You’re looking for a power build if you’re centering around dealing direct damage. If your skills apply a lot of conditions (bleed/burn/poison/confusion/torment) aka stuff that does damage over time, then you’re looking for a condition build, which has its own section for gearing up. For all other niche builds, such as support, tank, hand-kiting, etc. please go to their respective sections (if they currently exist)
You are looking for Berserker's gear for the most part when playing power DPS. Some pieces may need to be swapped out for Assassin's if you need help reaching 100% Critical Hit Chance. This can be crafted or purchased from the Trading Post. For Heavy armor, you can search under Devona, medium is Nika, and light is Zhed, and that will be the cheapest on the Trading Post. Alternatively, it's an option to craft or obtain it through other means, such as running Crucible of Eternity, Citadel of Flame, Arah. These also offer weapons, but if you pvp, select the reward track for one of these dungeons since each reward track includes 3 weapon boxes of your choice. Starting elite specializations will get you a weapon that may or may not have berserker's as an option and finishing an elite specialization will grant you an armor piece that may offer berserker's as an option. Alternatively, you can get this armor from a karma vendor in Orr Waypoint code: [&BCIDAAA=] . Keep in mind that this equipment CANNOT be salvaged so any runes will be stuck in there unless you waste upgrade extractors. For that reason, I don't recommend sticking expensive runes such as scholar ones into karma gear.
For rings, the easiest way to obtain ascended berserker's rings is to run the daily fractals. Even running the tier 1 dailies will net you 1 pristine fractal relic per daily and buying the red ring of death + crystalline band will cost 10 pristines each. For the ascended amulet, Bjora Marches (the new zone added in Icebrood Saga episode 1) has a collection titled The Hunger that will allow you to purchase a stat selectable amulet. If you are concerned about spoilers/skipping around in terms of order, 100 pristine fractal relics will get you a mist amulet, but that will take a while to obtain. You can get a stat-selectable amulet through the completion of the Heart of Thorns Act IV Mastery achievement set.
For accessories, winterberries from Bitterfrost, the lws3 episode 3 map. Then next easiest would be Dragonfall (s4e6) since you can also convert eternal ice from Bjora into mistborn motes which can be used to purchase an accessory. If you're in a guild that runs guild missions, that's also an option (purchasing accessories for guild commendations). Spending laurels is also an option, but I recommend saving laurels for other things.
For your back item, look into Mawdrey if you have Living World Season 2, winterberries from Bitterfrost (s3e3), Siren's Landing (s3e6) from any of the Heart Vendors for Orrian Pearls+karma. For other options, check this page on the wiki.
For weapons, please review Tanetris's guide.
Budget Runes/Sigils
If you're afraid of spending a ton of gold on runes of the scholar or sigils of force/impact, here are some alternatives. For runes, rune of the eagle is great if you're having trouble hitting crit chance cap (100%). For power reapers, rune of vampirism is a good choice to increase the amount of shroud health you have. Other alternatives include rune of the pack, fireworks (expensive because it's popular in WvW), privateer, ogre, thief if you really need a ton of crit chance, and for guardians, flame legion. For sigils, fire and accuracy. Night is also pretty good.
BONUS SECTION - For those who want marauder's (Basically lower dps Berserker's stats with vitality for survivability)
For exotic stat-selectable staves, swords, pistols, rifles, and greatswords, look into these achievements/purchase the Iron Legion variant (example) on the Trading Post.
Since Bladed Armor is so easy to get, it’s the go-to for setting up builds with stats that are usually expensive to craft or difficult to obtain. If you really want to, you could gear up a power DPS build this way, but since it's so easy to get elsewhere I don't recommend it. Getting it does avoid most story spoilers for new players you own Heart of Thorns so everyone has access to this content! You get a head piece from the story in the fourth chapter of HoT’s story, so please keep that in mind! Also, you may purchase an Ice Golem's Maw Box from the trading post for a cheap stat-selectable helmet.
You must complete the first Heart of Thorns mission if you’re a new player. This unlocks the mastery track so you can train basic gliding. I would recommend that you get enough XP to get the second tier of gliding, which is updraft use. This will make participating in the Verdant Brink Night meta event much easier.
Use /wiki et from in-game to open up the event timer to see when this event is running. Use the in-game LFG tool (Y by default and 2nd tab) to see if there are squads running it when active. The goal is to reach tier 4 as a map and then your personal participation must be at least 100% to receive a guaranteed Bladed Armor Box. To get your participation up, capture a camp, bring Pact Supplies to it, escort Pact soldiers carrying supplies, and defend the camp when it gets attacked. After the second wave of attacks, pact helicopters appear and if you have the updraft mastery, you can head up to the canopy where there are five sets of bosses. These are engaging encounters so I recommend killing each one, as it gets you an achievement and the bosses have chests that may contain bladed armor or even ascended gear!
While you’re running around, try to open up airship cargo, as those have a chance of containing bladed gloves as well. Once the event is at maximum security (tier 4) and you’re set with 100%+ participation, stay on the map until the timer is complete. This is important, as you won’t get the full rewards until the event is fully over.
At that point, you receive a bladed armor box and bam, easy stat-selectable exotic armor! Get the chest piece first, as you can actually purchase other pieces for airship parts from vendors with the Itzel Mastery.