weakening blow + piercing rapture or its deavonian versions, then you smash everything thats not on cooldown

You can keep aoes for situations like adds spawning on Workshop or killing mobs on dred after you rush

Are you serious ? glad in this patch coudn't be easier to pve dude.
Maximizing dps in boss fights I would go for this stigmas in fast boss fights as nara/ht -> this build
For longer boss fights as prometun/makarna I would go for -> this build IMO mangling cyclone is doing a lot more dmg than sure strike in long fights.
As for rotation, indeed pdef reduction skills used on cooldown then focus on ferocious strike and body smash combos (and sure strike if it's the case), use everything else as fillers. Usually you have to use 2 ,max MAX 3, fillers in between ur body smash and ferocious strike chains.

Edit: for the fast runs you can replace exhausting wave with sharp strike if u like it better, i keep it just for the aoes needed before boss fight
More experienced glads who actually tested stuff can answer you with more precise data, but imo you should test yourself different builds to see what you like better

Well I find it hard to generalise everything since it's a matter of
"What sort of PvE?"
"What weapon do I use?"

Those who played gladiator (way) before may still use DW partially and you wouldn't recommend Mangling Cyclone there. And even regarding hybrid I'd rather choose Severe... over Exhausting Wave.
However, single target tests revealed to me that on Polearm the outcome for both single target and AoE stigmas is rather similar. Therefore you can very well go for AoE here as a GS/Pole user.

Additionally gladiator relies nowadays a lot on its daeva skills. Alternatives for Piercing Rupture and especially Vow of the Charge boost your damage a lot.

For rotations in general you have to check these things to determine one:

• What skills reduce defence/enhance my damage?
  
• What skills deal the most damage (and have probably high cooldowns)?
  
• What skills deal ok damage and have low cooldowns?
  
• What skills are rather useless (and maybe have long animation)?
  

Like that you can determine an order. If you have Vow of the Charge you have 100% crits for 5s. Here it's important to focus on those skills that deal the most damage in a short time.

The main issue might be that some gladiators expect their PvP rotation to work in PvE as well, but it's not like Lockdown has any importance in PvE for example.

@Sirkka i'm not questioning you, but i feel like i have to explain my comment

1. DW topic: since he has no ideea about a good pve rotation, i highly doubt he played before, so having fallusha dagger/sword at a high enchantment lvl to even be viable didn't even crossed my mind.
2. Exhausting wave vs severe: i prefere the healing one due to it's safer for me when going with lfg (ppl you can't trust) . Personally i have my fallusha dagger +25 and i would always go for sure strike + sharp strike but i'm not playing glad anymore so...
3. Lockdown having no importance in PvE ? well for me it actually had the importance of being a filler whenever another better filler was on cooldown i used it very rare, but still it was there to use in case i needed it rather than the alternatives that i could never use in boss fights

I've been in his shoes before and what worked for me was testing myself different situations. That topic helped with let's say 5%


And the most important things i wrote:

Well, I didn't object to it in the first place since I didn't assume that he had some old gear (like that).

It always was (just) a filler, but it had a more annoying animation than Siegebreaker... and nowadays it's hardly used anymore. I never have to use it on DW anymore and even if you just smash the button with a polearm it hardly comes up. There are always skills with minor importance which might be used if required. (Aerial) Lockdown or Blade of Incitement are skills like that. Maybe you use them for aggro means or to cc trash or to fill a gap, but that's about it.


Well if you have Absorb Bloodlust and Counter Leech it's really not worth it. Suddenly we have tons of hp leech skills...