what skills should i spend points in as a monk
 

offense, hand to hand or dual wield?

All of those will raise by use.

My general rule of thumb for any character is bump any skill you can from 0 to 1.

Bank the rest.

Raise skills by use. (hotkeys and key binding can make this super easy!)

use the banked points when you need a jump on a tradeskill or something.

Keep in mind that only the first few points are free to use on any skill, and once it gets higher it costs $ to increase, and there is a cap on how many you can raise it by.

Krey

yeah i messaged a fellow monk and he told me to put a point in my 0 skills so i did that.

Mend and FD

Mend so it stops backfiring!

Mend and only mend

What about bind wound?

Bind Wound is pretty easy to get skilled up, I wouldn't bother putting more than one point in it.

I never used mend in a fight until after it's over 100 in skill.

Fight, bind wound if under 50%... mend when 50-75% in health.

If mend backfires and causes dmg, you have more tries at bind wound. :p

Krey

Once mend is over 100, start dumping some points into FD. And make sure to save 1 point for bindwound once you ding 51