WoW newbie looking for advice

[Kevin]

Is it actually possible to solo instances? I'm level 23 and yet still can barely handle two level 19 "Elites" in the Whaling Caverns. And that only because Hibernation works on these Raptor type things. But can't progress beyond a certain point as a "boss" there is escorted by a buddy Raptor. They can't be triggered seperately, so whenever I pull one I get the other one too, and just can't handle them. Mostly because the boss is a humanoid caster with some serious nuking power.

Generally by the time you can solo an instance there isn't much reason to go into that instance, there are some instances and some classes that can solo them while being the same level or just a level higher than the end boss, but that is not the norm. I believe the last patch (which adjusted the level of mobs in a lot of instances) made the highest level mob in the instance L20. My rule of thumb for instances is that 'level appropriate' for that instance is being 2-4 levels lower than the highest level mob. So that would mean that WC is designed with a group of 5 players L16-18 or so. Of course it's hard to do WC at level even if you are trying to because getting some of the quest lines done for some of the quests in there will shoot you up levels pretty quick, especially if you do some of the other quests that kinda overlap with the WC prereqs.

Now all that being said, it's very possible to do some of the instances, level appropriate with just 2 or 3 people. WC is one of the ones that I've duo'd with a hunter + shaman, I think I did with 2x druids as well. I've done pretty much all of scarlet monestary with several different duo's. I've 3 manned all of Uldaman. And again this is all being 2 to 4 levels below the end boss (which often puts you the same level or higher than most of the 'trash')