Diablo III- Skills Article CLXXIII: Barbarian Elective Build Seven- I’m the Tank

Mouse Skills:
Cleave (Gathering Storm)
Frenzy (Sidearm)
Hotbar Skills:
Rend (Mutilate)
Ground Stomp (Wrenching Smash)
Leap (Call of Arreat)
Ignore Pain (Iron Hide)
Passive Skills:
Nerves of Steel
Tough as Nails
Relentless

As with a few of the other ‘odd’ Barbarian builds, the mouse attacks aren’t the focus of the build, even though they’re what you should be using most of the time.  Instead, it’s Wrenching Smash and Call of Arreat that are in the spotlight here, both of these skills drawing enemies towards you and forcing them to stick where you are.  This also encourages melee enemies to attack you rather than your allies, which is something you can really get behind- or in front of, in this case.  The timing of these two skills (and your targeting when you use Call of Arreat) is what’s going to define your tanking ability here.

Cleave is used to compound this, since the reduction in move speed caused by Gathering Storm will help you keep things where they belong- in your grip.  Frenzy is used to boost the speed of your Cleave attacks, and Sidearm lets you hit multiple targets sometimes, which is a useful thing for keeping enemy attention.  Rend (Mutilate) lets you keep things bleeding- and thus thinking of you with anger in their hearts and dizziness from blood loss in their heads.  And of course, what would a tank build be without Ignore Pain to help it survive all the attention it gets?

In passives, you’ve got everything you need for surviving as a tank.  Nerves of Steel makes a huge difference to your Armor, and Tough as Nails increases that further while boosting your Thorns- and encouraging you to get more retributive-damage gear that will help you keep the attention of enemies once you’ve got it to begin with.  Relentless comes in last, as a way to keep you on your feet in emergency situations.  If you see this becoming active, it’s time to tell the party to either BIWF or GTFO, because you’re going down soon if nothing changes.  It doesn’t hurt that it makes you a more capable damage-dealer while it’s active, too.

If you’re not too enamored of Frenzy and its attack speed buff, you may want to substitute Revenge(Provocation), which does a good job of keeping the attention of whatever you’ve got near you once you start getting it.