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 and are in the right place. You’re looking for a power build if you’re centering around dealing direct damage, which has its own section. For all other niche builds, such as support, tank, hand-kiting, etc. please go to their respective sections (if they exist right now)
While this is being worked on, please use this for now, purchase the armor from the trading post or get viper's/trailblazer's through bladed stat-selectable armor. Info below.
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. 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. For stat-selectable staves, swords, pistols, rifles, and greatswords, look into these achievements/purchase the Iron Legion variant (example) on the Trading Post.
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.