Don't the single person instances in the MSQ start to give you an echo buff if you fail them a couple times? With that plus some nice crafted gear your friend should be able to get through.
Nope. I think I've seen a grand total of one of them give Echo, and it wasn't a MSQ quest I failed at, but one of the Conjurer quests(wasn't watching my HP bar).

The game really does fall upon your situational awareness and reaction timing(along with memorization). If any of these are lacking, you're not going to get too far in the game. You can tell him what to expect, try to aid him and everything. But it will ultimately come down to his own skill level.

Annnd there lies the problem. If he lived closer I'd go over there and do it *for* him. He does well enough in group content and one on one mobs, but the quest I just got finished with slammed two paladin, one dragoon, an arcanist and conjurer all at once, and there was *no* splitting them up.

Stuff like this just makes me want to smack someone. The hell are they thinking? And I'm in stuff off the vendors. We both started about a month and a half ago, and aren't kitted to the teeth in Dreadwyrm. Stuff's got an arseload of HP too.