Revamp unique variants, specifically, make more rare unique variants. These variants would be harder to come by, and more valuable. All current variants would stay. When rolling a variant, there would be a 3% chance of receiving one of these, and a 97% chance of getting an old UV. Of course, those values are just my idea of what a fair setup would be, and I could easily see some of these being even rarer.

For crafting weapons, I would love to see that buffed up to more of a 15/85 split for the 4* -> 5* gear, as getting these by surprise would feel amazing, and would be super cool for newer players to get one or two of these while crating up their gear.

Suggested shield buffs:
Shield charge time reduction: low, med
Status resistances: low, med, high, max (currently not available via punch)
Shield bash damage increased: low, med, high, very high
Shield bash status: fire, shock, poison, freeze, curse, stun (stronger stun)

Suggested armor buffs:
Damage vs monster: low, med
MSI: low
Damage for swords/guns/bombs: low
CTR for guns/bombs/swords: low
ASI for guns/swords: low

Suggested weapon buffs:
Damage vs everything: low, med, high (OP.)
Knockback: low, med, high, very high, canceled (irontech w/ no knockback)
MSI: low, med (for charge on bombs+swords/when firing for guns)
Status effects: tiny, and would only apply to inconsequential parts of weapons at appropriate rates; alchemer+curse? Tiny curse+second shot only

Why do this?

Giving players new UVs to strive for and earn will make them roll more UVs, especially for lockdown. Since lockdown cannot be legitimate, there is no reason not to just milk them via the introduction of more unique variants to change up the metagame. Having more variants also increases the value of having multiples of a weapon, and adds new value to crafting old armors and odd weapons. The armor UVs would level the playing field by allowing things like vog with sword CTR, or additional ASI to compete with chaos with fire resistance: max.

People will tell you that these are over powered and they aren't wrong. Damage vs everything is indeed an upgrade from damage vs beasts, but it's a very purposeful upgrade, as it makes people want to gamble more to get that damage vs everything high rather than damage vs beasts very high, and the only new things from this are the shield tweaks, which are much needed, the status effects on any weapon (which would be made quite trivial, in the grand scheme of things, due to how rarely they would even proc), and the increases to MSI which is bound to come out eventually.

Lastly, consider that most of these won't see the light of day outside of some merchanting lockdown player's inventory. New players and players that can't already crush the game with their pinky finger will still have the same awful gear as always, guaranteeing that the game is still difficult in the least.... but experienced players will come by with even more awesome gear, and make them jelly so that they stay and waste all of their time and money getting these prior to just sort of leaving the game. So if you ever did come across someone in lockdown with say, a rigadoon that dealt curse, freeze and shock, you'd probably never notice the extra status effects except for the tiny number of hits when one would proc... and it isn't like he would have had no UVs otherwise, rather he would have had something like ASI very high.