This ring gives +lightning +electrocute damage and is blue level 40 and requires reputation at Kymon’s.
However, my yellow level 35 ring with not really great stats:
+14% all damage, +8% spirit
easily beats Kymon’s: I lose about about 10% melee damage and about 1.5% spell damage (Wind Devil) if I use the Storm Seal.
I think this is wrong, and unfortunately something that drags through all of the itemization in the game: Blue items often are just pretty bad in comparison to lower tier items.
Some yellow/green items with particular affixes can be better than unique items (epic/legendaries) in given situations hence the fact that a lot of builds use green items to cap resists, add more hp/armor/OA/DA, have access to specific procs …
That’s more a good thing as lower tier of gear can still be used as end gear pieces and are not useless/ just good for selling to the merchants
In your situation the +8% spirit is more powerful than +30% lightning damage as spirit boosts the magic damage types (elemental/chaos/aether)
You have a Mystic Imperial Signet of Something. The Imperial Signet has item level 67, which you probably found on elite difficulty. The prefix has no level requirement, therefore there is also a suffix, which might or might not be relevant for the comparison.
In any case you are comparing a lower level epic item to a higher level magical one. I think it is intended, that you upgrade items regularly. Admittedly it is not so obvious, because the item level of the common base item is not displayed, and you only see the level requirement of the suffix.
The point is that the blue item has higher level req and even needs crazy reputation, while the yellow one can just be found or shop scummed much earlier easily, even in better combinations than the one I got there…
I think you need a Mandate for Kymon’s Chosen, so that you can achieve Honored status with them at about level 40. Without you are likely way beyond level 40, and then these faction accessories might not be competitive anymore.
On the plus side getting them does not involve any luck. But maybe they should be buffed.
Those are not soul bound, you can just buy them on the high level char and transfer them over. The problem with those accessories is that they are weaker than the non-faction epic accessories as well, so most likely you won’t be using them, like ever. I don’t even use them on my self-found character
Yes, often you don’t need faction gear. Or even if they provide an upgrade, I might forget to buy it in time. Also from a related thread:
I get a feeling that those faction gears are from the time before the dev buff every other items with bonus resistance. Most of them get 20-30% bonus to 1 kind of damage, and maybe 5-7% resistance, that is simply not good enough for level 55 accessories