tying skill to gear

It's an ancient debate: gear vs skill.

My idea: make it such that better gear provides value, but only in the hands of a skilled player. One way to do this is by making gear which has situational uses, instead of a simple +bonus that applies at all times.

Some ideas: instead of a helmet giving +25 magic resistance, make it provide +50 resistance for 30 seconds on use, with a 30 second cooldown. Instead of simply boots of swift striding (slight speed increase, some resistance to slows), make them boots of muck walking (some resistance to slows, roots, and snares, and extra speed when walking in watery terrain). A shield of spell reflection that only works on spells that hit you from the front/left. A cutlass of shredding, with damage bonuses against cloth wearers but no bonus vs plate. A two-handed mace which puts a debuff on the mob which causes extra damage from pets (note: hunters can't use maces, warlocks can't use two-handers, so this is also a team-play skill opportunity).

This could be extended to longer time frame strategic use, such as with resist gear sets, however it would be better to have lots of tactical time frame usage options .. otherwise the main skill that gets developed is how to read a website to look up what's the best gear to equip for a given dungeon. And that's no fun.