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Circlet (Gleaming/Petrified/Ezomyte)
Req. Level (57/62/67)

+20-30% Energy Shield
Spells in this item deal 50% Physical Damage*
Enemies lose 10% Resistances for every Elemental Status Ailment**
+25% Burning Damage
25% reduced Duration on Elemental Status Ailments
Skills in this item are supported by Level 5 Elemental Proliferation

"Insanity is doing the same thing twice,
and expecting a different result.
Sometimes, it works."

Originally, the idea came from a discussion with Nuclear Raven about how to improve burn damage on his unique, and I figured it'd be nice to decrease the time, but increase the damage.
This item concept is basically the evolution of that into something slightly over the top.

The Phys Damage Change is meant to take 50% (Or 100%, if that's easier to code) of the base damage of a spell, no matter what type, and turn it into physical. Then, all the other conversions, adds, and whatever apply normally.
Doing this off the bat and only to the base damage prevents circle conversions, as no elemental damage can actually be "converted" to physical.

-Resistance on Status Ailements means:
Burning, -10% Elemental Resistances,
Shocked, -10% Elemental Resistances,
Chilled, -10% Elemental Resistances,
Frozen, -10% Elemental Resistances.
Yes, the latter two mostly happen at the same time.


Alternative:
Instead of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th mods, have:

• 10% of Elemental Damage added as Chaos
• Fire also causes Shock
• Lightning also chills/freezes
• Cold counts towards burning damage
• +10% Spell Crit Multiplier for every Charge

Thought of as a dedicated weapon to bring down enemy magicians, the weapon exploits their Energy Shield by dealing higher damage before they are actually hurt, which against fragile targets is most of the time.

The 100% Damage increase would work with spells as well, which curiously makes the weapon very good for Blood Magic Casters, dealing double damage with the opening strike; Thus, I added an increased Dex requirement to make the opportunity cost higher.
When using the weapon in it's originally intended function, one has to carefully manage mana load, as nearly no pool remains to trigger high level skills, but the insane leech should provide if the skill deals sufficient damage. Maybe the Leech Rate for Life should be increased as well?

As a further massive advantage, the weapon offers Phase Acrobatics without requiring Acrobatics, thus granting 20% Spell Dodge at no further cost.

This originally started as a Keystone idea in a thread still linked in my signature, with the Intent to buff Totems at the cost of direct attack power.
As that was a bit stale, I thought about a way to also improve curses for a real 'Shaman' Build.
The Chaos Damage seems pointless at first, but in fact it turns curses into an attack spell that can be augmented with Added Elemental Damage Gems;
For example, an Elemental Equilibrium Build could alternate between Conductivity with added Cold, and Frostbite with added Lightning, for a more or less constant -60 res on the enemy, in a very large AOE.
Obviously, high Mana costs, slow cast speeds and low damage kind of discourage that approach.

Meant as a high level Alternative to Facebreaker, Hammerfist would be more defensive.
I even thought about adding blockchance and stun recovery when unarmed, but that would result in a list of mods that reads very boring.
The Additional Physical Damage will make it useful to regular weapon wielders, while more damage when unarmed can make the gloves attractive to spellcaster that somehow got massive increased mods already.

Compared to Facebreaker, the damage is notably lower, so I doubled the strength modifier as an attempt to buff it and really evoke that feeling of a huge barbarian crashing his enemies with enormous fists of steel.
I've been thinking about making the phys/armor bonus unarmed only, but giving a global phys damage % based on strength, including weapons.

*The damage bonus might end up being rather significant, and might need to be toned down.
** Or just change it to something like "+20% Strength", but that has the disadvantage of being a massive health buff. Unless it's also only when unarmed, in which case it's flavourful, but hey, boring to read.
***Meant to allow unarmed attacks to use the likes of groundslam. A base AOE could do the same.

A hybrid of sorts, this item would benefit from both staff and wand passives, and thus be a formidable ranged weapon that can also use melee skills (if that is possible coding wise, if not, it's still a great 2h wand.

I see a problem with it becoming weak on higher levels, so no one can really specialize on it.

Really, it doesn't need to be a Shabby Jerkin, but it should look like one.

It is mainly meant to be a source of frenzy charges, but the main inspiration was "How to create a potentially high Link item for low level characters".
I originally wanted +5% Strength per Frenzy Charge, but that might have been a bit too much.