I still firmly believe that the leveling kit is just as important as the overall package, not only for people who are level syncing to do everyday content with friends, but for people who are leveling the job throughout the story. if the job doesnt naturally get stronger and have a solid base at all the capstone levels, it won't feel as strong as others, and thus won't feel as fun to play. just compare lv 50/60 DRK to lv 50/60 PLD or GNB, and you'll get what I mean. the other 2 jobs feel much more "complete" than DRK does.

I don't think the current build really needs any tweaks to its leveling progression kit other than the ones i mentioned in the original post. even if we don't get a form of active mitigation like the other tanks until lv 70, as long as we get stalwart and missionary earlier the job will feel much better to play and level up, and as long as we can deal more damage to make up for the lack of mitigation until TBN at lv 70, it wouldnt be a bad tradeoff.

I think that having DRK be a combo based job wouldn't be as good as having it be resource based, as Lyth was saying. too many comboes leads to a rigid pattern like with PLD. Having DRK rely more on spending and building with oGCDs would be the way to keep it interesting and bring back that decision-making based HW gameplay, but then those spenders and builders would have to be powerful enough to make up for the lack of combos with bleeds/buffs.