Spirit - Adding More Hit Points and Mana Is a Surefire Way to Build Up Survival Skills (Part 1)

Spirit is a cheap Runeword that can be used either in a Shield or a Sword. Requiring four common Runes, Spirit is an affordable Runeword designed with casters in mind. Whether you create it in a Shield or Sword, the mods common to both items are a caster's dream come true. Let's examine how viable the Spirit Runeword is for a caster.

This Runeword is only available to Ladder Characters.

Requirements:

4 Socket Shields or Swords

Runes (in order): Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn

The Stats:

Common Stats, for Shield AND Weapon:

+2 To All Skills

+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)

+55% Faster Hit Recovery

+22 To Vitality

+250 Defense Vs. Missile

+89-112 To Mana (varies)

+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)

Stats for Shield Only:

Cold Resist +35%

Lightning Resist +35%

Poison Resist +35%

Attacker Takes Damage of 14

Stats for Sword Only:

Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage

Adds 3-14 Cold Damage 3 Second Duration (Normal)

+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds

7% Life Stolen Per Hit

The Common Stats:

+2 To All Skills

+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)

+55% Faster Hit Recovery

+22 To Vitality

+250 Defense Vs. Missile

+89-112 To Mana (varies)

+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)

These are all very attractive mods to a caster.

The +2 To All Skills helps with synergistic Skills, the Faster Cast Rate means that you can cast spells quicker and the Faster Hit Recovery means that you can recover more quickly from a hit (and thus cast a spell of destruction or run away!)

The extra points in Vitality really helps with casters, who tend to have less Life than their melee counterparts (and thus die more easily). A +22 to Vitality gives casters 44 more hit points, a good buffer between life and death.

The large bonus to Mana dovetails very nicely with the other mods, soundly concluding that Spirit is indeed meant for mid-level casters.

Dan has been playing Diablo II for 7 years. Every time he restarts it takes him just one week to bring his character's level to 80 with all the right gear. He has worked the process down to a science in his Gheeds DII Guide: [http://www.gheedsd2guide.com]