Idea to make the turtle shell a better armor piece

Currently the turtle shell is pretty useless as an armor piece. You can use the Master Turtle potion (not very useful in most survival scenarios), but as armor it’s still bad and rarely worth crafting. I propose some changes to help it fill a meaningful niche.

First, give armor toughness to this piece. Don’t increase the armor points, but allow it to have maybe 2 toughness. This makes it better than iron but worse than diamond (scutes are harder to obtain than iron) and it would pair well with high-tier armor, letting players mix armor types without feeling punished.

Now, the big change. The turtle shell gives you 10 seconds of water breathing when you enter water, resetting only when resurfacing. On paper this is good: a player without upgrades can breathe for ~15 seconds, so +10 is a major boost. In reality it’s useless because Respiration is common, potions give up to 8 minutes, and conduits exist, completely overshadowing the helmet. You’d only wear this helmet when preparing for underwater work, and in that case you already have potions and the such.

The fix is simple: Instead of freezing the oxygen bar when affected by water breathing or the nautilus effect, allow the bar to regenerate as if you were out of water ONLY when wearing the turtle helmet. This would make it far more versatile, letting you regain air between potions without resurfacing and enabling much longer underwater sessions while still feeling balanced.