The Bull Moose - Static Strike / Reactive Defenses 1H/Shield

Static Strike is our primary AOE skill here. Its mechanics are fairly easy to deal with. Hit something, and shortly later you unleash an electrical boom hitting all nearby. Hilarious with massive shrines. Depending on monster resistances/vulnerabilities, works well as single target as well. Supported by life on hit to act as your constant healer as well.

Heavy strike for single target. It hits hard, and its knockback works well if you have a party member with bleed/puncture attacks. Alternately Double Strike is a good option as well, and bonus as the duelist starts with it.

Here is where the build takes shape really.

1: Endurance charges
This build gets 6 by the end, that's 24% physical mitigation, 24% all resist, and even 1.2% of your life regen. As detailed in the gems section later, they even just generate themselves in new and exciting ways.

2: Shield
Seems obvious as a one hander. The Duelist area has a handful of delightful shield nodes that should easily put you around 45-50% block chance.

3: Reckoning/Vengeance
These two counterattacks are in a 4-link together with life on hit and endurance charge on melee stun.

Reckoning fires whenever you block, and Vengeance whenever you actually get hit (30%-40% chance depending on gem quality). This gives you a chance to heal and block future damage whenever a blow hits you or your shield (inherent cooldown notwithstanding)

4: CWDT + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call + Increased Duration
This is standard of course, with all the endurance charges flying around whenever your immortal call fires it will usually be supported by the full 6 charges, thus maximizing its up time with minimal input.

5: Iron Reflexes / Unwavering Stance
I'm old school i guess. This is to take advantage of the double dipping with all the armor/evasion nodes in the duelist area, and stun immunity has its obvious benefits.

6: Lightning Coil
Finally the only truly item based defense. The damage conversion here mitigates a good chunk of incoming physical damage. With a fully leveled purity of lightning your incoming physical damage is reduced by 23.7%, moreso if you toss in a topaz flask at the appropriate time

Oak all the way

As you can see, i have some nodes to meet gear deficiencies, spec these in or out as necessary.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgQAFey5HZkrypC9gYTZ1fjEuL02R35lTb6nYuy2ii_MwYJNRnTthO8FLXrvYEteE0CgrK8M96mVwL8Eh4-ZTiq2QUMxG8gppVuv3Q2QCjboZKMaVWEhRmn-a65QZacTyQHnn8unMJ7NGj5-4nk56dVfPzH7f-PvDhQgUEfkUdIh2XyCB_JBVw2Rzrvt-OsTTCb4F-FOMsGjWf4wd-JhZFIS4YVS2WGLT5tqGS5Tu7_V

In general try to get quality on your gems, it will help on nearly every gem.

You will note a lot of red skills here, so choose your base items wisely. In general though with iron reflexes pure evasion gear will get the highest ending armor, although hybrid armor/evasion is good compromise.

In general look look for the standard stuff, high resists, life, and so on. Your weapon (in my case axes) should be fast as repeated strikes bring in your health from life on hit.

Armor:

Static Strike + Life on Hit + Weapon Elemental Damage + Multistrike + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage

My Lightning Coil is still 4 link at the moment. I have been getting buy easily with a single mana flask and Warlord's Mark. Feel free to rotate in blood magic earlier in the 4-link if that is too annoying and you are OK with the DPS loss.

Helmet
Heavy Strike + Melee Physical + Faster Attacks + Added Fire Damage

Avoid Multistrike here as it makes it harder to stay focused on a single target. Drop Added Fire with LOH or life leech if more healing is required

Gloves
Reckoning + Vengeance + Endurance Charge on Melee Stun + Life on Hit

One of these two will fire at least 60% of the time any time an enemy takes a swing at you. The LOH helps recoup your lost life, and the ECoMS keeps the endurance charges primed.

Boots

CWDT + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call + Increased Duration

Nothing special here. I keep them leveled to: 10 - 11 - 10 - max in the order above.

Weapon/Shield

Both will have their own Reduced Mana and two heralds or purities, as needed by your current gear or chromatic luck dictates.

Currently I have:
Reduced Mana + Purity of Lightning + Herald of Ice
Reduced Mana + Herald of Ash + Poacher's Mark (ran out of chromes :/)

Purity of elements is a good option if your resists in general are bad. Eventually I'd like all three heralds and purity of lightning, swapping in other purities as necessary (map with 99% cold damage, etc.)

Early on use a two-hander. Yes you won't get those sexy block benefits, but in normal simply one-shotting everything should be sufficient. A wideswing is especially recommended.

Later difficulties will require the swap to the shield though.

Assuming you go lightning coil, be sure to prioritize your lightning resist. The -60 penalty can be brutal if you don't account for it. Worst case run both purity of elements and lightning together.

Remember you are melee, high burst elemental damage and chaos damage can be deadly.

(I used the translator)