Our party is trying to make a tank and we wanted to know what classes would be the best for tanking.
Ignore them. Play what you want to play. Besides, "tank" is an unoptimized way to play - there is nothing that forces a mob to attack you. Miss enough times, and that GM will be looking for softer targets and there's nothing you'll be able to do about it.
You're 100 times better off making an offensive guy with some defensive characteristics.
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Quoting myself from Best Tank?
The 3 points of the tanking triangle:
1) threat
2) control
3) mitigation
1) In order to be a threat to the enemy (and therefore be targeted) you need to do different things depending on the enemy. Mindless or animal intelligence creatures may attack you for simply being the closest target. Next to that, dealing large amounts of damage will make you a preferred target as well. More intelligent enemies will attack weak but dangerous targets, which will work against you. This is actually the hardest part of tanking to achieve in pathfinder. You will generally have to be a solid damage dealer to be a tank, which will frequently exclude many builds that otherwise look very "tanky".
2) Control for the tank is simple: keep the enemies where you want them doing what you want them to do. Frequently the most effective character at this part of tanking is actually a caster. For the more traditional tank types (read: mundane melee), this will likely involve the use of combat maneuvers, but can be accomplished a bit through threatening attacks of opprotunity.
3) Mitigation is the easiest of the three tanking points for the pathfinder tank to achieve. For the purposes of this discussion, what is meant by mitigation is reducing the impact of offensive effects on the party as a whole. This breaks into two parts: effective hit points and resistance to negative effects (spells etc.). This means some combination of HP, AC, saves, DR, self healing, etc. Basically anything that can keep you effective longer.
Keeping these things in mind, I'd use an invulnerable rager superstitious barbarian. He'll have a reach weapon and spiked breastplate. He'll take the beast totem line of rage powers and increased DR. He'll have combat reflexes, improved inititative, power attack, and raging vitality. He considers using his attacks of opprotunity to trip. He would consider taking his first 2 levels in monk and dropping the armor. He wants high str and con, decent dex and wis, and dumps int and cha. He boosts acrobatics to fight defensively and tumble. He takes perception because... it's good. He puts most of his wealth into the "big 6".
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There are many options for characters that can absorb hits. However often when referring to a 'Tank' people think of video game styles where it's a character that can incite opponents to attack them when they might otherwise not do so. There aren't many viable options as in most cases a creature can almost always decide to attack someone else because they're just not effective against the target in question.
As a result tanking implies an ability to make a creature want to hit you, while also being able to avoid, reduce, or simply survive that damage. So pretty much any class that can get high HP, Damage Mitigation, or High AC become very viable "Tanks"
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Monk, Brawler, even Ranger, rogue, cleric.... when under the proper build or against the right opponent.
Aberrant Bloodrager has about everything you could want in a tank. You can go vanilla, steelblood or spelleater for the archetype. Give it an Aberrant Tumor familiar with the protector archetype and it becomes rather hard to kill.
My two personal favorites:
1. Kensai magus - high dexterity makes for all good saves. High AC. Spells like Blur[I], [I]Mirror Image, and Displacement stack with AC for even more durability. Potential for both sustained high DPR and very high nova DPR.
2. Fighter: Nodachi + Shield Brace allows you have both the high AC of a sword & board fighter with DPR of a two-handed fighter. AWT enables all good saves. Smash from the Air destroys ranged touch attacks.
In both cases, tiefling or aasimar gives early immunities, resists, and darkvision. Tiefling picks up See in Darkness at high level. Aasimar picks up wings and an (EX) fly speed at high level.
Aberrant Bloodrager has about everything you could want in a tank. You can go vanilla, steelblood or spelleater for the archetype. Give it an Aberrant Tumor familiar with the protector archetype and it becomes rather hard to kill.
Yup.
I like spell eater and primalist (if not banned).
I made one for a 20th level campaign and was amazing. Gave my tumor hedgehog the protector Archetype. Had crazy damage with a Scimitar in 2 hands. AC sucked but had miss chance, DR, fast healing, 13 immunities, and come and get me. My favorite melee character I've played. Highly recommend.
Water/Earth or Earth/Aether kineticist can be reasonably high damage Aoe reach builds with unreasonably high defences.
The first has silly AC and DR the other has DR and temp hit points. Take your pick.
Here's one of my crazier tank ideas
Ha, I remember that thread. Loved that idea!
Well you can't guarantee anything, but certainly can encourage attacks. Aggressive front line tactics, not necessarily the best damage but a decent amount to make you look scary. Proving you're a threat in general. Then have good HP and AC.