Once you hit 80 you can basically choose however you want to play (PvE/PvP/WvW). The type of gear stats you want somewhat depends on what mode you’re playing and build style you want to go with. In PvE most people generally go for power builds (“Berserker” stats Power/Precision/Ferocity) for maximum dps. In say PvP or WvW where you’ll be facing real players and not AI you may want to add in more defense or health with Soldier/Knights. There are also condition builds which focus less on Power/Ferocity and instead stacking conditions like Carrion/Rabid/Sinister. They mixed up alot of our skills/traits with the recent patch so the meta builds of professions may still change overtime. I’m sure you can find more builds online, but for starters you can checkout:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
http://intothemists.com/
As for Ascended gear it’s not necessary unless you want to run higher level Fractals which require the “Agony Resistance” stat which can only be placed on the infusion slots of Ascended equipment. They also provide a small stat boost compared to Exotic gear ~5% which is negligible and more of a vanity option for the average player.
If you decide Exotic isn’t good enough you can start crafting Ascended gear (Armor/Weapons) when your crafting discipline hits 500. If you have Armorsmithing at 400 you’re already a good chunk there, but that last 100 levels are usually the most expensive and I’m sure it’s gone up since I leveled it myself awhile back. The same applies to crafting weapons so if you want say an Ascended Greatsword you’ll need Weaponsmithing 500 to craft it.
There is also the possibility of getting Ascended gear without crafting through (Ascended Chests) drops which are rare, but available from a variety of different activities. These can drop as either a Weapon or Armor chest for a specific gear type and stat prefix. Recently they allowed us the option to change unwanted stats through the Mystic Forge which is actually fairly affordable and much cheaper than going through the process of crafting the item itself.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_chest
As for Ascended Accessories you have more options on how to get them, but are more time consuming than expensive to get. (Amulets/Rings/Accessories) can be bought with Laurels which can get pricey as they do add up if you want a full set. If you run fractals you can buy Ascended Rings with “Pristine Fractal Relic” which you can get 1 of daily as a completion reward. The wiki also says they can come from WvW rewards/PvP tracks if thats what you prefer. If you do buy them with Laurels though you might want to checkout the Laurel vendors in WvW as well as the ones in PvE. The Laurel cost for the same Ascended (Amulet/Ring) from the WvW Laurel vendor are 10 Laurels cheaper at the cost of additional 250 “Badges of Honor” which you get as pretty frequent drops just casually playing WvW.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_equipment
Sorry if the post is a bit long, but my recommendation is to get yourself a Berserker set for PvE (dungeons/open world) as the most optimal dps set. If you want a seperate set for WvW you can make one for Condition or a more defensive set for roaming or something. You can try bringing your PvE set into WvW, but the runes might not work as well there and you’ll be more of a glass cannon. For now Exotic is perfectly fine for pretty much everything in the game. When you save up enough Gold/Materials and still want Ascended go for it then. If you try to attempt it now you should be prepared to drop alot of real money or be broke (ingame) slowly grinding away.
o yea almost forgot the best way if you want to gear up with Exotics is to go for dungeon sets (Ascalonian Catacomb – Paths 1+3) and (Citadel of Flame – Paths 1+2) are the easiest and if you run each path daily you should have enough tokens for a full set in a week or so. If you don’t mind spending the gold you can always just buy a full set off the TP or theres also the WvW Exotic armor with costs about ~1g + (150-200) Badges of Honor per piece of equipment. The available stat options are also more limited and unless they’ve changed it I don’t think you can salvage them.
Thanks