Hey fellow dragon monks,

After just watching my combat numbers.. no parsing, it feels like the best overall bang for the buck when it comes to endurance and jin is doing this:

1.  Hit boundless fist for 20 endurance and damage, which causes enraged vulnerability, possibly opens finisher
2. Hit six dragons strike for 28 endurance and damage, which exploits enraged and causes a auto crit.
3.  use ashen hand to possibly open finisher or jin surge if in group, since jin surge seems to give better overall damage to the mob.
4.  Always use a finisher if it is up.

This seems kind of simple, but in I find that that since boundless and six dragons are both quick refresh and give 1 jin, with 48 endurance the total damage from both of those plus the auto crit from six dragons purty much out does all our other spells such as crescent kick or feet of the fire dragon. 

Also since ashen hand does decent damage and can open up a finisher, I find it much more efficient use of jin over time than iron hand or secrets abilities, especially if you ever have much time between pulls.

the combo of swaying step to make 1 dodge and stinging backfist as a counter.. is a waste of endurance.  I have yet to figure out how to use whirling storm.. the endurance cost being so high.

Even with crescent kick giving 1 extra jin the damage per endurance is horrible.. unless someone in the group can exploit shaken.

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I find that this basically renders a ton of our abilities useless or very rarely used... crescent kick, iron hand, secrets, swaying step, stinging backfist.  Add goading slap and waning palm in the rarely used category as well.   That's 8 total abiltiies that are really more inefficient to use or only in rare occassion, such as the mob has 5%life left and I use cresent kick to make the kill so i get the 2 jin.

I am still learning the class, but that's what I am seeing. Does anyone have better tactics?  Or am i wrong about what I am seeing damage to endurance wise?

Actually crescent kick might not be as bad as I thought.. at least on the ratio, I think it's a little less damage, but less endurance.. longer reset timer.. it makes more sense to use more often for a harm or drunk monk since you guys don't get 6 dragon strikes, which can take advantage of the boundless fist vulnerability.   For any monk it appears its a worthy ability if someone in your group can exploit shaken.

Cool.. I also realized the exploit damage you get from exploiting a vulnerability is not a crit per say, so I don't think it actually will cause the finisher to open up... I believe I am wrong about that. I think it has to be an actual random crit. 

I think the difference in crescent kick and boundless fist will probably change at various levels. so at 20/28 when those abilities upgrade they might be better for a few levels.  When you upgrade crescent kick then that one will be more valuable until you get your next boundless fist then that one might be better for a bit.  At least that's what I am guessing.

Jin surge might be a good spell if you were war, monk, rogue, rogue, psi, cleric or something where you have 4 people at least doing melee damage.  Jin surge might be one of those nice abilities in a dps raid group full of offensive fighters and bards all buffed up where we can give 6 high damage dealers some extra damage.  At least that's the type of utility we can hope for, which would help us be more valuable in a raid.

The secrets can be more beneficial than ashen hand, but you can use ashen hand to set up "vulnerable"
Same for iron hand, but I think again it depends on how much time you can stay in combat. 

Although I tend to use the boundless/six dragons combo a lot more with ashen hand.. it may be totally situational, depend on party makeup, level and maybe other factors. 

For drunken monks cresent kick seems to be better, because you can open up "staggered" with staggered punch.  Then take advantage with the kick.

Vulnerablilitys are sweet.  A rogue friend opens up atleast 2 for me.  My dreadknight friend opens one.  So theres always an option and its always dynamic, very cool.  When you find yourself paying attention to these you lose less endurance it seems too, because a finisher opens up or ashen hand. So, your not constantly spaming your main endurance using attacks.

Iron hand and secrets i only use if im soloing something tough, or the mob in a group has alot of hps and i feel i get my moneys worth.

Fooling around with a new technique tonight.  Lvl 32, with Zank, the bladestaff of the ages equipped.  Start with boundless fist, expose enraged.  Wait for autoattack, then hit jinsurge followed Six Dragon Strike before the next auto attack goes off. 
Was getting about 1000-1500 no crit with that particular combo.

Also, secret of celerity just started working for me yesterday.  Was really nice, it basically says you strike quicly for an additional X damage anytime you use a CA, where X is roughly the amount you hit for with that CA.  Doesn't seem to help procs, that's just a bug w/ storm dragon displaying twice, nor does it seem to affect autoattack.  Still think 30m refresh is way too high.  It only last 20 seconds, your only gonna be able to get off about 7-8 attacks tops (unless you have renewal froma  cleric) in that time.  I think 15m would be much more reasonable.

Saw this post and thought I would toss in my two cents here.  For a dragon monk, Jin Surge + feet of the fire dragon is an awesome combo.  At level 27 it ticks for about 280 for 4 ticks.  If it crits, it ticks for about 410 (and opens up flying kick).  If you want to micro manage it, wait until a split second after the 4th tick and hit it again and it will continue to tick for the same amount of damage without unsing Jin surge.  Only down side is, it takes a hefty amount of energy and you have to time it right to get the full effect.

Kind of curious as to why you use Secret of Flame in Storm Stance. The damage does not stack. When using Secrets, switch to Dragon Stance to get the most out of them.