As you remember from "Introduction", my feelings are that WoW became rather too easy. Vanilla WoW was much more challenging, so I started to seek where my challenge in today's game is. "Challenge" to me means to do something that most casual players consider as "undoable". That also means it should be done solo without any assistance from other player(s).

So I decided to do solo as many non-WotLK instances as possible. No, I'm not going to solo Lich King (though I'm impressed how a rogue was able to down 2 bosses in Naxx 80) and it is not something than no one else can do. I'm average player with just above average WoW experience. You are welcome to repeat what I'm doing and go beyond :)

As you might know, I'm DK and my main spec is Unholy Tank. Not going to discuss why I'm tanking in unholy spec, but I found myself very comfortable in this build and doing decent damage as well.

However before you try to repeat my experience (and to avoid frustration) you need to be adequately geared. I found a good and simple gear check - try to kill Chillmaw solo (that is a group quest "Threat From Above" from Argent Crusade dailies).

So as a tank I wasn't able to do it solo with the tank gear from Naxx 10-man drops though we were easily farming this instance in that gear (ilvl about 200). I tried later with some gear from Ulduar 10-man (ilvl about 219) but still failed.

I came back to this after my break and when I geared up with 5-man ICC drops (ilvl 232) and many badges gear (ilvl 245 and 264). It became easy as soon as I got 40k HP unbuffed and GS around 5.4K. Initially I did it in Blood build which does less damage but allows me to heal myself very efficiently. After some experience and getting better gear (I'm at 42k HP and GS 5.7k now) I started to do it in my Unholy build. Please notice - none of my gear is from ICC, so it is not about raiding to get appropriate gear, just patience and some time, and you could get anything you need for solo challenges.

Fraps below is for illustration purposes only to demostrate that it could be done solo in appropriate gear. Do not take it as an instruction on how to do it. I'm sure many classes can solo it now one way or the other.

So my point is the following: for the instances you should have tanking gear and should be able actually to tank mobs and bosses. You also should be able to heal yourself one way or the other. If you could down this mob solo then you are ready for the challenge.

Stay tuned for the next battle report where I'll talk more about solo instancing.