Which of my characters to deck out in Ascended?

[Electro.4173]

I've got 7 characters (soon to be 8) decked out mostly in exotic gear. Well, more specifically, exotic armor and weapons, though most do have ascended trinkets thanks to LS3 and the laurel vendor. I'm pretty sure I've probably saved up enough mats to deck at least one of them out in Ascended. I'm just not sure which one I should go for. See, I've never done any of the raids OR any fractals, but its something that I would like to at least do now and again at some point. I doubt I'm ever going to become a super-elite speedrunning raider or anything like that, but it'd be nice to do one every once in a while.

So I figure, with that in mind, that if I'm going to get ascended equipment for one of my characters it ought to be the one best suited for raids / fractals, as that's the content where the extra stats actually come into play. I know that technically every class can do fractals / raids, just that they each have their specific builds for it. But each one of my characters has their own stat setup that I've grown accustomed to and am not really interested in changing. And I know a bunch of them probably aren't suited for anything the way I have them set up.

Here's a list of my characters and their stat setups. What I'm hoping for is to get some feedback from players who have done that sort of higher level content as to which of them (if any) would be best suited to raids and fractals without massively altering their gear builds, so that I can gear that character in Ascended stuff. I might be open to smaller changes (like, oh, run more vipers and less sinister, for example) as long as it maintains the general playstyle, but I'm not looking for massive changes like going from defense / support to full offense or anything.

Ranger - In flux. Currently Zealot's armor and Cleric's weapons / trinkets, exotic trinkets with Platinum doubloons. Planning on switching to full Harrier.Mesmer - Rampager's Armor / Weapons, Viper's Trinkets. Probably going to switch over to Grieving armor / weapons.Elementalist - Knight's Armor / Weapons, Celestial trinkets. Would like to swap Knight's to Commander's if it wasn't so expensive to get the recipes.Guardian - Cleric's Armor / Weapons, Berserker's trinkets. Will switch trinkets to Grieving (probably in LS4 when there's hopefully going to be cheaper / easier access to Ascended trinkets). May switch weapons and armor to Marshal's, but not sure if I want to lose the toughness. Will see how it feels after swapping out the trinkets damage-wise.Engineer - Viper's Armor / Weapons, Sinister trinkets.Necromancer - Full Berserker's.Revenant - Full Celestial.

Thief - Leveling in progress. Not 100% sure what stats I'm going to go for, but leaning towards tanky condition-based as I don't really have a character that uses that sort of build. Haven't done much checking to see if Thief has the traits / skills to pull off that build or not. Might be open to building around a "meta build" if none of the above would work.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

Kind reminder: I do not know what are your activities ingame, but don't forget that if you intend to do fractals, to equip an ascended armor is mandatory there, because this is the only armor on which you can put agony resistance. So, if you ever intend to go for fractals, keep your ascended gears for that toon.

[Dust Errant.3081]

Viper light or medium armor. Armor is account bound which allows you to move it between your characters and Viper is a relatively universal stat. You don't have all 3 heavy armor classes, so it seems like the worst option to go with Guardian or Revanent, and because Guardian's best condi build uses Grievers, Viper stat heavy armor is less modular than light and medium armor classes which all have good builds that use Viper stats. I know you currently don't have an interest in switching your character's builds, but having the option to build towards a meta condi damage build is nice to have, and you do have a least a class in each armor that is built to use Viper(Mesmer and Engineer). Seeing how Thief is an open option for you, I'd lean towards medium armor, but it's totally up to you on what you like and want to play.

[Electro.4173]

@Eltiana.9420 said:Viper light or medium armor. Armor is account bound which allows you to move it between your characters and Viper is a relatively universal stat. You don't have all 3 heavy armor classes, so it seems like the worst option to go with Guardian or Revanent, and because Guardian's best condi build uses Grievers, Viper stat heavy armor is less modular than light and medium armor classes which all have good builds that use Viper stats. I know you currently don't have an interest in switching your character's builds, but having the option to build towards a meta condi damage build is nice to have, and you do have a least a class in each armor that is built to use Viper(Mesmer and Engineer). Seeing how Thief is an open option for you, I'd lean towards medium armor, but it's totally up to you on what you like and want to play.

I was kind of leaning towards my Engineer myself, in part because from what little I know about meta builds I've heard that condition Engie is pretty god, and in part because the low number of weapons Engineer has would mean it'd be cheaper to deck her out in full ascended weapons as well. I always forget about being able to swap ascended gear around. I doubt I'll ever run my Ranger condi, I find most of the condition stuff Ranger has boring to play, but yeah, it'd be nice to have it for Engie and possibly Thief.

Thanks for the advice!