Best Tank Build That Can Do Damage?

I want to make a tank character, I'm thinking Crit Cleave on a Jugg or Dual Grelwood Shanks on a Gladiator. Sunder on Slayer with Brass Dome looks like an option as well.

Any other ideas would be appreciated. I've made a bunch of glass cannon or leech characters before and I just want to be able to take some hits while still doing damage.

I am playing a Max Block Grelwood Shank Molten Strike Gladiator right now. I use The Surrender as a shield for the 250 life on block which basically makes me invincible against trash mobs.
Maybe not the BEST character, but it is fun.

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Telperion_sr wrote:

I am playing a Max Block Grelwood Shank Molten Strike Gladiator right now. I use The Surrender as a shield for the 250 life on block which basically makes me invincible against trash mobs.
Maybe not the BEST character, but it is fun.

You don't get the armor from your chest when wearing BOR, correcT?

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livejamie wrote:

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Telperion_sr wrote:

I am playing a Max Block Grelwood Shank Molten Strike Gladiator right now. I use The Surrender as a shield for the 250 life on block which basically makes me invincible against trash mobs.
Maybe not the BEST character, but it is fun.

You don't get the armor from your chest when wearing BOR, correcT?

Any/all stats from your chest slot are ignored, yes. This includes jewel sockets; you can level jewels in your chestpiece but you cannot use any of those skills.

Poor Bringer of Rain. It sorta got completely screwed over forever when they released Shaped/Elder helms. May be time to revert a few of those old BoR nerfs. It was (and still is) one of my favorite unique items, but it's just so hard to justify in a build these days.

Anyways.

I don't have a specific recommendation for you, other than checking out Engineering Eternity's Thicc Jugg Cleave tank, but that's...questionable on the 'does damage' part. It can survive Nuclear Armageddon, though - I've watched my brother playing his and just standing under Minotaur rocks, slapping the Minotaur in his bulls for, like...ten minutes. No shits given. Just sit there and slap slap slap slap slap slap slap... until it works. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (except chaos degen) just bounces off the Thicc Jugg.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2048886

Dual Ahn's Might Crit Cleave Juggernaut.
Pretty happy with this build.

Damage output is more than solid, and you have a lot of freedom in gearing towards different defensive setups.

the minute u go dual wield you lose so much defence its hard to really look at it as a tank tbh, just by virtue of how much more tanky you would be with a shield on. Thats not to say you cant get respectable defence from dual wield of course, u absolutely can.

Juggernaut tends to more than compensate for the lack of a shield, especially if you're not relying heavily on Block as a defensive layer. Builds like Thicc Jugg or that interesting Ahn's Might Cleaver rely more on stacked-up, heavily amplified defensive buffs than raw armor or heavy block chance, and Juggernaut makes sure those defensive buffs are quite swole indeed.

I'd argue that most Jugglenutz builds are probably better off without a shield, unless they're going to crazy armor stacking. Even then, Brass Dome and the one Juggernaut double-body-armor passive does so much more there. Dual wielding or two-handers are either stronger offensively, which Juggernaut always struggles with, or allow you to double up build-defining buffs like Ichimonji's buff-effect buff (hueh) or Ahn's Might's bonuses.

Makes me wonder if I could figure out something cool with Hegemony's Era. I've always wanted to use that staff but I've never been able to figure out a good way to make it work...

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1453R wrote:

Makes me wonder if I could figure out something cool with Hegemony's Era. I've always wanted to use that staff but I've never been able to figure out a good way to make it work...

I was thinking about Hegemony's Era as well but I figured it would be way too slow.

You all think Juugg is a better direction then a Gladiator setup?

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livejamie wrote:

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1453R wrote:

Makes me wonder if I could figure out something cool with Hegemony's Era. I've always wanted to use that staff but I've never been able to figure out a good way to make it work...

I was thinking about Hegemony's Era as well but I figured it would be way too slow.

You all think Juugg is a better direction then a Gladiator setup?

Depends on what you want your tank to do.

Juggernaut is and likely always will be the king of purely defensive Ascendancies. It's not doing its job if it's not the best raw-defense class out there. Juggernaut can obtain the most/best physical mitigation, has the option of obtaining the strongest possible Fortify in the game, has decent regeneration (which its very strong mitigation effectively amplifies - taking half the damage you otherwise would means whatever regeneration/sustain you have is effectively doubled), and is just overall very, very difficult to kill when built correctly.

Gladiator is a more mixed class that tends to specialize in being tanky enough while having very good clearspeed. My brother used Haemophilia on his Thicc Jugg supertank; he states that the Bleedsplosions from Haemophila are critical for that build and he wouldn't trade them for the world. Gladiator gets doubly powerful Bleedsplosions for free, and can easily obtain significant block chance for both attacks and spells. Combined with easy access to the most powerful leech nodes in the game, and the Gladiator tends to be a very sword-and-board character thematically - it has enough defense while still keeping a hefty bite.

You have to figure out if you want to emphasize defense as a primary goal, or if you're simply looking for a plastic cannon instead of a glass one. Gladiator is by default less sturdy than Juggernaut, and set-ups like Sunder or Grelwood Molten Strike are inherently more offensive (and less defensive) than Cleave-with-Fortify. Grelwood MS is super ridiculous and could work very well on Gladiator (or every other class in the game, for that matter - it's just a ridiculously strong set-up), Sunder is a pretty standard Gladiator thing, but again - what do you want the build to do? What's the end goal? Are you looking for a general-purpose, do-everything-alrightish character? A dedicated Labyrinth guy? An Atlas explorer/completing character? Something designed to find the Shaper and punch him firmly in the tentacle beard?

These goals all impact what you should be considering for your build. So what are you looking for?

A Necromancer is quite tanky too with tons of ES-regeneration/recovery and taunting zombies. The damage is quite good too.