Just for the record, the best character to "soak up damage in melee" is of course Wildheart Barbarian 7 with Bear Heart and Stallion Animal Aspect / Thief 5.
Actually, it's Abjurer Wizard with Heavy Armour Mastery.
Especially if you're using Warding Bond meaning you're getting resistance to all damage types anyway (Meaning Bear Heart is redundant)
You even mention this when you state to have a Abjurer Wiz be the user of Warding Bond so they can "Mitigate [the damage] into nothing". If they can mitigate the damage into nothing, then the original target can too.
You don't need to bother with getting Temp HP or healing if everything just deals 0 damage anyway.
