The Shoulder Look
Best: Pauldrons of the High Requiem - 1650 Justice Point is a little steep, but probably the first of the JP set you'll want to go after. Its got a massive amount of much needed Hit and Expertise. Red socket lets you pop in more Strength, or socket purple to help get that Meta Gem activated. These are such a good investment for Arms warriors, also, because it can reduce the amount of gemming you need to reach Hit cap (or a close proximity, see below).
2nd Choice: Bloodied Pyrium Shoulders - A PvP set of shoulders?!? Yup. Besides the massive Strength it's also loaded with Expertise. A lot of Arms Warrior worthy gear is loaded with Haste, so grabbing Expertise when possible is a good idea and it puts these shoulders on top. Visit your local blacksmith to get 'em.
Runner Up: Redsteel Shoulders - Nice for leveling (available at 82) and your initial Level 85 Dungeon forays, these are cheap from the AH and the Haste can be Reforged. You can even slap the shoulder enchant on them because you'll be getting the rep required for the lesser inscription pretty quick while questing through Deepholm.
Enchant: Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone from Therazane rep at Exalted. There's also a Lesser version that will tide you over until you finish the rep grind.
The Rug
In the cloak department we have a toss up, but here's how I puzzle it out.
Drape of Inimitable Fate - Yah, it's a Haste peice but a rug with Strength and Stam on it? Yes! Reforge the crap out of the Haste and take it! Unfortunately it's a random world BoE drop. It's going for as much as 10K gold on my realm. So a better option is probably . . .
Cloak of the Red Flight - The is a reward from the quest Battle of Life and Death in the Twilight Highlands. Another Strength and Stam cloak! And it's a quest item with Hit and Expertise. And the quest chain is so freakin' epic you're going to be doing it anyway. Epic quest or 10K gold? hmmmm.
Geordan's Cloak - This one drops off Siamat in the Lost City of the Tol'vir. So, this one has less Hit, but more Crit than the Cloak of the Red Flight. I wear it because my Hit is fine for now, but my Crit is horrible. But are you really picking up enough Crit to make it worth running LCT over and over to get it to drop?
Unless you have money to burn (or just get lucky) I'd rule out the Drape of Inimitable Fate. Between the two cloaks, I imagine most people will just take the Cloak of the Red Flight and be done with it. It's awesome, it does the job, no need to switch. If you get lucky enough to score Geordan's Cloak, though, take a look at your Hit.
Okay, you're not at cap, let's say, but that cap is set against raid bosses. At this point, is the only thing you're swishing on gonna be raid level bosses? If yes, are you going to be wearing this stuff to a raid? No. So, take the crit. See what I mean?
Enchant: Greater Critical Strike, or the cheaper Critical Strike. The massive difference in price makes Critical Strike look so much better. We're talking thousands of gold here, in many cases, for a meager 15 crit points? No thank you.
Next we'll look at bewb covers.
-Fri
