustments are.
Talking about Double Punch damage with how Monk will be played in future feels a little pointless right now, since only 5 critical hits is needed to get the Energy Blast buff. Assuming that a decently geared person takes roughly 3-8 seconds to deal 5 critical hits on a boss (probably have an easier time with mobs) to channel Energy Blast for 15+ seconds, that’s more than enough time after God Finger Flick set-up for Palm Strike’s 20 second cooldown + Hand Knife to go off cooldown to be used after Energy Blast buff. Within such a small timeframe every 20+ seconds, it looks much better to focus on Palm Strike + Hand Knife (or any other damage skill) over Double Punch since it has so much more burst with similar availability. Double Punch is now used once every 20+ seconds simply to initiate the Energy Blast buff.
(No joke, IMC should just make Double Punch an attribute to change Auto-Attack to Double Punch with how it is right now)
Until they buff Double Punch and Chaplain (I don’t think Chaplain buffs are out yet I think …?), Monk’s playstyle will revolve very little around Double Punch, something like DP once > GFF > PS + HK x4 > DP or ANY other damage skill until 5 critical hits > EB spam for 15 seconds > rinse and repeat. All this is still an incomplete and partial reveal of one whole “Re:Build 2.0” though, so there’s not that much point talking about skill factor right now until the whole adjustment is complete.
Cuts me right in the feels. Players going to Monk thinking Monk got buffed to broken tier not realizing only 1 Arts Attribute is doing all that work. Without that Arts Attribute, Monk is a DPS class without any proper DPS.
Druid-Zealot-Inquisitor is still very much the mainstay of kTest and kToS right now, and Monk is nowhere to be seen as players caught on that Druid-Zealot-Inquisitor still deals more damage than Monk with more utility skills and flexibility than spamming Energy Blast. The difference is now not as bad as before though, and Monk is now good and viable instead of being completely out of the picture like before.
