Fireblast/Icelance/etc. are only really good for leveling and generally aren’t worth using in high level scenarios over defensive augments. To be used, I feel, they would need to have greater utility (if you make them compete in damage with 30+ point skills, who is going to use 30+ point skill?)
Casters also generally need help either sustain or damage wise or both or something else to compete with weapon damage based builds. So, suggestion - create an rare component upgrade path for the lower tier caster components.
Scepters/Daggers only, numbers subject to balance change, one for each basic caster element type:
X Element Component
+100% X Damage
+10% X Resistance
+3% Max X Resistance
+10% CDR
Grants Skill: X Zap
- Ranged 100% Weapon Damage Zap.
- Some Effect unique to the element.
Some random ideas for different elements special effects on the zap skill:
Fire - The ranged zap produces a 100% weapon damage AoE explosion on target.
Cold - Reduces enemy freeze/slow resistance.
Lightning - Reduces enemy DA and OA.
Aether - Burns small % of enemy max energy over time.
Chaos- Deals more substantially more damage than other zaps.
Vitality - Reduces enemy life leech and life steal resistance.
Acid - Reduces enemy damage dealt by %.
The main idea here is having a caster specific weapon component that gives them CDR and gives them a way to (safely) apply weapon damage effects without becoming a weapon damage archetype* (I chose chaos as an exception here in making its zap an actual damage option as Chaos doesn’t really have a spammy attack option outside Nightblade knives[really?] for some reason.)
You could even have different variants. Each element could have a spammable zap component, a that element’s DoT based component, a cooldown based component, a damage aura based component, or any hybrid of the those and other stuff for flavor/balance/gameplay reasons.