Note: this is not a thread about damage boosting items such as Combustion Band or Signet of the Fallen.
I’ll focus myself on Glyphs of Kelphat’Zoth, but this topic is not strictly about them, but every similar item.
Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth is a typical damage trampoline item, which means it grants MASSIVE amounts of damage temporarily, due to its conversion in the proc. For a lightning ritualist, it’s literally about 60% DPS loss (sometimes even more). My pets generally deal 20 - 50k damage per hit, with two procs of Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth (two rings equipped) the damage raises to 80 - 120k.
Damage boosting, on procs, by increasing the value of a particular damage type is fine, but converting the damage to another type is just awful. I could understand it being a buff or proc that is applied whenever pets deal damage, with a way higher chance. Glyph of Kelphat’Zoth is overall a very good item, if you don’t focus strictly on lightning damage but on elemental damage, because you don’t really mind it converting the damage to lightning, cold or fire as you focus on all of them. Conjurer is basically the only pet class that doesn’t mind the conversion even a little bit, because the pets are elemental and compensate most of the damage loss in fights with trash mobs. Again, Lightning Ritualist just doesn’t benefit from any lightning damage because of the lack of conversion, and they need to build Spark of Ultos and Stormbringer of Malmouth in order to deal even a slight amount of lightning damage. Necromancer already does a nice chunk of lightning damage, due to the vitality -> lightning conversion, but Shaman, the lightning-based class does not.
Versus bosses, this ring is not bad at all (I mean it’s not bad at all in general, but the conversion in the proc makes it unwanted on shaman builds), but very strong, as the 10 seconds of the duration always make sure you kill your opponent.
How to add some touch of love to the item:
- Remove the non-proc % lightning damage, all of it
- Move the conversion to the non-proc bonus to all pets and set it to 20 - 30% conversion
- Increase the proc lightning damage to 80 - 100% for non-mythical one and to 130 - 180% for the Mythical one
This solution would open new ways of building our characters, as we had more options to convert our damage to the damage type we want without having a trampoline build. Also, I think it is the only item that actually grants conversion after a proc.