A tough ranger?
Trailblazers condi-ranger is probably your best bet if you want to be super tanky while still doing high damage. Something like this makes any open world hero point super easy to solo (2172 toughness, 1633 vitality). It will do more damage than the full Berserker ranger also.
Keep in mind, Trailblazers is expensive to get unless you raid/fractal often though.
Dire, carrion, or rabid are all decent choices for super cheap tanky gear, and you can take the same gear into WvW. Apothecary is another option if you’re thinking WvW ever.
The downside is you miss out on the condi duration, but that’s not of much concern for open world stuff.
I’m not sure how experienced you are with the game, but tanky condi builds do pretty badly at tagging enemies for loot if you wanted to do mostly zerg stuff, and you also contribute next to nothing since your condis don’t have time to tick. With carrion at least you could use the power autoattack of the axe to get tags. Condi tank is fine for solo play though.
cavaliers and zealot with one or two beserker or valk for extra Vitality gear or mix of trinkets makes for a tanky/power build and a decent heal too if you go druid.
boost damage / survival with quickdraw , skirmishing or marks ,bm,druid slot some shouts and power runes or dolyak , GS , sword + axe (quickdraw) or LB/GS , you could try Staff , Sword+warhorn and swap BM for nature magic boost damage by converting healing power into power stats plus again quickness that way.
e.g
skirmishing 2,1,1
BM , 3,2,2 or nature 2,3,2
druid 1,2,3
GS/sword+axe or staff / Sword+warhorn or gs bm damage over support/tanky nature.
again this gear set is expensive.
Zenos’ answer is much better than mine; after I read trailblazers my mind got stuck in cheaper condi altneratives. But a power ranger is infinitely better for open world* and WvW if you ever get into that.
*Because it’s more versatile than condi ranger.
I’ll have to mull it over a bit more. These are some great suggestions and advice. Thanks.