Just as rogues have automatic damage debuffs upon entering pvp, each awakening should have a standard % debuff too.

E.g.
An item with 3 awakenings being
- 150 armor, 10% move speed and 2%str.

After an auto debuff of 70%
- 45 armor, 3% speed and 0.6%str.

This minimises "gear" gap while effectively maintaining the price of awakenings. Win-win.