Defender Shields - On Use Items

As we know, defender is the least played ship at top tiers of gameplay (ok fixer is down there too now, but that’s another thread). Would really love to see some blue items get on use abilities when put on a defender to augment the play style.

For example, can a small shield be like a redirect, transferring a portion of the damage a friendly ship takes to the defender? Can a big shield offer fleet- wide damage reduction for a short period?

Of course, the amount of damage transferred/ reduced and length of effect should scale with item rarity/ level.

Thoughts?

 

Defenders aren't dead, they just require the right positioning, and general skill.

I've seen some good defenders, but otherwise I can delete about 3000 of a mk5's HP in a 1v1