Most survivable class/build?

Looking for a confirmation of another opinion.

New player. I was trying to complete story on HC for my first playthrough.
Got to level 31 before dying in Act 3 as my ED/Contagion build.

So I'd like to try a different, tankier class, and it was recommended to me that Jugg+Cleave builds were about the most survivable you get. Jugg because Jugg, and Cleave because it has Overwhelming Odds.

Does that sound right?

i prefer some totem build for survivability. because u only need to focus on dodging skills

good options are: warchief, frostbolt, glacial cascade.

Being generally tanky is a bit problematic. Best would be to get your journey description and get to know what killed you. Tankiness can be achieved in a lot of ways.

From your profile - the witch - is likely the ED char and there's a lot of things to improve just from the first look at the char.
- +gem wand from vendor recipe
- movement speed boots
- skill links

You lack health pool, mitigation and speed - so basically everything is wrong :) some tweaks could be done on tree, more on gearing side.

Letz asume that Jugg with Cleave will be your choice

1. Marauder / Jugg have access to a lot of life early on, so just the pool will mitigate a lot of danger
2. Cleave is a melee skill with a cone attack, so positioning is important
3. Cleave is a melee melee , so you basically facetanking everything, going for mitigation is important - likely armor, life leech and keeping updated life pots

Getting a support totem - either Decoy (safety) , or Protector / Warchief totem for dmg. DMG totem can do work for you and you can run around when sensing danger. Decoy can give you opportunity to do dmg by yourself. Choice is upon play style and depends on discovering weakness of your playstyle.

Using Cleave and testing out Sunder you might discover that Sunder is more suitable as semi-range melee attack which gives better opportunity to "hit and run" strategy.

As melee you will get access to mobility skill like Whirling blades or Leap Slam and user Fortify to get some mitigation.

Getting a Granite Flask can solve a lot of early issues with phys dmg when you are not upgrading gear pieces that offten - get one.

Transmute your flasks - as long as you have free transmute Orbs, use them of flasks you use, especially utility flasks - the bonuses flasks offer are great.

btw. since you want to clear A1 - A10 on HC, likely without prior experience with some boss fights, beware that there are couple "hard" encounters along the way

1. Innocence - classic killer - at lvl 42 get your Hallowed flasks (42lvl req) , it can produce a lot of crap on the screen and kill you effortlessly, flask management can help a lot.
2. Kitava A5 - another effortless killer - have decent dmg spikes which are dangerous
and stuff gets harder from A6 here you will loose 30% all resistance so pay attention on your res once you manage to kill Kitava - resistances will get crucial from A6.