So simple question, how do you tank more? Maxing out resistances is normal but then? Increasing Armor? Having alot of HP ? High DA is just to get hit less and to lower the chance to get crit right?
Well it depends what kind of build you are playing. A spellbinder for example might focus more on cdr for mirror of ereoctes and mark of torment uptime. Nightblade in a medium armor set might focus most on dodge+fumble+physical resistance and armor to a lesser degree (can be difficult for these builds to acquire).
A sword and board character might go for stone form devotion power, overguard and shield passives.
Many builds will take ghoul devotion and life steal.
It would help for you to say what kind of build you want to play first.
High armor, armor abs, max resistances (overcap them), high life steal, high DA, high flat absorob (like inq seal), high block chance and high block recov, high … 
So many ways to tank, depending on what class combo you are going for
Armor, armor protection and physical resist. 99% of monsters deal physical damage and all but one resists are always capped at 80, so this damage doesn’t hurt you at all.
Basically, armor is everything that matters. If you add a touch of flat damage reduction, you’re basically immortal. Don’t bother about overcapping resists by more than 30% because the highest damage value you can eat is, iirc, 1700 damage, with 70% resists (if something reduces your resists by 40) it’s only 510 damage, and you can easily get a Stoneguard amulet or Inquisitor seal to mitigate another half of that damage.
Is there a way to play tanky as a 2h DK for example?
Get +3k armor and +50% physical resists, +3k DA, prismatic diamond, fire, lightning, vitality and aether resistances overcapped. Also +15k health helps as well as fast attack speed and huge life steal. I have a 2H DK as ravager “farmer” for instance using the Mythical Leviathan.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mWyonZ
NOTE this is a pure Ravager set-up and you need some potions. But the general idea is there.
Sure it is. Shield doesn’t have anything to do with being tanky, you can get anything, but bear in mind that shield offers a huge layer of defense too, so if you want to be super tanky, you go for shield. Shield basically gives you another layer of DA, we could say, because if you’re tanky enough, shields neglect all the damage you take, if the block takes place.
It’s way easier to get constant 4k armor, 6k with buffs.
Yeah this is an old old old set-up ancient almost
This is my take on the priority list when it comes to tanking. Tanking is many factors combined. No single defensive stat can do it on its own even if totally maxed. The first 3-5 are essential - without them at a respectable level you won’t tank. 6 and lower are helpful and allow for compromising on some of the other stats. Recommended values are for Crucible 170 with 3 blessings. The stats depend on the values of other stats, ex. if you’re phys res must be low you’ll need more armor. For challenges like Ravager and other ultra bosses you’ll need a completely revamped system of defense.
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Resistances. Overcap primarily fire, lightning, vitality and aether (30% is considered good). Phys res, the more the better (30-40% is good).
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Sustain. Unless you’re a S&B supertank, you’re eating tons of dmg and it needs to be healed back right away. So attack damage converted to health (adcth) proportional to your weapon damage DPS and attack speed is a must (for offensively strong builds 10% is good). Non-weapon damage casters can’t really tank much in this game anymore.
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DA. Uncritability and chance of preventing hits altogether. Not much to talk about - it’s essential. Above 3k is good.
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Armor. If everything else is tip-top and you have access to many additional layers of defense armor can be neglected but only to an extent. 3k armor with close to 100% armor absorption is very good.
This is arguable, though. Different players have different approaches.
- Health. Similar to armor. If everything else is good, extra layers are there, health doesn’t have to be super high. For me 12-13k is good, even lower for very strong offensive builds.
This is also very arguable. I suspect that armor and health requirements for Shattered Realms will be among the most important differences between it and Crucible. Hoping for a comment here from one of the Preatorians.
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DPS. Yes. You can’t facetank forever. If you don’t kill fast enough the amount of debuffs and bursts will eventually get you. Also, complementary to adcth (number 2) - the harder you hit the more you heal.
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Circuit breakers. This is RNG and shit happens. Crowded and debuffed, you can always eat a couple crits/toprolled hits in a row. Ghoul is great and easy to get. MoD (Mark of Divinity medal) used to be popular with hardcore players. I have mixed feeling for mastery circuit breakers (except Blast Shield) but they also help.
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Dodge/deflect. Another very useful layer of defense allowing toons like nightblades to somewhat compromise on stuff like health or armor.
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Fumble/impaired aim. Often underestimated layer of defense because it’s very RNG dependable. Useful in crowds where the amount of enemies and hits per second makes RNG zero out to an extent.
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Damage reduction. You wonder how those inquisitors tank in caster armor? This is how. No RNG. Reduces ALL incoming DMG.
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Damage absorption. % for the biggies. Flat for the smalls. Blast Shield for all. Reduced all dmg taken. Similar to dmg red.
This includes the infamous binder “immortality” routine that supposedly “died” in 7.1. Spells like Mirror or Mark of Torment allow for short bursts of tankability for otherwise squishy chars.
Inquisitor Seal as well as other sources of small flat dmg absorb (Phoenix, Ascention, Prismatic Diamond) are superb for all small enemies, DoT and micro shotguns.
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Secondary resistances. This is complementary to number 2 (adcth). Frozen or stunned, you can’t heal and you can die in an instant. Slowed, your heals are affected, too. Trapped, when melee, you can die from projectiles and AoE or DoT before you reach your targets and get your heals.
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Supplementary heals. This shouldn’t be on my list as I believe a true tank must be weapon damage. And with decent adcth you don’t need supplementary heals. They are too expensive and underpowered in this game (unless they go in pair with other buffs like WoR or Pneumatic lines). Wendigo Totem is arguable. I don’t take it when I autoattack.
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Shield. A separate topic.
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- Health regen. Dead stat. Wendigo Totem alone heals better than all health regen in the world.
And I wrote a novel again…
Nice novel! Should be made into a guide and sticky somewhere 
But if I have 4k life regen/second, that is pretty good plus it works outside totem radius.
Appreciate all the great info shared here.
I’m getting destroyed in resistances so I definitely need to work on that area.
Especially with it seeming to be one of the most important parts of being tanky.
What is that? I’ve never heard of it… I know what “health” is, but “health regen”? You might’ve played too much Diablo, I think.
Back to the topic, if you want a tank, like actual tank, your one and only priority is armor. Resistances are actually tertiary, DA is on the second place. I did test a few tanks, and the only viable tank is a tank that has enormous amounts of armor. Physical resists is not the main resist here, no, it’s hard to get and it’s a percentage, so physical resist, for a tank, should be literally rather an addition. Turtle devotion, when you have much armor, is a key defensive devotion if you have no heals.
Fun fact:
Here’s something people won’t agree with, because they think that Tactician is the best tank in the game. I’d say it’s not. Yeah, I agree, you get a free 200+ damage reduction, but if you look precisely, Shaman has a 5% HP heal, and 500 flat additional heal, which for a tank is way more damage reduction than a Inquisitor Seal. Now, let’s calculate, after all defenses, you take 500 damage per hit of anything, and let’s say you have only 12k HP, Inquisitor Seal has 190 damage absorption, so you take 310 damage per hit, Wendigo Totem heals you by 500 per 0.5 sec, so you already take 0 damage, however, it goes further because it has a 5% heal per 0.5 sec, so you restore additional 600 HP. 20 hits for 500 damage will take 6200 (for a tactician) of your health, while in case of Wendigo Totem, it’ll hit you for 8900 (because you heal only 1100 HP), and here’s the catch, there’s no way you’ll ever take 20 hits in a row for that much damage, the only enemy that can hit you about 10 times in a row is Lokarr, who has massive damage and many procs that deal damage, so only in this particular situation Inquisitor might be slightly better.
Thanks for answers bois!
I thought you maybe copy-pasted in from earlier Posts LOL. Thanks for that!
drink more hp pots
As soon as they come off coldown;).On serious note I tend to put damage absorb much higher on the list,especially flat one.If I dissect deaths of my characters far more came from dots that big physical hits.I like DK as tank.Taking Menhir Bulwark for exclusive skill and Menhir Bastion for relic combine with armor,big health pool,shield with high block chance and low recovery time,DA well over 3k,mark of torment against bosses and tough heroes,some AdctH will create impenetrable tank.But the more defense you add,the more kill time is increasing.