My knowlegde on wearbears is very limited. But runewords can be farmed with reasonable amount of patience. you may find 1000 uniques but not the one you want. You can't really bet on finding the unique item you are looking for. Runewords are often used because (beside being in some cases the best choice) they are very accessable. there are also some rares and even some magic items that are the best choice in some circumstances. there is not the one item type that is the most useful.

Sorry for the long text, and sorry I can't really help you on your one specific characterįiguring this out is the beauty of d2. Or maybe you found a Lidless which is a unique that's literally Spirit but weaker. So instead you use any unique shield you have found that at least has resistances and FHR. But the base shield with the lowest str requirement that can have 4 sockets is the Monarch, an elite item that is reeeeally hard to find without access to Hell Cows. Cool, it only requires really low runes and it's the strongest sorc shield there is. So one of those items you need is a Spirit runeword shield. Which means you need +Skills, Faster Cast Rate and Mana because going lightning means you want to zap things hard and fast, Health, Faster Hit Recovery and Resistances because it's Diablo II and you want to live, and Magic Find to have fun. Here's an example, based on the only thing I'm starting to be experienced.

What one does is choosing a setup or playstyle, and that decides what build you should go for, and then you go like 'oh so for this build and according to this Youtuber I need items like unique X and unique Y, but X is really rare to find so I'll use runeword A because it's weaker but cheap to make and it serves the same purpose for now, but runeword Z is important too but I can't afford that runeword so I'll use this rare item I found because it enough for now.'

Here is the thing: one does not really just use items to play, like that random cool unique lance you found, or that weird and rare Ist rune that decided to drop and you want to just use right now. It felt like too many items and types of items. I started playing a couple months ago and felt this very same confusion.

Diablo 2 runewords reddit