Soul (Defensive Spirit) has +1 skills and 25FCR and Defensive mods and (🔥NEW🔥) Fire Resist from Ral rune
Soul
4 Socket Swords and Shields
RalThulOrtAmn
+1 To All Skills
+25% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missiles
+22 To Vitality
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)
Damage Reduced by 3-7 (varies)(violates 7 mods limit - Thanks to DarkHelmet)
+5 Fire Absorb
SHIELDS:
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Fire Resist +35% 
(Ral rune)
Spark (Offensive Spirit) has +2 skills and up to 35FCR and big Mana
Spark
4 Socket Swords and Shields
TalThulOrtAmn
+2 To All Skills
+30-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)
+89-112 To Mana (varies)
SHIELDS:
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Regular Spirit for reference
Spirit
4 Socket Swords and Shields
TalThulOrtAmn
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missiles
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana (varies)
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)
SHIELDS:
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
For some reason we have a million weapon runewords and 9 million bow runewords but only 2??? caster runewords: Spirit and Heart of the Oak
Not including White for Necromancer and 2h staff runewords.
In this light, Spirit isn’t necessarily overpowered plxnerf but rather it’s literally the only choice. All weapon rws are better than uniques and set after all; Spirit isn’t special in this regard. It’s simply just the only caster weapon rw.
And lo and behold, the same rw can also be made in a shield 
Whoever came up with this was designing weapon rws and got a memo about don’t forget to do caster weps!!! one hour from release 
What we essentially need is more variety but since Spirit already gives you everything you need as a caster apart from Resist, you can’t really design a new caster weapon rw that isn’t just a worse Spirit.
It would therefore be better to split Spirit into one survivability one and one damage one.
Those make more sense for such a cheap runeword that you can already make in Normal difficulty/Early NM.
The Shield versions could be similar where the tanky one gives you 20% Increased Chance of Blocking, which the current Spirit Monarch is notably left without. (Although note that Spirit in a shield isn’t actually OP in the same way as the weapon version because of its high Strength requirement (and high Dexterity requirement for maxblock) and the fact that 4os shields only drop in Hell difficulty).
There could then be another mid level runeword between those and HotO that costs a Pul and a Mal rune or an Ist that’s basically a regular Spirit.
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Technically there are more caster runewords they don’t get made though at least not for the caster.
Fortitude can be a weapon or an armor. Insight has caster rate as well as obsession. Stealth has caster rate as well as memory.
The thing is they’re just not idea in the builds or the most valuable use of resources or are easily surpassed by uniques or even runewords that don’t specifically work in the caster department, but make up for it in other factors.
But this happens all over in the game where some items are just simply better. Grief is the best melee weapon in most situations, and some substitutes get used for various reasons, but they still wound up being BiS.
Edit: Not sure what you want though, at the rate of Spirit weapon until you hit hoto or anything else what would really be better. Spirit sword is just going to be better, unless you find like a niche unique or a lucky rare. That weapon is just far too good isn’t it?
This discussion is about Spirit, which is special because it’s a 1h weapon. It allows you to equip a shield with it. That and its low cost is what makes it so OP.
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To what end? Sorry if you missed my edit. I’m just not sure what you want. You’re not saying it is OP, but said in your post this wasn’t about it being OP. So to what end do you want to expand upon this idea, because I agree it is indeed OP, just like a spirit shield, though it can be surpassed unlike a spirit shield.
Thanks for your respectful tone. While I do appreciate it, it’s really not necessary. As long it’s not actually flinging excrement, I assume good intent despite whatever wording
Spirit is simply one of the runewords most under attack when people complain about OP rws. My post tries to illuminate the problem:
The problem is lack of choice - Spirit is the only choice.
It gives you everything.
And my suggestion of splitting Spirit into an Offensive and a Defensive version is the obvious solution.
There was no harm meant by what I said. It was general curiosity and pointing out that I edited, and was sorry I didn’t finish typing that part before I posted.
I do agree it is the obvious choice in the early game, but I’m still not sure how you’d like it solved. It falls under the same category of the other low runewords that you make. There is simply a best choice for your build until you find something better. I think this happens for almost any character/build tbh.
Honestly with spirit and being OP the general conversation is about it’s power as a shield even despite the high STR requirement. As for the sword in the early game it clearly dominates, but if you remove it something else take’s it’s place. Perhaps even the white wand until you find something better.
But that is sort of just how the game goes, the easiest and best to obtain is hard focused until you get better. Just like how stealth dominates early game caster armor until you can do better, same with splendor as the early game shield. The only thing that holds back spirit from early game in the shield department is the monarch. You really don’t have a ton of choice no matter what you’re trying to do, it just so happens that runewords are the easiest of targets at the low level, rather than hunting specific set/unique items.
What objective are you trying to accomplish here? Replacing Spirit with Soul and Spark? On the matter of Soul, FCR can’t vary if the only value you list for it is 25. Secondly, your runeword violates the attribute limit of 7(Fire absorb or Damage Reduced has to go) and you neglect to include the rune attributes but make a note to mention it for the Shield with respect to Fire Resistance.
As for Spark, all you have is +2 Skills, FCR and Mana(the three attributes that everyone wants from Spirit) but is that all? Just because Spirit is so godly OP for the cost doesn’t mean it’s the only caster runeword out there. Obsession is relatively new but if you’re looking for existing runewords, Insight and Fortitude aren’t completely useless as Caster weapons. They just lack +Skills that Spirit, Obsession, Hoto and Elite Uniques happen to possess. Heck Crescent Moon and Hands of Justice could be Sorceress Weapons if need be due to their -Resistance(all the rage with Sunder Charms). Furthermore, the reason we don’t have that many “caster” runewords is because they’re simply not needed. Plenty of good Uniques that fill that role quite well(Wizardspike is just an example… ditto Tal Rasha Orb for a Set example).
Just seems like this is all a waste of our time.
If you type in “Spirit” in the search box on this forum, you will find countless posts about nerfing Spirit.
As I told DizzyDwarf, the objective of this post is to illuminate the problem of Spirit, which is that it does everything and as such limits choice.
Good game design is a series of interesting choices. - Sid Meier
Good catch on the limit on number of mods on runewords. I think Damage Reduced by 3-7 has got to go.
It says (Varies) at 25% because it’s copy-pasted. Can’t believe you noticed it
The caster weapon alternatives you mention are all 2-handed apart from Crescent Moon. They can’t be compared to Spirit because you can’t wear a shield with them.
Obsession requires a Zod rune (and a worthy base) - it’s not in the same league as Spirit. It would be better to compare Spirit with Memory.
Fortitude is not a realistic caster choice - requires Lo and only offers FCR (and Defense).
Next time people want to nerf Spirit, I will just tell them to go find Wizzy
