Any hope for a tweak patch?

[Astral]

WP isn't as bad as it looks. Don't forget, if you have lifesteal kills give 3-4 piety. As a non-dwarf, most likely human/orc Rouge you wouldn't benefit much from sanguine and could quickly go below 1HKO territory with taking many helpings.
WP covers your flaw, and synergises with lifesteal's overheal. Eventually you can reach the point where sanguine becomes a reasonable investment too.
To build a regenfighting Rogue you could go on the route of BP, in practice that's hard with Rogue's 1st strike + high damage + low health. In that case you can't virtually extend your heath pool by overheal either, since blood hunger erodes max resists.

SS is better than nothing, it has a positive effect, but if I start taking into account what else can I get for the same amount of gold it immediately looks bad.

Darvin, on what stuff do you take Warrior's Pact?

[Darvin]

[Lujo]

[Tinker]

Chiming in:

Warrior's Pact is not that bad. People generally consider Absolution and Boost Health strong (and Vine Form at least situationally good). Warrior's Pact uses the 1:3 ratio (which you have as of shot #3 of Boost Health, shot #6 of Absolution and shot #5 of Vine Form). Not the best ratio but you can graft it on any other god. I take Body Pact more often, but I also take Warrior's Pact sometimes, mostly with Rogues or in cases when I want more health but my main altars don't give relevant boons.

Balanced Dagger is really strong. It's one of those items I very rarely prep (I did get lots of mileage out of it on my Bloodmage runs in Demonic Library), but I usually purchase when I see it in store. Similarly how Troll Heart, Dwarven Gauntlets, Kegs, etc. are almost insta-purchase. The thing about the preparation of it though is that it competes with items like Dragon Shield (arguably better for a melee build even on Vicious), Crystal Ball / Mage Plate (arguably better for a traditional spellcaster build even on Vicious), Dwarven Gauntlets and similar defining items. So all things considered... I almost never prepare Balanced Dagger, even on Vicious. But I do purchase it when I see it.

Stone Sigil a little someone recommended to cut cost in half or double CP (to bring the ratio to 3x+). I think as soon as it works effectively as CP fodder, people will buy it, and since it's a small item, people will keep it around for a while, to get some mileage out of it, just like the case now with Troll Heart. Imagine if Troll Heart costed 34 Gold, it would see considerably less purchases.

Crystal Ball is one of the strongest caster prep out there. Bear in mind though that Mage Plate and Battlemage Ring are also similarly strong items, and depending on your build may be much better for the occasion. If you're playing the best spellcaster race (i.e. Gnome), you do not *need* Crystal Ball every run, because you are a walking Crystal Ball of sorts. Then you can go with Battlemage Ring, and be badass all along, and still retain your spikes. Or with Mage Plate, and gain +2/+5 mana for every mana restore - without spending anything. I won all five (non-VGT) Vicious+VT dungeons with pure casters using other preps (four with the Mage Plate and one with the Balanced Dagger).

[Darvin]

[Tinker]

I tried to think back when I ended up taking Warrior's Pact (it was predominantly Rogues). I remember doing a bit of math a while ago, when I concluded that depending on how much resists you have, and how much health you have, there's normally a trade-off point between Warrior's Pact and Body Pact being optimal.

So WP gives you +1 health per 3 Piety, BP gives you +1% resists per 4 Piety, let's ignore the fact that you can trigger WP more times, and just compare per-Piety utility (also ignoring regen). So WP's utility is (HP+3)/HP per 3 Piety, whereas BP's utility is (100-Res%)/(100-Res%-1) per 4 Piety. That is, how much tougher you will be in the end.

I even did a chart and concluded that:
1. If your Health is below 50 then even with max resists you are better off just getting the extra health from WP.
2. If your Health is above 130 then even with no resists you are better off getting the Resists.
3. If your Health is in-between 50 and 130, then depending on how much resists you have (or, alternatively, how many shots of the boon you plan on taking), the per-piety utility of Resist boost will go up as your health increases. i.e. at 15% the break-even is 120 Health, at 45% it's 80 Health, etc.

So conclusion is: normally on a Rogue you're better off taking WP versus BP (unless you will pack 40%+ resists, in which case BP will eventually outshine WP, though WP will still be better early on). On other characters, if you sport any resists, BP will eventually be better, although on lower levels BP would still have better per-piety utility.

[Darvin]

[Astral]

And if you try to, you can cheeze BP for multiple activations on some maps.
Any XP valuable monster that transforms can activate it multiple times, like reviving cultists, leveling berserkers. Not sure if Wicked Guitar works too, that would be really awesome.

As it stands, WP is a very niche single class (Rogue) boon. Every other pact caters for more users.

[Lujo]

^ I'm not too happy with Body pact, either, but it doesn't look to be anywhere near WP. Now I get the feeling that you guys are underrating Scholars and Alchemists. From the discussion I did figure out that I'm supposed to take Warriors Pact when I clean up my popcorn if I want health (taking it early is a deathtrap anyway which explains the prohibitive cost, which is probably there to prevent people from ever taking it early). But it still looks terrible compared to other patcts, boons or swapping out to another god...

EDIT: I'd love to know, though, why the devs were so timid about the Pactmaker in general. It took pleading and moaning to get them to buff Spirit Pact to even where it is now (nice but not terribly useful), Warriors pact is either a deathtrap or a bit of a ripoff, body pact is not that great - and Scholars and Alchemist are superb. Why so all over the place?

As for CB and the Dagger - these are seriosly underrated. Yes, "Top notch item" is underrating either of those. I'd love to get into it more but that'd likely be misinterpreted. All I'd want it CB to be less reliable, and the Dagger to not be small and this easy to pick up and carry around.

[Darvin]