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Well, I think it's clear now. Lion heart is definitely one of the weaker talents out there, especially considering it gets taken over by a spell at some point.

And there's always humans/versatility, of course.

The advantage, as I see it, of Lion Heart over Resist Taunt is that Lion Heart can be used multiple times against the same effect, where Resist Taunt can only be used against the "attack test" of the Social Defese targeting talent or power.

So, against Steely Stare, you could use Lion Heart to try and shake off the effect of the talent each round. You can't do that with Resist Taunt.

How useful Lionheart is entirely depends on the campaign being run. The more you face horrors the more usefull it becomes. I personally disagree with Lionheart being one of the weaker talents. Once the horror uses Terror on the group it becomes invaluable. Breaking out of a step 19 terror without willforce or lionheart is ridiculously difficult. I have seen characters never able to break out of the terror because they were just rolling willpower. Used to be even worse under the previous editions, I have had a TPK just because of Terror. There are other ways to avoid the Terror such as a high SPD or steel thought or heartening laugh. However, quite often the horror will beat your SPD and your steel thought, and for heartening laugh to work you will have to beat the horror's social defense, not always easy. I will concede it is a talent that will not get as much use as many oter talents and is highly situational, but if I did not have willforce or lionheart after circle 7 I would quickly be looking for a way to get one of the two.

Lionheart does not use strain for one. Also no one except spellcasters get willforce. Most (but not all) non spellcasting disciplines at least get access to lionheart at some point. I never claimed nor will I ever claim it is as good as willforce. Not all talents are equal, and I will be the first one to admit that. As far as the spell goes I think you are referring to Spirits of the Death Sea. This is a great alternative, assuming you have an elementalist in the group. I see it used quite often untill about circle 7 or 8. However, lionheart is eventually better. Yes you are looking at no experience for the spell versus 8600 for the talent just to get better, but eventually will +6 will not be enough and sometimes you just have to bite the bullet if you want to get better. To answer your last question, everyone in the campaigns I run that are not spellcasters have the talent if possible after circle 7 or 8. Part of the reason could be I have completly banned versatility for humans so to pick up willforce you would have to pick up a spellcasting discipline, not something everyone is interested in.