No difference between white and gold glyphs on jewelry, a bug?

andy_s · April 2015

Bone shield stamina cost on a naked char: 3351

Now let's equip a single ring...

Gold glyph (reduce stamina cost by 200) on a v14 gold ring => Bone shield costs 3123 stamina
Gold glyph on a v14 purple ring => Bone shield costs 3139 stamina
Gold glyph on a v12 blue ring => Bone shield costs 3153 stamina

And now the most interesting part!

WHITE glyph (reduce stamina cost by 156) on a v14 gold ring => Bone shield costs 3123 stamina (same result as with gold glyph)
Purple glyph (reduce stamina cost by 186) on a v12 purple ring => Bone shield costs 3139 stamina (same result as with gold glyph)

So it's clear, that jewelry enchant only depends on an item's color, a glyph doesn't matter. Enchant you jewelry with white glyphs and enjoy the best possible enchant

I only tested reduce costs enchants, because it is the most popular enchant, and I don't use others, so maybe it's not the same for recovery, weapon power, etc.

I guess it needs to be fixed, otherwise I feel like I wasted 20 or more kutas for jewelry.

Morvul · April 2015

that testing was definetly more thorough then I did, but I've seen basically the same thing.

The value of jewelry enchantment is based on ITEM quality and level, not the quality of the enchantment/glyph

Emma_Overload · April 2015

I reported this a few days ago when I wasted a 5000G Kuta, but there have been several other people post about this issue. ZoS hasn't made any statement at all about it.

Sylvyr · April 2015

I have noticed this too.

baratron · May 2015

So, I have spent this evening doing some testing with my v14 Sorcerer. Since @andy.s already tested Reduce Feat Cost glyphs, I decided to test Reduce Spell Cost glyphs. You can thank my Guildmates for this post being about 90% shorter than it originally was, since they told me to put the data into a Google document. There are 3 spreadsheets in this Google document:

Glyphs - Gives the stated Reduce Spell Cost of each colour of glyph. Not very exciting but saves you having to look it up elsewhere.
Reduction - Data for my character with no passives and no Champion Points. Therefore, all Spell Cost Reduction is due to the single piece of jewellery which he was wearing. This is the important sheet for most people to read.
Original Data - Data for my character with his standard set of passives and Champion Points. Confusing since there are several sources of spell cost reduction included.

I started with three v14 rings: one green (Robust), one blue (Healthy), one purple (Ornate). I deliberately chose rings which weren't Arcane in case the extra Magicka of the ring affected the results. I also used his standard Healer's Habit jewellery.

I made 3 x purple Monumental Glyphs of Reduce Spell Cost. In each case, the ring then said it would reduce Spell Cost by 186.

I stripped my character completely naked and put one ring or necklace on at a time.

I also made 3 x white Monumental Glyphs of Reduce Spell Cost. In each case, the ring then said it would reduce Spell Cost by 156.

What I discovered was:

Reduce Spell Cost enchantments on jewellery do not give the value that the ring/necklace claims when you look at it.
This is true for BOTH rings and necklaces.
This is true BOTH for player-enchanted AND for dropped items with their original enchantments. Healer's Habit jewellery has Reduce Spell Cost on it by default.
The same ring gives the same Spell Cost reduction regardless of whether it has a white or purple glyph on it.
A purple Reduce Spell Cost enchantment gives a smaller value on a green or blue ring.
A gold Reduce Spell Cost enchantment gives a smaller value on a purple ring.
It is therefore currently a waste of Aspect runes to put a higher quality enchantment on a lower quality ring.
HOWEVER, in the absence of any other forms of Spell Cost Reduction, enchanted jewellery is actually giving MORE Spell Cost Reduction that you would expect!

This can be seen most clearly when my character had no passives or Champion Points (see 2nd sheet of the Google Document).

Green: Actual Spell Cost Reduction 187, Stated value of Monumental Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost 164

Blue: Actual Spell Cost Reduction 198 or 199, Stated value of Monumental Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost 174

Purple: Actual Spell Cost Reduction 212 or 213, Stated value of Monumental Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost 186

Gold: Actual Spell Cost Reduction 228, Stated value of Monumental Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost 200

So it's easy for us as players to whine because we're not seeing a decrease in Spell Cost equal to the value of the glyph. My character with all of his passives and CP was seeing a reduction of 188 Magicka for a Gold glyph, which is "supposed" to be 200 Magicka reduction, oh noes!

But this "200 Magicka reduction" is on top of the 5% + 15% + 1.5% that he already had from his passives and Champion Points. If he didn't have any of those passives, he'd be getting 228 Spell Cost reduction!

The formula for combining these things is apparently not at all straightforward, since when he has both the Unholy Knowledge (5%) and Mage Adept (15%) passives, the reduction he sees is a fairly standard 17.5% in comparison to the cost without these passives. 15% + 5% = 20%, and 15% x 5% = 15.75%, so your guess is as good as mine for where 17.5% comes from.

The important thing is that the value of an enchantment on a piece of jewellery really is entirely uncorrelated to the quality of the glyph, and only correlated to the quality of the item.

Also, I only looked at Monumental Glyphs of Reduce Spell Cost on v13 and v14 rings, so this bug doesn't come into it.