I'm sure others can add to this, but my 1st thought for your face tank was a sentinel with the counter attack passive with a healthy amount of life steal. That should keep you pretty stable in melee range for most things. Throw in block and lunge, plus whatever heavy hitting attack you like.
You are correct that high end pets build are currently a bit weaker compared to other builds, but time will tell.
You are in luck for your #3 passive build. Check out some posted builds/videos on aura of decay (AOD) necro. It's a toggled aura that poisons everything around you 3 times a second, and yourself once a second. Poison damage basically stacks exponentially, so the damage gets pretty good. With enough health regen and poison resist you can stay in your own aura forever, or you could build it for even more damage if your willing to toggle it on and off now and then to allow the poison to fall off yourself. Very satisfying, easy build to play, once you have the righ...