I was just sitting in Ironforge a minute ago trying to peddle my enchants. The members of the guild I'm in were sitting around shooting the breeze about Burning Crusade instances. Somebody remarked on BRK's article earlier today about hunters "once being in demand" in Blackrock Depths, and I chimed in that as a subtlety rogue I've felt a little left-out of some of the Burning Crusade content. It seems from my vantage point that hunters and mages own the vast majority of the Burning Crusade instances because those of us who have to be in physical contact with our targets who don't have the benefit of plate armour are getting the bejeezus beaten out of us in this series of instances.

While I can see the progression that Blizzard has taken, and I can understand the necessity for encounters to increase in difficulty I'm having a really difficult time finding the willpower to flush my carefully crafted rogue build down the toilet that I spent so much time perfecting.

So let's shift gears for a moment to solo instances. Yes, we've talked about them before. I think that with the right implementation though, that we could kill a number of birds with one stone.

How many crappy rogues have you met in-game? Ok, put your hands down. We can substitute any class into that question. There are lots of players with no skills floating around. We've all seen warriors who don't sunder, mages who don't realize they can summon (food and water), and even shamans who don't know what a totem is. Yes, I'm serious, I've seen every one of those.

So here's my idea - with apologies if somebody else already thought of it first. I know Dan brushed gently against it a few months ago. Why not make an Academy style instance where players could go solo, maybe every ten levels, and be taught in "live fire" situations how to use the skills they've acquired in the last ten levels. Loot would have the benefit of being class-specific (or at the very least class-appropriate), and lunchbox letdown would be next to non-existent. The only obvious problem to me, is that the gear would almost have to be Bind on Pickup, and they'd probably want to make it so once you beat the last boss that you couldn't come back until you graduated to the next bracket.

Then everybody would have something to do, nobody would feel completely useless, and best of all it would have a positive impact on the skill level of the players on our realms and in our guilds. What do you think?

Tags: classes, solo-instances, training

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Features