What's the best resource/site for really learning how to play each individual class?

There are tons of build sites, but very few actually give details about how to actually play the class.Early on I remember guides that really got into depth about all of the skills and combinations and really taught you how to play the class. Obviously these are now outdated because of all of the changes, but I would love something like that for all of the "new to me" elite specializations.

I basically stumbled upon a thread about the 6th anniversary gifts, and logged back in just to check them out since I was here at day1, and then just like that I sort of got hooked on the game again. I played throughout all of the expansions and have all the mounts (actually there is a new one showing up as locked that looks like a motorcycle that i'm not sure about) and new specializations unlocked for all of the classes, but I never got around to actually playing them.

Now, instead of just running through the motions and doing alot of button pushing in all of the meta events, I would actually like to relearn all of the classes again. Mainly I'm referring to PVE content.

Thanks for any help and/or a point in the right direction.

Probably popping in and making a thread in the appropriate class sub-forum here, I’d reckon.

metabattle goes pretty in-depth for rotations as well, I reckon you try out those rotations on a golem in the aerodrome and it should give you a pretty good understanding of the classes general mechanics by doing such.

You want to learn "rotations" and how to hit big numbers on a stationary golem? If yes, snowcrowss is the website that will answer your question.If you want to understand de concepts, combos, traits, etc, then I can't help ya. Really don't know any good sources.

Check out YouTube too, some decent guides can be found there

@"Malafaia.8903" said:You want to learn "rotations" and how to hit big numbers on a stationary golem? If yes, snowcrowss is the website that will answer your question.If you want to understand de concepts, combos, traits, etc, then I can't help ya. Really don't know any good sources.

So what else is there to PvE besides "hit big numbers on the boss" and "step out of aoe circles" really? Even raids don't have that many other mechanics in this game.

@Edgy McEdgelord.4790 said:

@"Malafaia.8903" said:You want to learn "rotations" and how to hit big numbers on a stationary golem? If yes, snowcrowss is the website that will answer your question.If you want to understand de concepts, combos, traits, etc, then I can't help ya. Really don't know any good sources.

Hey you forgot "CC nau" !

Honestly, I learned more from just playing the class than referring to sites. Sure, sites like Metabattle, GW2Builds, and even and the GW2Wiki can help with setting up a build, but until you actually play with it, I feel like it doesn't click as to "why" and "how" said builds work (this is regardless if you're running a metabuild or something else).

I guess I'm lucky in that my friend (the same one who got me into Guild Wars 2) is a theorycrafter and I can bounce ideas off of him to help me with making builds. For example, a full Nomad's Shout CC Core Warrior with Trooper Runes isn't meta and it was a bit confusing when he explained how the build worked to me, but then I tried it out and everything fell in place. I made a few personal tweaks to it and it runs great.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that those sites are helpful in getting a start on learning to play a class but nothing trumps actually playing the class and getting a feel for it.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and stuff. You're right that just playing the class is the best way of learning. I went back and looked into some of my old links, and the type of guides I was talking about were similar to the Dulfy class guides that he would post on his site. Very indept with video links etc... It looks like these havn't been updated since 2015 or so, and I was just hoping that there might be something similar with current info.

It's always good motivation to have a goal when trying to start up again, and since I just learned that there's a newish beetle mount out there, I now have something to strive for while getting back into the game. Hopefully its not too painful to get.

@GenghisKhan.7842 said:

@Edgy McEdgelord.4790 said:

@"Malafaia.8903" said:You want to learn "rotations" and how to hit big numbers on a stationary golem? If yes, snowcrowss is the website that will answer your question.If you want to understand de concepts, combos, traits, etc, then I can't help ya. Really don't know any good sources.

tbh I dont even consider that a major mechanic, just some sort of attention check, lol

@Edgy McEdgelord.4790 said:

@"Malafaia.8903" said:You want to learn "rotations" and how to hit big numbers on a stationary golem? If yes, snowcrowss is the website that will answer your question.If you want to understand de concepts, combos, traits, etc, then I can't help ya. Really don't know any good sources.

After playing this for 5+ years i feel like playing the game with "meta DPS builds on instanced content" gets boring really fast.I like to play open world content, solo some HoT or PoF events/ places, challenge myself on unpredictable ways (instead of learning a pattern and doing it again, and again, and again), play non-meta builds on pvp, etc.And for this you need to learn how to squeeze the biggest numbers while staying alive, you need defensive traits, you need to understand your class traitlines/ utilities fully, theorycraft. And this you can't get from any source that i know.So, for me, there's a lot more on PvE than "hit big numbers on the boss" and "step out of aoe circles".

So, since its been over a year since I've played all of my characters, the "meta" build that I had then is for the most part totally different from what it was then.While normally this drives me crazy, and I then go out and find the current "best" build for every class and then switch to it.........

Am I really just wasting time on an incremental increase in damage, that in the long run won't mean that much to me. Should I just focus on whatever build I was using last and really learn to play it?