Strongest Tank Build IMO

passive skill tree


This build starts as a marauder because of the health nodes being very close etc

I use blood magic because the life regen on this build exceeds 260 health per sec

Massive Armor, Decent melee damage.

Can be combined with a bunch of diff items but this is just pure tank/armor/evasion


passive skill tree breakdown

Meh. I don't want to be too critical but it's rather inefficient. For instance, you take the evasion/ar cluster at the bottom of duelist for like an effectiveness of 10% ev/ar per node (8 nodes). Where instead you could take Sentinel and Reflexes and get 12 1/2% for the same 8 nodes and pick up 10% more resists. Also just glancing quick, you gain a point by going around the bottom of duelist instead of the middle and skipping the +10int node.

This build isn't very good. No shield nodes? Blood magic node? So a tank with no shield and no auras? And 120/120...I'm assuming you'll want to help oak, probably in all 3 difficulties, so you don't get 120 points. You have 2 endurance charge nodes next to your path that you don't take... And what sort of skills are you going to use? Because most tank builds use almost all red gems, meaning you're going to have very little evasion on your gear. That means all those +evasion points are wasted. The only reason to take iron reflexes on a tank is if you're gonna run grace and unwavering stance... but you'll have neither.

Pick your offensive and defensive skills first, then figure out how to augment them appropriately. Put a little less faith in armor rating and more into endurance charges and block.

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jbmcarth wrote:

This build isn't very good. No shield nodes? Blood magic node? So a tank with no shield and no auras? And 120/120...I'm assuming you'll want to help oak, probably in all 3 difficulties, so you don't get 120 points. You have 2 endurance charge nodes next to your path that you don't take... And what sort of skills are you going to use? Because most tank builds use almost all red gems, meaning you're going to have very little evasion on your gear. That means all those +evasion points are wasted. The only reason to take iron reflexes on a tank is if you're gonna run grace and unwavering stance... but you'll have neither.

Pick your offensive and defensive skills first, then figure out how to augment them appropriately. Put a little less faith in armor rating and more into endurance charges and block.

This.

Stacking armor doesn't work in poe because physical mitigation is linked with the amount of the tick, which means the bigger the hit is the smaller the mitigation is. High armor with low life will lead you to softcore (assuming you are playing in a hc league, why would you want to play a tank if you are not in hc anyway ?).

-> You want to tank; the easiest way is to stack life / block (attack AND spell) / armor / resists (more than 75 obviously, 79 is a minimum, more for lightning/fire is more than welcome).
There is a very good tank build on forums: *** Gellig's level 100 Aegis End-Game Boss Tank --
The IMKR's is pretty good too.
Anyway you should take a look on Aegis shield, it's awesome for tanking.

As for the passive tree you linked it's very sub-optimal. As jbmcarth pointed out you need to pick the attacks/spells/auras you are willing to use first, the passive tree comes after.
Also, the offensive nodes at the marauder start are relatively weak compared to the specific weapon type nodes (like By the blade for instance). Basically you need to chose a weapon type to use, and then think a build around it. Keep in mind armor alone is WEAK. You need to find your own balance between life/mitigation, and more generally speaking a balance between defense/offensive. Going full tank leads to do no DPS, it's very boring to play such a character in my opinion.


- The 20% reduce crit multi is the STRONGEST defensive node in the game; you really want to pick it up.

- The +1% max fire/lightning resist are very powerfull too, I really advise you to pick them.

- The %leech nodes are worthless, you will/should use blood rage which would grant you enough leech to reach the cap.

- The endurance charges are a reliable defense tool, much stronger than armor.

- Leather and steel is a nice armor/eva boost and allow you to move faster, these nodes are really worth it.

- Forget about Blood Magic passive, it's crap for 99% builds. As a tank you will most likely use a physical build (=> blood rage leech :D) => in many case 2% mana leech is enough to run your main attack on mana, if not just use BM support. The tradeoff of BM passive is trash.

- Resolute technique is a must have passive in most cases (you don't spec in crit / you don't have good accuracy / RT is not too far => pick it up and enjoy it).

- There is no reason to pick Iron Reflex if you don't run Grace since you won't use Evasion base item (you will need red sockets, rolling 4off colors is not impossible simply not likely (believe me never attempt to, you will end up spending thousands of chroms for nothing).

- Shield nodes are very usefull if you want to tank; don't invest too much in these though. In my opinion the best defense is a mix of the different defensive mechanics (life/mitigation/block).

- With end game gear you should be able to cap your resists without 6% resist nodes (especially if you are using a shield+1h weapon).

- To compare nodes/path, simply calculate what these nodes give divided by their cost (in number of passive points, thus you'll see what they give in average, also you need to consider where these nodes lead you).

For example, let's take Thick Skin.
From duelist area with IR it's 3* 10dex away, basically it's (8*2 + 18) / 6 = 5.67% life + 5 dex in average.
Also it brings you forward to get more good life nodes => the 2* 8% + 12% life nodes in the ranger area. 28/5 = 5.6% + 4dex
The 4* 8% life nodes between range-duelist are 5.33% life in average + 3.33dex. Basically you should prefer the 2*8%+12% near the ranger start over these 4* 8%.



An example of a build I consider more balanced: 112 points used, obviously very high level.
For the example I took a Phys Axe build, tanky shield user with decent DPS for solo capability.

In my opinion all good builds stick with a simple idea, only pick the nodes on the way to other nodes you really need.


Another example, the build I'm currently playing in Invasion (lvl84 build around Wings of Entropy):

There is no "best" build in general, just more or less efficient build; also keep in mind the items are as important if not more than your build; and some uniques require specific passive build to perform well.