However you acquire a four-socket shield, once you have it, place the correct for runes into it – Tal, Thul, Ort, and Amn – and you have the Spirit Shield, which grants you the following bonuses. Enhanced Defense (15ed being highest possible superior roll) 4. The rolled defense (148 being highest possible non-superior roll) 3. I'm pretty sure the earliest a monarch can drop is hell. So unless you want to waste a ton of attribute points in strength (meaning less vitality and health overall), monarch is your best bet. An even better way is to play as a paladin on Nightmare or Hell, where a four-socket paladin shield can drop even in the beginning levels. How early on into the season you find it 2. Monarchs are not NEEDED, however it has the lowest strength requirements of all 4 socket shields. Alternatively, you can use one level 26+ Normal Paladin shield and the recipe above to roll for four sockets through the Horadric Cube, or use Larzuk’s quest. You can also add sockets with the following horadric cube recipe. You can even get it on Normal difficulty from about the start of Act V, at which point a four-socket D2R shield can start dropping for you. Larzuk will always add 3 sockets (if the iLevel is high enough), the maximum. To get the Diablo 2 Resurrected 4 Socket Shield and make a Spirit Shield as a paladin is a bit less of a nightmare. I had to use a pavise until I could find a monarch, but the strength requirement was much steeper.

Diablo 2 earliest 4 socket shield