Remove/adjust Goring Blade.

[Kemeko]

With the 5.0 Pld iteration, there was Fight or Flight, Requiescat, and then a short filler. Was that version not intuitive? Confiteor was your hardest hitting skill, but the rotations usually had Fight or Flight first when starting encounters. Unless you are suggesting people are incapable of handling more than one burst in their rotation. The reason the two rotations are different is specifically tied to Divine Might stacks. Regardless if you choose Fight or Flight or Requiescat first in your rotation, you start with 0 Divine Might, so you can't spam Holy Spirit as much, but damage wise will remain the same because of how the Confiteor combo actions and Requiescat work. If you try to make a rotation where in the end, you also have 0 Divine Might, you are restricting yourself too much. Other jobs also have overcap of resources built in to their rotations, not because they don't want a clean loop, but because of recovery and down time. Using your extra resouces is part of optimization to squeeze out extra damage or mitigation, it's not necessary but it is there to ease gameplay. A job that requires perfect play is a bad job design.

None of the combos are fighting each other for spots, which is why I had Goring Blade, Royal Authority, and Atonement written in such a way. I also had to look at what happens if you alternate them in various orders, outside of someone just spamming Goring Blade continuous for the sake of it. With this version of Goring Blade, you can use it 2 or 3 times depending on your combo sequences with no potency loss, which means it will adapt to later levels when new actions are added.

For Goring Blade, by clipping, do you mean the Royal Blessing buff? It has it written that the timers get added, so even if you have them closer than 30s, it will buff back to 60. If there would be an issue of Royal Blessing falling off before a third Goring Blade, this same buff can be added to Blade of Valor further extending the buff with no loss. Ah, it wasn't expressly written here, but Fight or Flight was back to 25s, to match Requiescat at 5 stacks. Obviously, if we stay with the 20s Fight or Flight, you clip stuff really badly, with my suggestions. Fight or Flight duration has always been 5 x Requiescat stacks, (4 stack of Requiescat x 5 = 20s Fight or Flight)(5 stack of Requiescat x 5 = 25s Fight or Flight). You'd need 25s Fight or Flight to ensure 2 Goring Blade under buffs.

Regarding Atonements and differentiating where you are, there's a convenient flashing of buttons. How do you know you used Fast Blade or Atonement? Because Riot Blade is flashing. Atonement, Holy Spirit, and Holy Circle are always flashing because of current buffs so that's nothing new. They wouldn't flash at all if you have no buffs. If Goring Blade, Royal Authority, and Atonement are flashing, then that means you either used Shield Bash or Riot Blade. If the idea of wanting to spam Atonement when you get Sword Oath stacks is a concern, you'd have to go back to level 60. If you introduce Sword Oath there, you have no Atonement to spam for 16 levels, letting a newer player to easily learn to use Sword Oath for Fast Blade, Shield Bash, and Goring Blade respectively, with Shield Lob and Circle of Scorn as well due to having extra Sword Oath stacks. Players will optimize anything, regardless if the job is simple or complex, it comes down to if you can read tooltips. On that note, I more often than not, see sprout Gladiators use Shield Bash. From the very beginning, you try to use everything you can because you have very little options. At level 26 you get [Shield Bash][Rage of Halone], and the Gladiator level 30 Job quest cutscene shows exactly that. That makes it very intuitive in it's own right.

When I take your idea into account and implement with 6.3 Pld, if you change Goring Blade from 60s to a 20/30s skill, you are effectively taking damage away from burst and putting it in filler. They will not do the same damage, it will be balanced to do much less, or risk taking potencies away from other places, while still not accounting for a clean loop. Potency wise, it would be on par with Divine Might Holy Spirit, at which point it could just be deleted, though that would leave a void in skill gain for [50-60], or turned into an ogcd further alienating it. Also, if you make it 20/30s, the moment you delay it even once, you delay them all, causing them to be out of sync even more with a potential of drifting the rotation. We have enough of that with Circle of Scorn and Expiacion. For example:

Filler Average Potency = Holy Spirit Potency = 350 Potency
Goring Blade (60s) Potency = 700
Goring Blade (60s) Potency (700) - Filler Average Potency (350) = 350 Bonus Potency
Goring Blade (30s) Potency = Bonus Potency (350) / 2 + Filler Average Potency (350) = 525 Potency (175 Potency removed from Burst)
Goring Blade (20s) Potency = Bonus Potency (350) / 3 + Filler Average Potency (350) = 470 Potency (240 Potency removed from Burst)
Divine Might Holy Spirit = 450 Potency

If Goring Blade Bonus Potency is added to Requiescat = Goring Blade (Any second duration) Potency (350)
You go from a button that is at least doing something during burst to relegating it to a filler button, and can be ignored entirely, if it only does damage. You cannot add extra potency without breaking the balance with the other tanks, so the potency has to be spread out or put somewhere else.

I will agree some parts of 6.3 are a step in the right direction. The adding of Divine Might in general, and Requiescat burst doing the damage it was supposed to all this time. However, they should not be combined. For example:

Fight or Flight 25s (Physical) = 10 gcd = 6000 Potency
Requiescat 5 stack (Magical) = 5 gcd = 6000 Potency

Two bursts that do the same damage, but one is more condensed to balance. The moment the two bursts were combined, potency for filler and burst becomes harder to balance whereas before there was a clear distinction, Physical vs Magical.

I always keep in mind raid buffs, raid settings, casual settings, the timing of when skills are learned, old traits, new traits, the direction Devs want to go, any minute meta, potency balance, recovery, synergy with actions and tookit, button bloat which is very much on edge, mp balance, balance in regards to other tanks in both mitigation and damage, and how tooltips are written. If something doesn't work, I always look at the beginning and why it does or doesn't, what needs to changed, added, or removed. This wasn't thought of overnight, it takes months of checking and double checking, as well as keeping an eye out for new ideas to think outside the box. Designing a rotation for a child is vastly different from designing a rotation for an adult, you have to eventually grow up. I do enjoy this discussion though, helps test the design even if nothing new was added. No holes have been poked, it's more along the lines of miscommunication.