None of my guildies or good friends were online when I logged today so I figured I'd put together a PUG. I was playing my mechanic rogue so I figured I'd find a healer, an arcane caster, and a few tanks to make a well-rounded group. Got exactly what I was looking for and we started the quest. My first clue that this was going to be a rough run was when I told everyone that the quest we were running (Made to Order) needed resist energy: fire and electricity and the wizard (12th level) said "Oh, I don't have that spell."

Things progressed from bad to worse to terrible from there. Two and a half hours later after having to remind the wizard constantly to cast haste (which he didn't always do), getting no buffs other than a single casting of mass aid at the beginning from the cleric and a few resist fires here and there, and seeing one of the tanks score 9 kills, which was less than half of my own kill count (as a rogue who isn't really focused on DPS), we clawed our way to the boss. The group seemed pretty incapable of making decisions. I had to tell the casters which spells to prep, when to cast buffs, and even when to cast attack spells. It was like I was playing four different characters at once. Only one of the tanks really managed to hold his own weight. The other two were a drag and one even up and quit half way through.

The wizard wasted mana on one or two fights and was spent. And none of that mana was spent on buffing unless I specifically asked (and sometimes not even then). At one point he said "sorry, but I bank mana pots." What good are they doing in the bank? The cleric stood far in the back and did very little besides cast heals, although I did see him drop one or two blade barriers. Buffing however, seemed completely out of the question. Getting so much as a single helpful buff spell out of the casters was like pulling teeth. The cleric seemed to want to save all his mana for healing and the wizard always used his up less than five minutes after shrining.

Wizards: cast haste early and often. Blur on tanks (especially barbs) is mana efficient. Displacement on boss encounters is highly recommended.

Clerics: you are not just a healbot. Stalwart pact, prayer, recitation, freedom of movement, mass shield of faith, mass aid, etc. are all very useful for preventing you from needing to heal in the first place.

Barbarians: you should be the one asking for blur and displacement. Someone shouldn't have to ask for you. Your AC is terrible. We all know it. You need something to keep you from getting hit 95% of the time. And if you go through a long quest like Made to Order and only score 9 kills, you should probably consider rerolling because you are doing something terribly wrong.

Not that the players I ran with will probably read the forums anyway, since if they did, they wouldn't be making such noob mistakes.