Bought a rig with a monarch for my first rig, had really hard and off heading openings, until I had a pocket slider made. it slowed the openings and then when I started packing it correctly and stopped doing the tricks I was taught to slow the openings down the openings are Brisk but not unmanageable and on heading.
I really enjoy my monarch and you can pick them up cheap. mine was an older well used canopy but I still got great surfs loading it at 1.3. Good canopy for the money.