I can't say what it is they meant, just giving my interpretation of it.
As I said, the guides aren't wrong, they're actually very clear and they do provide options.
I don't find following them to be any less fun than doing my own thing, but I'm interested in performing well so I'll mostly follow them. Except in situations where the play style in those recommended guides just doesn't jive with my play style by adding too much micro managing or an extra button that I don't particularly like in my rotation. Knowing what's top choice vs what's an acceptable replacement is nice.
I agree with you on this.I mean I always used whatever talents I wanted. Sometimes that was the most optimal, sometimes it was ~3% less DPS, but considerably less mental stress, or I liked the theme of it. I still put up top logs and DPS, no one ever kicked me from a pug mythic or heroic raid or M+ because I had a different talent...
At the end of the day, performance is really all that matters and how you get there is mostly irrelevant IME. If the argument here is about dead or useless talents that are fun, then I fully agree there.
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It's already brain dead, if that's the case. Using less buttons to be brain dead is better than more buttons.
That's my take anyway. I've never found the rotations to be difficult, biggest challenge I found was where to put them on my already busy bar to make them feel more organic/easy to use. The issue was never pushing the button itself.