I was leveling archeology and working on old dungeon reputations in Outland. The TBC zones are one of the easiest places to gain skill points once you're over 300, because only two of the archeology cultures are found there. Skill points are gained by solving artifacts, and you get enough fragments to solve artifacts faster when they're not being split half a dozen ways.
Anyway, I snagged an unusual heirloom item - an epic mail helm for level 61 characters. If you're in a guild, you can purchase a level-scaling heirloom that comes with an exp bonus, which is obviously much more versatile. What this item lacks in flexibility, it makes up in raw power thanks to empty sockets that can be filled with level 85 - and 90 when Pandaria hits - gems. Theoretically, some casters/platewearers can even benefit from being able to stick 120 of a primary stat on a single item in that level range.
Overall, it's an interesting item - extremely powerful for the level, but also highly specific. In order to benefit from this, I would need to level an appropriate character, such as a hunter or enhancement Shaman, into Outland levels on my existing server (where I don't have a ton of character slots to spare). I don't know how likely that is to happen. Then again, I suppose this is the kind of mostly cosmetic but occasionally useful vibe Blizzard was going for in Archeology.
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| Aside: the hat looks vaguely amusing on top of a gnome. Too bad they can't be either hunters or enhancement shamen. |
Last I checked, Cataclysm gems had an ilevel requirement of 300+, so you can't actually put them into any gear from previous expansions.
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