Feeling very squishy on a 'tanky' character

First and foremost: Armour and Resists alone do not make you tanky. You will always be taking damage, and a fair amount at that. You cannot go without Life replenishment.


Resist work exactly as stated. 75% Resists reduce Elemental Damage taken by 75% (of that Element).

Armour grants a percent-based Damage Reduction based on the amount of Physical Damage received. A larger hit is mitigated by a smaller percentage; you will need a crapton of Armour to reduce a Crit from Brutus to managable levels.


As for being more tanky: Having a Shield is already a solid step. Don't forget to pick up Block Chance nodes, they're pretty swish. The Duelist has a ridiculously powerful Notable, Testudo, and the Templar has some interesting clusters with Resistances. Shadow and Ranger get nice Block nodes too.
There'll also be some Shield Defenses nodes among those. For now, just stick to the Block Chance. Defenses is mostly interesting if you have a really poweful Shield compared to the rest of your gear.

Life Regen is amazeballs. Grab any nearby Regen for a good time.

Life Leech will also help tremendously if your damage is decent. It regenerates your Life at 20% Max Life per second, duration is based on the amount of Life Leeched. That's a whole lot, especially if you Leech enough to keep it going constantly. Combined with Life Regen, you can be regenerating your entire Life bulb in four seconds, or even less.

The Elemental Adaptation passive is all but mandatory if you're looking to be tanky. It's roughly 8% damage reduction from Fire/Cold/Lightning damage.

Endurance Charges are sweet. 4% Phys Damage Reduction a piece really adds up. The Marauder also has a passive that grants a bit of Regen per Charge. Not hard to get 20% DR and 1% Regen there, and it's very noticable.


EDIT: Zomaknight makes a good point. What level are you, what area are you in? :P In Merc, you can reach that with just an average body armour and a few Passives.

Your tree is largely built around damage output. I'm not very surprised you don't feel tanky.

The build you linked looks to focus around Life Regen and Leech (from the Support gem no less) to be 'tanky', which means it won't kick into gear until way down the line. Leech on one-handers takes its time (guess why the creator suggests rocking 2h early). Obtaining the Leech Support does allow you to Leech from the Lightning damage however, which will be a notable boost.

Me, I'd just drop the LMP. Pretty meh on Skills that naturally fire multiple projectiles, and reducing your damage doesn't help your Leech.
The aforementioned Leech will be more beneficial to survival.
A Melee Physical support will notably improve your damage output. It'll improve both the Physical damage, and the Phys-to-Lightning damage. More damage -> more leech!

If you're having trouble face-tanking, utilise the ranged nature of Lightning Strike. It's neat, especially against the suiciding dickholes in the Western Forest.

One pretty major downside to going Blood Magic will be losing out on Auras, effectively. Maybe way later, when you have a large life pool and access to a high-level Reduced Mana and related passives. Missing out on some good stuff; Purity, Determination (if you decide to focus on Armour more), Haste, a damage Aura.