I was planning on leveling as Sword & Shield ... if I choose to do so would I be gimping myself by loosing the AT points from Slash? Would it make more sense to level as Shield & Crush? How many points would I be loosing but not AT?

Thanks,
Arneson

Leveling as Crush / Shield is a fine option. The only downside is that sometimes Crush weapons are slightly harder to come by, but that can just be negated by a little luck.

If you were to level as Crush to 48 and then later use a Respec stone and switch to Thrust or Slash, you'd gain 77 points (in that weapon line).

What does that mean?

Average RvR Spec without Autotrain:
50 Polearm, 42 Shield, 34 Slash, 20 Parry

With autotrain:
+3 parry or +1 Slash and +1 Parry

Tank PVE Spec without Autotrain:
50 Shield, 50 Slash, 28 parry or 50 Shield, 44 Slash, 37 Parry

With autotrain:
50 Shield, 50 Slash, 31 parry or 50 Shield, 44 Slash, 39 Parry

As you can see, it's a very small difference.

Great! Thanks for the quick response. Sounds like it's not that big of a deal and I can go with Sword & Shield (I prefer that anyway).

Is it possible to be effective in RvR with a PvE spec or the other way around? Would I be more effective with a hybrid spec?

I would like to do both at level 50.

Thanks again,
Arneson

I'm not a Armsman expert, but I expect that this spec:
50 Polearm, 42 Shield, 34 Slash, 20 Parry

Would serve you fine in both areas. You could even drop Polearm down a bit and add more parry if you were main tanking a lot.

In RvR you're often expected to peel (stun and snare) enemy tanks from your teammates as well as switch guard and block for your teammates if they get focused on by enemy melee. So the high Polearm isn't critical for that, but it is nice for some burst damage

Thank you very much for you advice!

Arneson

I'd go crush and shield to 40. after that u get 23 more points if u go all the way to 48 which is hard to do without specing in anything. you should definitely not expect to be able to get a respec stone for a few months at least.

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