First time poster. I am only 14 but I am curious if anyone else bothers or even uses certain abilities and if not used maybe we can get a change. This is just what I have noticed so far. I used to play a monk in EQ so they are near and dear to me.
Feedback and ideas please, and if you disagree why so we can know what some of us may be missing.

Iron Hand. Nice in theory but lasting only 60 seconds I basically forget to keep it active unless im worried about the fight going bad. It seems pretty important to dps yet is just rather annoying. Id prefer a toggle that drains Jin a BIT faster but stays on as long as we have Jin.
I know people will just say im being lazy and just do it or macro it yet needing a macro to keep a primary ability going every 60 seconds kind of proves my point anyway   

Jin Surge. Waste of Jin? I never use it and when I do in groups has no effect anyone can really tell. Maybe make it give you a higher chance to crit your next attack or something to make it worthwhile?

Whirling Storm. Only useful on lower level mobs and using so much endurance most seem to prefer to just kill a mob fast and move on to the next. Spamming the ability using all endurance hurts the mobs yes, but barely. A sorcerer using his AE and all endurance the mobs are pretty much dead. Hike the damage a bit or lower endurance cost?

Stinging Backfist. Countdown time rather quick but since its after a dodge im always missing it because I hit an attack just as I hear the sound it activated. Maybe allow it to stay active even if you attack with something else but keep its quick countdown.

And lastly is it just me having bad luck on weapon skillups? Using only fists since I started and have never been able to max the hand to hand skill seems odd.

Even with all the problems and the stances borked still love my monk.

I always keep my iron hand up if solo.  I try to in groups but I dont always bother because mobs die so fast that the little extra dps isnt worth the hassle of it.

I never use jin surge .. too much jin for little effect

Whirling storm I loved when fighting low level grey mobs to kill quickly for skinning.. dont use it otherwise.. too much end cost for little damage

Stinging backfist.. I try to use it when its up if there are no other chains up at the same time and if I catch it in time. Alot of times the refresh from the previous skill is too slow and the timer runs out at the same time.  However if I can get it off I do as its a end free hit.. Mind you this is since our revamp on those ... prepatch I never used it as it was too much end for too little damage that I could do better damage with less end on normal skills

I think weapon skill ups have been fine with me. At lvl 30 I brought my marital sword up from 0.. yeah it took a while but I expected it too.. i general get about 10 points per mob or so dont really pay attention, I only tried in groups so I didnt have to worry about missing.

I still love my monk too but they need to fix the FD . WHole reason I made one is because i love FD pull.

other skills that i use the least..

waning palm and goading slap

secret of fire ... seems useless

Jin Surge V (level 44) makes a really large jump compared to previous ranks. It adds ~400 - and if everyone lands this as a normal (non-crit) attack in your group, it's 2400 damage for 5 jin, one of our more potent powers. If you have dotters, it adds up some pretty freaky damage - in particular if the dots crit. For personal purposes, Jin surge followed by a normal critical ashen hand gave ~3800 hits, normal is ~2800-3000 (albeit, that does include bard song).

Boundless Fists is to much endurance for the result compared to our other abilites. Although, I'm not a dragon monk.
I would like to say I use our AoE's, but the only few times I have is when I've tanked multipulls during faction killing (it will outdamage healers, but that's about it), the finisher is a joke. Before the weapon skillup-fix, I would use AoE's to quickly skill up new weapons. That was really where it saw the most use.
Secret of Fire/Ice gets way to little use from me, really, the damage they add up is rather nice, but I just hate low duration buffs (Iron Hands enough for me) and Jin is rarely something I have much off anyhow. There's a lot of fire immune mobs, which makes secret of ice useful - and you can with both theoretically permanently keep a secret up.
Secret of Celerity/Transcendence suffers same fate - I don't use them simply because of their reuse. The fact that SoCelerity occurs a global cooldown and thus steals 2 of it's own precious seconds dosen't really make it a better power.
Tiger Pounces / Trapping Mantis Claws - Jin cost and 5 minute reuse? To be fair, I've used them now and then when tanking to produce a finisher and lock agro fast, other than that, they are pretty useless due to the reuse.
Wave Hand in Cloud (Harmonious) - 250 DS, self only, 20 second duration. 10 jin cost, 30 minute reuse. Has to be the single most useless ability in our arsenal. It did decent damage at 26 when it was gotten (the reuse however makes you incapabile of using it effectivly, and even then it's just a solo toy) - however after that it's a joke for ability.

Iron Hand:  When soloing or pulling I use a shuriken, then immediately follow it up with Iron Hand before the mob gets into melee range.  No, they aren't macro'd together, its just a habit I've gotten into.

Jin Surge:  I tend to not use it except for difficult mobs, and if the group is going for them then I usually ask the group to tell me when they are going to do a major damage attack and I hit it as soon as they say so they get it on that attack.  It A) lets them know I'm doing something to help them and B) gets some really nice damage out there.  I've also used it to help the tank keep agro.

Whirling Storm:  I use it when an add joins the group.  It lets me keep focus on the mob we're all targetting, and yet builds up just enough hate that the mob is on me rather than on one of the healers.  Poor-man's crowd control.

Stinging Backfist:  Its very nice when I get it to go off, but it does have a very quick countdown timer.  Maybe if the global recharge didn't include this one?  (So when I do an attack this isn't subject to the 1.5 second all-ability blackout.

Combo that always works for me is
'Punch that causes staggered' (cant remember the name)
Jin Surge
'Cresent kick'
BAM always a crit that opens up abilities 90% of the time because the kick exploits the weakness + has jin surge that gives the entire group a dps boost on their next hit.


exploit it as much as you can and you will be exploding with jin, enough to jin surge every single time its available.



On the contrary of most monks i barely use ashen hand, i think it sucks O.o it does too little damage, doesnt exploit any common weakness and it costs too much jin that i can use to boost my entire groups dps which ultimatly pushes out more dps than a single ashen hand, specially if you have dotters or a sorc.

Meditation was changed some time ago (tooltip not updated) and it takes about 1-2 to enter meditation. This might be a bug though, but it's actually decent now.
It's only real use is when you get new abilities or when you want to get a jin supply up for something. I suppose high level dragons use it when they want to invis aswell and haven't fought recently.

I pretty much use all of the abilities given to me, some are rather situational and don't get much use (Waning Palm for example). I am a fan of ability to toggle abilities on and off so if I saw Iron Hands, Secret of Ice / Flame do this I would be a happy panda monk. 

Oh yeah, totally forgot about the Secrets. As a Dragon this is kind of a touchy thing. Our stance is already kind of "meh" in that the damage does not scale as we level, can be resisted all together, it can miss (lol), or be partially resisted. If I notice Storm Dragon proccing stupidly low, I will use one of the Secrets. I really wish they would change Storm Dragon stance to something else, like extra 20% damage as opposed to the proc it is now. Then using Secrets would be something to look foreward to.

I rarely use Secret of Celerity. 30 minute timer, and only procs off specials, not in Storm Dragon stance.

I never use Dragon Stance (broken)