Herc the damage soak

This build is what I use for arena and conquest tanking. The idea behind it lies in never dying and setting up kills for your team.

My choice for items centers around a large health pool. Beyond that I chose to go with moderate defenses. Finally finishing off with some dmg/attack speed to you can still be a moderate threat in end game. *update*

Warrior Tabi- play smart early on, this will feel squishy, but excel at dishing out damage early on.

meditation- taken out of build as of patch on 2/1/13

Breastplate of Valor- 75 physical prot, 550 mana (no need for meditation with this piece), 30 focus for the stun, cooldown reduction by 20%. This passive is why this piece is so important! Hercules two most important CD's ( Earthbreaker(20 sec from 15) and Mitigate Wounds(17 sec from 12)) were drastically increased in length. This piece puts them close to where they were originally, which feels less gimped. With 25% cd reduction Earthbreakeris now at 15 sec cd, and Mitigate Wounds is at 12.75 sec cd.

Bulwark of Hope- 450 health, 60 magic protection, 15 focus (for stun), and the passive is a lifesaver when you make a wrong move.

Sovereignty- 450 health, 85 physical protection(with aura), 20 magic protection, 30 focus (for stun). The 20 protection from aura can help allies, remember this build is all about your team and health stacking.

Choose which defense you get ( Sovereignty or Bulwark of Hope) first based on your lane composition.

Frostbound Hammer- 25AP (time to make your hits do some damage), 325 health (health stacking), 15 focus (for stun), and slow on basic attack to assure kills after you pull them in.

Ankh of the Golem 30 physical prot, 15% attack speed, 300 health, and 1% of total health is added as attack power. Since you are stacking health you benefit greatly from this passive. The build gives roughly 3600 health which equates to 36 bonus attack power.

Aegis Amulet- The only reason I put this last is that I buy it at different times in each game. It is needed if the enemy has any type of cc.

As you notice I level up Herc's Mitigate Wounds first. This is simply to be able to stay alive and pester the **** out of the enemy team. Stacked with the health, your Mitigate Wounds can make you almost unkillable.

In early game the strategy is to either push the lane and pull an enemy into your creep with Earthbreaker or tower camp and pull enemies into tower range with Earthbreaker.

Do not try to soak damage until you hit level 7 with 4 pts into Mitigate Wounds. At that point you regen almost all of the damage sustained in the first 4 seconds after Mitigate Wounds is hit.

To show how this works, with one or more teammates behind you, you run into the enemy. As they start to lay into you, hit Mitigate Wounds. Eat the damage till you get to about 1/2 health or 4 seconds is up. At that point, retreat to your team and pull one enemy to you (with Earthbreaker). If you are below half health, you can set up a stun with Driving Strike. If not below half health, save Driving Strike for an escape, Killing blow, or better enemy placement.

If done correctly you can essentially never die and royally annoy the **** out of the opposing team. Which hopefully causes them to chase you.

Herc's ult, Excavate, is ungodly bad imo. It takes way to long for the animation to toss the boulder. With this build it does garbage damage anyway. I save it for a last ditch attempt at killing a fleeing opponent with almost no health or to create choas in tight quarters (as it does have knockback effect).

Pros:

never die
bully the enemy team
set up kills with pulls
damage soak/ make opposing team waste abilities

Not very good damage
hard to kill enemy 1v1 unless tower assisted

Be aware!! This build will most likely not get you lots of kills, but will instead feed your teammates.
Be very careful when using your Driving Strike. Take much care to bring enemys towards your melee friends instead of knocking them away. You do mediocre damage with this build, keep that in mind.
Don't be afraid you use Earthbreaker to pull an enemy away from a fleeing teammate. Keep in mind, use Mitigate Wounds to damage soak while positioning for this.
Stay alive and keep your teammates alive and you will win.

Once you hit about level 15 or so you should have no problems tanking any of the jungle mobs including FG. It will take a LONG time and is recommended to have someone damage while you tank, but it is not neccisary. Keep spamming your Mitigate Wounds and you will not die.