50 pole
44 thrust
37 parry

For RvR.

Are there any Armsman running with no shield in RvR?

Why drop the defense and anytime stun from shield, for a longer lasting snare that going to be significantly harder to land? I'd rather keep the shield and use the rear chain snare from polearms if you really want a longer duration snare.

Slash and Thrust are both very effective choices for RvR, Wyvernfang has certain advantages and disadvantages over Defender's Aegis, and I wouldn't say one is necessarily better than the other as a long duration snare (but the relative speediness of the Thrust style makes it very useful in more situations!).

I can't recall ever seeing a shieldless Armsman on Uthgard, and I would highly recommend having at least 42 Shield in your spec, as Slam is an amazingly useful style, and you will be called upon to Guard your allies very often. Parry, on the other hand, isn't useful for your role in an RvR group as you will rarely be the target of enemy melee characters (except for Slam duels, which are only a concern if you can Slam). So unless you are planning on being a 1v1 or PvE only Armsman, I would advise against speccing heavily into Parry.

These are the most commonly used specs I've seen for each respective weapon line. They have been proven very effective on Uthgard, and come highly recommended. The point values are assuming you are not autotraining Slash/Thrust at all.

Thrust
46 Polearm (ideally, you would have 50 polearm, to maximize your 2h damage, but you need points in Thrust and Shield more)
44 Thrust (for Wyvernfang)
42 Shield (for Slam, and good blocking ability for your Guard)
3 Parry
--------
Slash
50 Polearm
39 Slash (high 1h weaponskill will help you land important styles, like Side Slicer, so investing heavily here is also important)
42 Shield
6 Parry

How exactly you play your role in RvR depends greatly on your group's class composition, and what enemies you are facing. Regardless, you will have to switch between your 1h and Pole constantly, and these specs allow you to be fully competent in all the situations you'll find yourself in, as long as you have the skills to make good use of them!

Thank you very much for the informative reply.

I haven't played in years and I didn't spec shield on my Armsman. So I was curious what people were doing with their Armsmen. So when playing that spec with shield, do you slam when available then switch to pole and use the side or rear styles? And while waiting for the slam timer to come back you just use 1H? Sorry for the noob was here, I'm just basically trying to relearn everything.

Or, only switch to shield when needing to guard and just run with pole until then?

You can also split-spec for thrust & slash and switch your pole according to target vulnerability, and still have 42 shield.

Needs use of AT to be most effective though, which is easy since you can level nicely with crush.

But this is all personal preference.

You can even go tri-spec without shield/parry, which would make you a full offensive char with 0 defense.

The reason I asked about the spec in my OP is because I'm afraid if I try these spec where I have to switch weapons and weapon styles a lot.. I'll just be screwing myself because I haven't played in so long. Basically my thought process is, keep it simple. But, one would think that by the time I'm Lvl 50 I should have it down.

I run w/out shield. spec is 50,34/34/34,10 -pole,slash/thrust/crush,parry. And given that i have 50 quick, ive plenty of time to weapswap during combat without dropping a pole.
Besides, someone else in group always has stun/slam

Thirian24 wrote:The reason I asked about the spec in my OP is because I'm afraid if I try these spec where I have to switch weapons and weapon styles a lot.. I'll just be screwing myself because I haven't played in so long. Basically my thought process is, keep it simple. But, one would think that by the time I'm Lvl 50 I should have it down.

You never have to switch weapon styles. Keep one 1h weapon of choice, and Polearms are always the same styles, no matter if crush, slash or thrust.