High athletics and high armor are not complementary at all; I have 7 ath and 65 body armor, and I still get 1-shot all the time (by weapons including steel pick, many 2h swords, and of course mauls). Mostly because your high athletics enables your opponent to achieve massive speed bonus if you accelerate at the wrong time, completely negating your armor.
As turbo mentioned, high IF, high armor, and low ath are all complementary; you will never give your opponent much of a speed bonus, and IF and armor stack so much that you will be a massive tank. People that try this with short 1h weapons like steel pick can be effective, but they need a super-aggressive playstyle (W key down at all times). Otherwise, everyone will just dance around you. And get used to being kicked a lot, in fact, you have to execute kicks yourself a lot, since kicking is the best defense against being kicked.
I've done every 1h build from 27/12 to 18/21, and I prefer the latter. But I've seen plenty of people be effective with the heavy builds, so it comes down to preference.
