I prefer to play classes which suck at solo leveling. Sometimes I get frustrated because it seems as if the majority of tanks are off on their own trying to improve skills. Some people might be afraid to power-rank early on in their lives, because it's more difficult to learn skills on high level mobs.

To be fair, I have the same inclination. If my character gets shield block, parry or dodge, I like to get those skills as high as possible to improve my survivability. This means that I avoid groups which will rank me away from easy-to-handle training mobs.

What are people's thoughts?

I am currently guilty of being on my own but it is not because of practicing skills. I have pledged to a cabal at level 15 and this time around I want to experience a cabal at the lower levels. Its looking like this is going to take some time though.

as a tank just power ranking with even only 17 int you can reasonably get to level 30 have 90% or more in all defenses and any skills you use while ranking in 10 hours including gearing and minor exploring.