Description

When it comes to taking raw damage the Guardian is unrivaled on its absorption and mitigation abilities. Other tanks will take heavy losses and even die in situations where the Guardian is left untouched. The Guardian has a unique array of protection abilities for their group members and a very defensive skill heavy arsenal which makes them hands down the best defensive tank in the game.

Solo-Play

The Guardian is not designed for solo-play but it is not impossible. By using good food and water for out of combat regeneration, a 2 handed weapon, and the little amount of offensive skills the Guardian has you will be able to solo. However, downtime out of combat, survival in 1on1 combat scenarios, and slow damage per second could leave you well behind the other tank classes in terms of soloing. The only advantage this class has over its rival tanks is the ability to endure an immense amount of beat down, which isn't considered effective for soloing. You will take less damage in a 1v1 encounter than the other tanks but you will also put out less damage making the fights oftentimes long. In some cases, you will be able to go AFK during a fight to go to the bathroom or get a drink, so if you find yourself not able to stay at your computer for a long time you can rest assured that your Guardian's battles will be long enough to allow quick breaks during combat.

Group-Play

Guardians are hands down the best tanks for all melee damage instense enemies, mini-bosses, and raid bosses. They have an excellent array of defensive abilityes and protective abilities for its group members. They can hold aggro like no one else in game. They have a lot of hit points and mitigation which allows more time for your healers to react to bursts of damage the tank receives and calculate it's heals better. The downside is that unless your healer is a cleric, you may find your healer otentimes not having big enough or enough healing power to keep the tank full life easily due to the enormous amount of hitpoints. The damage output of the Guardian can also be significantly lesser than the other tanking classes (depending on your setup) so this might cause a problem if your group is low on damage classes. The kills might be too slow to gain effective group experience. But if you're in a traditional group, (Guardian, Cleric, DPS, DPS or Crowd Control, Slower or DPS) then you won't have anything to worry about.

Summary

The Guardian is required for raids, there's no way to get around that fact. It was designed to take a beat down and that's what it needs to be used for in guild raids. Whether or not people like playing the class really doesn't matter because someone is going to have to level one up to 70 to at least do raids. This doesn't mean if you don't plan on raiding you shouldn't play a guardian. You can gear your Guardian up toward more DPS by just changing your weapon setup and achievement points toward the best DPS abilities you have. Of course you may lose some of your tanking advantages over the other tanks but you will bring yourself closer to their DPS, which groups seem to enjoy!