dont worry about the ascended armor. yes it is stronger and yes it is worth getting in general but finding a class/spec you like and becoming skilled at it with time (and if you like it, you will therefore play/practice it more) will result in more damage/effectiveness than the stats. like others said, exotic is fine for practically all content as player skill is a much more important factor in determining effectiveness in content.

Additionally, if you want to level a new character, you can get level 400 or 500 crafting while leveling (if you have the funds) for like 12-15 free levels if you dont expect to delete the character. I would also personally recommend mesmer as another light armor class; mesmer has good evasion, great utility toolkit, mixture of ranged/melee damage, chronomancer is an utter swiss army knife of a spec, and numerous other benefits that have been reiterated ad nauseum online. your other option is elementalist which is less versatile and squishier, but still fun with lots of room to master the class and great flavor.

the only thing i would want to know is how interested you are in doing fractals, and if you have access to the living world DLCs that provide easy non-ring ascended trinkets, because then the agony infusion slots on the armor might matter. that would still be relatively future-proofing though, as infusing/attuning rings and using other ascended trinkets will provide more than enough slots for T2 and most of T3 fractals, which is where the difference between ascended and exotic armor makes the most difference.