A while ago I took a stone of experience to bring my PM from level 10 to 16. As I expected, I feel like my performances are less than stellar, especially after running a couple Vale quests for the first time on him. I come to you forum-goers and expert wizards to help gear this sad toon.

His current gear loadout may be found here. Pay no attention to the "anonymous" thingy, it's a weird glitch. Have that on two of my other characters, too... Ah well. The two items I know are must-haves are Heavy/Moderate Fort and GFL (ugh, so expensive). I have a Superior Nihil clicky for my aura.

Another question I'd like to ask you: I ran Rainbow in the Dark the other day on my Monk. The wizard in the group, a first-lifer PM like myself, made it through to the shrine without running out of SP. I don't remember how much he had total; I think it was around 1500. However, when I ran the same quest today on my wizard, I ran out of spell points before the point where we DDoor back to the entrance. So basically, I'm not great at spell conservation. I need help on that.

What I usually do in fights is FoD a caster, Greater Shout the melees, then Acid Rain and Cone of Cold everything to death. If there's a single target, I use Necrotic Ray and my PM II SLA. I buff everyone in the group with Blur, GH, Haste, Rage, and Protection from Elements. I have Extend on Haste, Death Aura, and Rage. Eschew Materials also (cause I'm gimp like that) but that's only 2 SP and I've never noticed a huge difference in how much I can cast when I got it. Occasionally I'll throw a Mass Hold, Web, or Otto's Sphere. What should I do different? I just feel like I'm not contributing when I'm not casting and the melees are beating everything down.

Help is appreciated and welcome.