My Warlock Raid gear has too much Strength. My Helmet and Chest piece solely pack Strength and my maxed Raid Gauntlets (not equipped) are split between Intellect and Strength.
I personally like to have near to maxed Intellect and a nice balance between Discipline and Strenght afterwards.
My Warlock has maxed 32 Light gear so I can run the Hard Raids
But the question is...
[b]Do I get armor at the Checkpoints by running Hard Mode only? [/b] I can't remember if you do or not, I don't recall getting gear. Just the new weapons.
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Normal mode gives armour, hard mode gives weapons. Apart from Crota, helmets drop on both modes. If you haven't done normal mode first, hard mode will give rewards for both normal and hard. That's how you get armour in hard mode.