I don't spam soulshots unless it's an emergency, i try to stay in bear spirt to get the most out of my damage and hit mobs with at least one stunning fist shot when need be. Using relax to recover my HP when i can.
But i feel i'm not managing my mana efficiently. How are the rest of you melees doing it?
get buffs and dont use skills... w/ VR/haste can good weapon you can kill w/o Soulshots even at 70s (at least a TH can, tyrant should be fine as well) but i wont recommend it as a leveling method.
generally you dont need skills pve aside totems.
I am 7x TH (not adventurer) I do use MP mostly on vicious stance. But buffless is no way you need prophet/SE buffs after 40-50lvl. In c4 you can level tyrant on haste2 only but it's not very effective at all.
I've leveled quite a few melee chars to L40, but a Monk isn't one of them. (Yet) Destroyer, Shillien Knight, Overlord, Warsmith and Bounty Hunter.
For the most part I don't spam SS and try to level as cheaply as possible. (For the Dwarves I used a fair amount of Healing pots, because it is just too painful otherwise. I also have a pretty full selection of pets I use also.) This means I don't use various buff potions or scrolls too often.
For the most part as a melee it's all about keeping your HP up. The only use for MP (Outside of the BH!) is simply to extend the duration of your HP before you have to rest.
From what I know about sub-40 Monk skills you have 3 MP use skills to worry about. (Categorized) Sorted here in order of utility.
1)Relax - This is your main skill to reduce HP regen times. Since it takes less MP than you regen while sitting and it is on, you can essentially ignore it's MP use.
2)Totems - This is what you use to alter your stats to kill faster and hopefully longer. All you really need is enough MP to keep these going constantly. (Or as often as possible.)
3)Stun/Fist/Force skills - No matter which you use these all have only one use. Kill a mob faster. For the most part stun breaks far, far to often to make it any more useful than the skills that just do damage. So no matter which skill you use it's pretty much just a free SS hit's worth of damage. Basically you spend all your 'extra' MP on these skills. Also, Overhit is largely useless. Thus your best use of these skills is as a fight *opener* and not a finisher. (Best used on passive mobs.)
For the most part my strategy is to activate my buff/status skills that I can keep up, open with a special and just wail away. Once I drop to about 1/4 MP I stop using the special skills until MP rises back up to about 1/2 to 3/4 depending on how often I need to rest. I keep that 1/4 in reserve along with some SS for when I get into a jam with aggro and need some butt-saving power. Once HP drops to about 1/4 I stop and relax/rest. I get up when HP is full, not having full MP isn't an issue for most melee. (For the Shillien(Palus) Knight, MP is more of an issue so I rest them more, and use their skills a bit differently.)
For L30-40 I spent most of my characters life either in Execution Grounds or Cruma Swamp. (I solo with these mainly.) I've found the easiest and fastest spot is the main (Ground) floor of EG around the stairs. (Where the mobs are only Strains, Granite Golems, Dead Seekers and Ghouls. The Golems give the most XP even above many Higher level mobs.) I like this spot because there is NO aggro and only the Granite Golems are social. Excellent for melee. You can even do one quest (Black Lion) off some mobs and seed if you want. The only downside is that this area also usually has the occasional idiot PK/Red running around. (I often have my higher level main in the area while leveling my alts to 'accept' their generous drops if they appear. =P)
Don't use any skills, only use mana for dances (or whatever your essencial skills are) and spam spam spam! Manor if you can, doesnt matter if you dont hand in all your seeds, even a few will more than cover your shot costs.