(All credit for this material goes to Cyberjazz, Click here for original post)

It makes sense that we as Guardians have a thread that hopefully consolidates everything (or near everything) new guardians would like to know about this class and maybe even provide some additional information and alternatives for some of the veterans. I will separate this list out in categories to help keep things more organized/easier to find. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have regarding this class, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability, and possibly add it to the main list. The best way to ask questions is at my MyLotRO blog: The Aforementioned Guardian

**Please note this list will be periodically updated with new information from community questions/information and changes from patches.

Please keep in mind that much of this is information gathered from my closed-beta level 50 Guardian and feedback/forum post from other high level Guardians and Beta testers#, so some of it may be slightly inaccurate or differ from your current game experience.

#Your names are too numerous to mention but if you think I'm talking about you, I probably am.

Prologue: Guardian - An Introduction & Overview
A. What is a Guardian?
B. Nemesis
C. Terminology
D. FAQ’s

I. Skills
A. Active Skills
B. Passive Skills
C. Fellowship Skills
D. Combat options

II. Traits
A. Class
B. Legendary
C. Race
D. Virtues

III: Stats & Equipment
A: Basic Stats
B: Other Stats
C: Equipment & Supplies

IV: Builds
A. Defensive Guardian (Block Focused)
B. Offensive Guardian (Parry Focused)
C. Off-tanking Guardian (2H Specialist)
D. Threat Guardian (Fellow Specialist)
V: Quest [Under Construction]
A. Quest:A Shield Against Adversity
B. Quest:A Guardian's Duty
C. Quest:The Bravest Deed is Selfless
D. Quest:A Lesson from Samwise Gamgee

VI: Issues, Concerns & Desired/Suggested Enhancements

VII: Equipment Locker [Under Construction]

FYI: In general, text in italics is straight from Turbine (statements, documents and mouseovers).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prologue: Guardian - An Introduction & Overview
What is a Guardian?
Role: Tank
A sturdy fighter and protector of the weak, a skilled Guardian can face even the toughest foes and survive. The Guardian is one of the few classes willing and able to try to draw more blows onto himself, and can retaliate with devastating responses. The Guardian will be the class of choice for players who enjoy hard-fought battles and heavy hand-to-hand combat. A master of the defensive arts, a Guardian uses taxing attacks and irksome taunts to draw and hold opponents’ attention, relying on his shield and weapon to turn aside incoming attacks with blocks and parries. His combat style depends on creating openings during an opponent’s attack to provide the opportunity for his own counterattacks.

Reactive Skills: The Guardian is the master of reacting and counterattacking in combat. A sizable number of your skills are dependent on certain combat situations. As you are attacked, you will see the appropriate counter-maneuvers unlock for use against your foe. For example, the skill Retaliation can be used after you parry an attack.

In terms of other MMORPGs, the Guardian fulfills the role of Heavy Tank, with lower overall damage output in exchange for improved survivability. The Guardian is one of the hardiest of classes, with the highest average Morale and a number of abilities which mitigate damage taken. The Guardian is a good soloing class, although the lower damage output means killing monsters takes a bit longer for the Guardian than for some other classes.

The primary role of a guardian is to generate threat so that his/her fellow may defeat the enemy. The secondary role of a guardian is conjunction starter.

B. Nemesis: Healing & Ranged Classes
Due to lower damage output, a mob that has the ability to heal itself will always be a challenge for a Guardian to defeat solo, at or above level. Be prepared for a long battle, ready to stun as often as necessary and have ways to restore power or a stalemate may occur. Ranged classes, much like our Hunters, can do the most damage in the shortest amount of time. Closing the distance by running to them or pulling them to you to get into melee is required if one wants to defeat this foe.

C. Terminology
Aggro: The attention or aggravation of the mob; management of which is the Guardian's primary function (but not his sole responsibility).
IIWAI: The question we all need to ask before we /bug...Is it working as intended.
WIDN: What it does now.
WIIFM: What’s in it for me?
LOS: Line of sight. A tool that every Guardian needs to lear how to use to improve their ability to Pull and position a mob for combat.
Main Tank (MT): The player in a raid or fellowship that concentrates on keeping the enemies attacking him and only him, while the other players pick them off.
Main Assist (MA): The player in a raid or fellowship who calls the shots on which mob should be taken down next by the DPS classes.
Threat: The level of aggravation or ire a player has generated to a mob by using skills and/or sometimes their mere presense.
D. FAQ’s

What’s the best race for the Guardian?
There is no best race, only preference. Many feel that both the Dwarf and Man Race traits and starting statistics better suit the Guardian than the Elves and Hobbits, but take note of these two things.
1. The starting differences mean next to nothing at the highest levels. The way you build and play your Guardian will have the biggest effect.
2. When it’s time for a Guardian to become “Legendary” he must travel to Rivendell (land of the Elves) and speak to Sam Gamgee (Hobbit).

What’s the most important stat for a Guardian?
It depends on what type of Guardian you want to be. Take a look at the Builds and Stats sections and determine for you what fits into your play style.

What can I do about repairs? Will they make any adjustments for Guardians? Do you think it’s worth playing a guardian with the state of repairs?
To quote Patience quoting the great thinker…Butthead, “Settle down, Beavis”
More from Patience

Can we move while firing off our skills?
All of our melee attacks (outside of Turn the Tables for obvious reasons), including both legendaries, have no trouble being used on the move. and have been done while moving. If you are having trouble with moving while firing off your skills I suggest you find a mob with high morale and no threat of killing you and practicing strafing and rotating at the same time. It's a priceless skill in PvMP and PvE, especially when you want to keep attacking but feel it's necessary to turn the mob.

New Skill Q/A and Hakaisms

Four good Q/A and Hakai showing he has a sense of humour

Q: What are Hakai's Favorite New Skills.
A: Salt the Wound and Force Opening .

Q: Will our new Skills work on Creeps?
A: The only one that won't work is Fray the Edge.

Overpower
Q: Is it all skills or just melee skills that cost 20% more power?
A: Overpower only increases the power cost of skills that do damage.

H: To be clear we know that 15% isn't going to be the limit of Overpower's damage add. Having learned some lessons during the course of development there is room in its current implimentation to add some nice bonuses to future traits/items to enhance the skill. Overall in situations where the Guardian's defensive abilities let him win a fight Overpower won't help. In places where the Guardian is going to win handily then Overpower helps speed things along.

Salt the Wound
Q: Will TTK stay open after the use of StW??
A: Yes. StW sits completely outside the parry chain.

H: For those worried that sword and board didn't get any enhancements to DPS you'll have to check out Salt the Wound. There is a big difference between the mild Thrust bleed and the Strong Salt the Wound bleed. Thrust now does 80 damage over 16 seconds. Salt the Wound does 490 damage over 20 seconds. (At level 50)

Shield Wall
Q: Will we be able to cancel the effect or will we have to make it through the duration of a timer?
A: Shield Wall is a timer

H: As for Shield Wall it was a very delicate balancing act. It had to be useful, but too far in any direction and it could easily become game breaking. Imagine a Guardian using Shield Wall on the main tank with full BPE and all of a sudden things become really easy. Even without BPE Shield Wall is still very powerful in the hands of an off tank. Main Tank on the edge? Give him a short breather to smooth things out. The power drain is large, but not debilitating. It is there to keep people from leaving it up for extended periods of time.

While the Guardian doesn't have a much larger pool, by taking the damage onto himself it allows the Minstrel to keep focus on one character instead of trying to heal both the himself and the Guardian. A small point that helps reduce the chaos of aggro gone bad. I can understand the initial skepticism as to the usefulness of the skill, but I think you'll find it quite practical.

H: Even though Shield Wall isn't realistic it fills the role it was designed to fill. Provide emergency relief to another target. While the fact that you use the target's mitigation and don't protect them from induction interrupts isn't ideal these restrictions do provide a good balance to the skill. Without these restrictions there would be something else to keep it in the realm of used during periods of duress. In the end I think once we're out of theory land and into practice the player base will find it is actually useful in a number of situations.

H: The way the effect works both of these weren't possible. I essentially had the same limitations as the Captain's transfer, which means the target's mitigation is used and even though the hit is absorbed it still counts as a hit for induction purposes. All of the combat calculations are happening on the target, he's just throwing the actual results over the wall to the Guardian and nullifying any of his own damage.

There is the potential for Shield Wall to improve the target's mitigation in the future through a trait or an item like a shield. While I agree that it makes logical sense for the target to not have inductions set back, we just weren't able to do that currently since the target is actually getting hit and that is what sets back the induction. The induction system doesn't notice that the damage is thrown over the wall
Stagger
Q: What's are Stagger's Restrictions?
A: Stagger's restriction is you need to attack from behind. You can still use it from the front and hope for a crit, and it will still do full damage from the front.

Engage
Q: What's are Engage's Restrictions?
A: Engage's restriction is it slows you by 15%, does it make you think about whether now is the best time to use it? Sure does. Perhaps it is worth pointing out that since you are 'engaging' the target if the skill is resisted you're not slowed. That since it is a not a wound it won't be dispelled (neither on you or your target).

H:As for engage, bringing you to the top of the threat list doesn't automatically switch a monster's target. There is a minimum time between targets switches (outside of force attacks) so Engage won't snap a target back to the Guardian, but will give them the opportunity to quickly regain aggro. In this sense slowing the target is useful in burning through that time when the monster will not switch back. The movement penalty for engage is reduced by both the destiny point run buff and the trait To The Rescue.

Q: Why does slowing an enemy also slow a guardian? Is there any logic to this?
A: Logic wise, Engage isn't a snare in the traditional sense, you're not hamstringing your target. You're keeping them busy by actively Engaging them. This focus costs you some of your mobility, but in return you're slowing them more and you're boosting yourself to the top of their threat list.

Fray the Edge
Q: Does FtE have a threat component? What about the Conjunction Chance?
A: Fray the Edge has a threat component on delivery that doesn't stack. The Random Conjunction Chance effect does stack.

Summon Tinker
Q: Is this summonable Tinker the same as a repair anvil? Do all players have access to it, or will it allow only guardians to repair?
A: Anyone can use the Tinker and yes he's going to be expensive and only used in a pinch. We're under no illusions that he's going to have regular business.

(All credit for this material goes to Cyberjazz, Click here for original post)