Gear w/ Stats, akin to Crafting Gear, + SFX / Relic Like Opportunity
Just wanted to suggest bringing back gear with stats as rewards in PvP (does not effect PvP uniquely, EDIT: meaning stats specifically for PvE), and perhaps make them akin to crafting gear- so perhaps to upgrade them takes tomes.
For example a new set is released and has decent stats, like crafting, then a new wave of ilvls are released, crafting gear gets it's tome upgrade. PvP could have tomes to upgrade (or alliance raid tokens). Then rather than having to make a new set, the next step could be attaching SFX to the gear when you upgrade it. Cost effective, and gives a lot of potential /new/ items to PvP. Like imagine the really cool BLM staff with the animated eye, but now it has an SFX- that's relic quality!
Keep whatever takes the combination as a non-new item, like literally use rain + pvp item (the thing that you use to upgrade crafted gear). Just also use some PvE stuff to ensure players did have to do that too lol (like rain, or alliance raid tokens). Bear in mind we two PvP tokens to choose from, so that can be a component to making these.
Thanks for reading :)