Just wipe it 100% or don't wipe at all. A split community will be worse than it is now.
A wipe will reduce the power gap temporarily which could increase the amount of players (newbies), but once some people have retired a few times the power gap will be exponentially in their favour, then the mod will be worse than it is now with newbies getting wrecked more than now. People want a wipe to make a more even playing field, but then the playing field will be way more uneven after like a month at most because people will get looms and then eventually those people will stop retiring and stick with a high level character. Then you will have the shitters + the newbs + the guys that cba wasting time on a dead mod trying to get looms vs the people who no life the game. Then it will be 10x worse than now in terms of power gap between players. Its much better when its shitters vs decent players like it was before (when people played). Just get more balancers involved in the mod and make it seem like its less of an elitist club for ranged vs melee players with only ranged players who balance
The other idea for a wipe is that it gives goals to players that have "unlocked" everything already because they played since like 2010. They have loads of max level gear and feel like they have no more goals. But Why wipe everything to give people more goals? Just add more thing that people can unlock. Tweak the power available in the items and add more tiers while restricting the overall power no lifers have. Just nerf +1,, +2, +3 and add +4 as a new level. And make all items grow on a power curve that gives really shitty benefits at +4 but still gives something that makes people think its worth wasting their time trying to achieve. Maybe add some cosmetic bonuses or really tiny benefits