So, it seems there is a big push to change PVP right now. I don't disagree with people trying to change it, but I do disagree with how they are going about doing it. It seems that, with bergePVP, the push seems to be toward making lower armor tiers scale more linearly toward prot. This is wrong, like straight up wrong, and it will not help toward making PVP more accessible to people.

You have heard of the term ProtPiniata? Well, that term comes from people that have prot, but don't know how to use it. These people will get into a fight with someone that does know how to use it, and they loose very very quickly. Making diamond armor stronger and closer to prot will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change this. You will not make pvp more accessible to the masses by making lower tier armor stronger.

The problem lies somewhat at the base of minecraft PVP. There is only one way to do it (though there are different techniques for different situations). You go in, you pot up, you tank some damage, and you hit some dudes. Fundamentally, that is it, there are a lot of situational/experience things that come into play that make you actually good at it, but fundamentally its just point and click. So, if you really want to change PVP, make it more accessible to people, you need to change that one way of PVPing into two or three ways of PVP.

So with that, I am going to pitch my design for a sort of armor upgrade that, while not directly upgrading PVP aspects of armor, is aimed at providing different armors and enchantments with different benefits that would allow people to approach PVP differently. (It should also be noted that I am still in the design phase of this, and I only going to start coding it for 1.8)

Diamond armor

It stays the way it is now. It is currently the highest tier armor, and it needs to stay that way. Part of changing our PVP system should be not shitting on the stuff we have now.

Leather armor

Applies speed and jump boost to the wearer.

Iron armor

Makes horses invincible as long as the rider is wearing iron armor and is alive.

Gold armor

Gives the wearer extra inventory space. I am thinking of slapping another DC in there, but if that is considered too OP, it could just as easily be a SC.

Chain-mail armor

Edit after comment discussion: I have decided to do invisibility. It will be akin to the HCF rogue class, in that you are actually vanished so you don't show up on radar. You will unvanish anytime you do something (hit, brakeblocks, place blocks) or anytime you are hit. I am open to debate on whether it should hide you from snitches (entry/exit only, as doing something unvanishes you).

So each armor has its special kind of thing that it does, and has its own little role to play. Leather being recon, Iron being calvary, gold being a sort of engineer, diamond being the tank, and chainmail being something.

On top of that, each enchantment should have their own special roles that extend beyond the type of armor.

Protection

Leave it as it is now. It should be the base tanky enchantment, and again we should not shit on what we have now.

Projectile Prot

Mitigate all damage done by arrows, at the cost of double(triple?) armor durability damage.

Blast Prot

Added from Comments: Will mitigate all knockback from explosions, knockback swords, normal swords, and sprint hitting.

Fire Prot

I actually don't have anything in mind for these either, so pitch me something. Keep in mind that it should be able to be applied to the player regardless of armor type.

Thorns

As it stands now, it is useless because of the armor durability loss, and has no real upside. However, if you remove damage done to the wearer when it decides to apply damage to the attacker, it will have an actual upside.

It should also be noted that these buffs will only be applied when the wearer is wearing a full set of an armor type/enchantment. Having mixed armor will just result in vanilla behavior. Anyway, that is where I currently stand on this. If there is enough support, and I get some good ideas to help fleshing it out, I will move forward with it and start coding it.