Btw I am really sorry about this very "noob" question on my behalf but I am at a loss when you mean by vertex weighting. Does that mean weighting by clicking on verts of the model. I know it sounds silly but this is just to clarify thank you :)
Do you see the little wrench icon (Weight Tool) ? Use that instead of the Abs. Effect. Since you are just getting started, I recommend as a first pass vertex weighting the entire model using only 1 or 0.5 weighting. This will give you a mostly rigid weighting with just a little bit of blending at the joints. On the second…