This is the sort of thing that I feel may have been suggested before, but I didn't see it when I searched sooooo...

How about a line of shields that have above average defense, but lower your attack power (with all weapons) significantly. The trade off would be that with the shield equipped you would be a lot better at drawing aggro from monsters. Perhaps the mechanic could be that shield bashing mobs makes them chase you until they're hit by someone else, or that whenever you have your shield up mobs within a certain radius would be drawn to you.

There could be one such shield for each family of monsters: for example, a magnetic shield that has normal / elemental defense and resists shock that attracts constructs, or a meat shield (literally, think oversized T-bone steak) that has normal / piercing defense and resists freeze that attracts beasts.

This might make crowd control too easy for the current build of the game though (especially coupled with a status bomb which would make you into a sort of support class god), so not the sort of thing that would likely be implemented anytime soon. However, though this isn't really a class-based game, it would still be cool to see some more gear specializations that encourage greater cooperation and teamwork. Anyway, thoughts?