Skill Gems - unique new recipes / ideas

I was thinking it would be cool if we could "upgrade our items" in another way...like upgrading the base item type. What I mean is, if I get a say a rare "cleaver" it would be sweet if I could use that item at higher levels, in this case it would jump to a "wrist chopper" and keep its other stats/slots etc.

I think an item plus some number of whetstones or armor scraps equal to 100% (not counting any quality already on the item) plus 1 skill gem of each color at the vendor would return the exact item, just 1 base item stage up from what it is.

We could limit this recipe up to or only rares, or allow any item to function (that might be bad for unique). So in the case of a rare item you would need 100 stones (weapons) or scraps (armor) 1x each of red, green, and blue skill gems and your item. For a regular it would be 20x stones or scraps and a gem of each color.

I figure that if stones and scraps can improve an item to some degree, then enough of them combined with the magical properties of skill gems should allow an item to be improved by an entire stage. Oh and the up stage item would carry the proper higher level and stat requirements of course.

I think 1 gem of each color keeps a good balance (you can trade junk for junk if you don't have enough of one color) and along with the recipe wouldn't encourage early farming for gems.

What say you all?

----------------------------ANOTHER IDEA--------------------------------

What if we could use skill gems to add elemental damage (on weapons) or magic resist (on armor)?

Use the required level of the gem to determine the damage added and the color of the gem to determine the type (such as a lvl 18 red adds 12-18 fire damage). Again use the required level of the gem (see scaling below) and color to determine which resist and how much (lvl 60 blue adds 17% cold resist). You would want some form of level requirement add as well, to prevent low level super gear (lvl 1 item with 5-40 lightning from a lvl 30 green gem).

Make it a vendor recipe perhaps combined with another item to complete (the low level orbs transmute/augment seem like a great choice). So your blue or yellow, plus one skill gem of each color you wish, plus one or more orb of transmute and/or augment would offer your item back with the added effects (as long it meets all the other requirements). I suggest a transmute per skill gem plus an augment if you want all 3 (so 3x transmute 1x augment plus one skill gem of each color and your item).

You could require there still be free stat slots, and prevent the recipe from working on an item that already has the particular damage or resist type. Using the required level on the gem would prevent early bot farming of gems...or at least reduce the usefulness of doing so, you still need to level up the gems to make them useful to a higher level player.

It would be an easy way to create some low level weapons to work with. Buy/find/create a blue or yellow with a free slot or three and use the skill gem recipe to buff it up. Should be just as useful to higher level players.

So that's 2 unique ideas...anybody got anything to say?

Edit: How about this for scaling the resist add, so low levels are more useful:

.8% per level for 1-10 (adds a max of 8% with lvl 10 gem)
.4% per level for 11-20 (adds a max of 12% with a lvl 20 gem)
.2% per level for 21-30 (adds a max of 14% with a lvl 30 gem)
.1% per level there after (adds a max of 17.8% with a lvl 68 gem)

I like my idea of requiring leveled gems, prevents early farming and may get you to try a gem or combination you normally wouldn't. If you can't detect required level, you could easily make a table based on the skill gem level itself (since we know the required level based on that).

------------------------MORE IDEAS!-------------------------

What about combining identical skill gems for quality, based on the required level of said gems?

Another vendor recipe where you add any number of identical skill gems you wish, additional gems boost the quality by an amount based on the required level of the gem. The vendor will offer you a new gem with the appropriate (rounded?) quality level based on the combined level of all identical gems added.

I think .1% quality per required level. So a level 67 gem would offer 6.7% quality, and 3 of these gems would provide a new 20% quality gem. Or 5 identical level 40 gems, since the max stash size is 60 (?) level 1 gems would only be able to give you a 6% quality.

Thinking about this, it would mean that a required level 10 gem would be equivalent to 1GCP. People complain that the high end orb market is overly inflated, so perhaps this would help regulate the market? The recipe could require some orb/s be included as well, to prevent damaging the market to much?

Whats the opinion on this idea?

Any opinions on any of this?

Edit:

+1

Looks interesting but isn't it to powerfull? Especialy added elemental demage thing. I like 1st idea more.