I am making this thread because recently I've seen quite a few examples that the people at Turbine read these threads and do make adjustments to the game based on feedback and ideas posted here. This may be long winded and I apologize, but I want to give the clearest and most detailed version of my point of view on the change to Leap of Faith. Afterall, there's a moderate chance this thread or this change to LoF could affect my decision to keep playing DDO or stop playing DDO. I'm hoping someone from Turbine will read this and if you are, I greatly appreciate your time.

Let me say that I bought favored soul only 2 months after I first started playing DDO and it was this class that caused me to start a VIP membership. I have been VIP ever since, about 15 months of VIP.

I look at the favored soul leap of faith as a huge factor in my love of the class. Much like the sprint boosts that other classes get, and especially the speed increase that monks get (not including their abundant step). For the past year or so I've had 2 favored souls and 1 cleric that serve as my healer toons. I decided a few months ago that after I get my wizard finished with his 3rd life I will TR my cleric to a Paladin, or perhaps an Artificer now that I have heard about it. Even though clerics get an aura and a burst that certainly are useful, and the boost to empower healing, I just got addicted to the wings ability that favored souls have. I mostly use wings in public areas as a way of getting to a quest quickly, or occasionally as a way to get to a party member quickly if they are far away from me and need help.

Now that the Lamannia release notes say they are nerfing the Leap of Faith, it upsets me a great deal. It's not the fault of favored souls that the Divine Punishment is incredibly powerful. In my opinion, Divine Punishment should get the nerf, not the wings. I spent hours and hours for the past year and a half making my 2 favored souls and TR'ing them and getting gear, having fun with them. I had fun long before Divine Punishment was released and I could certainly continue to enjoy them if divine punishment was removed altogether. Now, I like divine punishment in the sense that it provides some variety in the spells a divine caster can use. So perhaps removing it wouldn't be best, but I'm all for nerfing it or making more bosses in the game immune to light damage as long as the leap of faith ability remains as it were. I would rather lose divine punishment than leap of faith. Shoot, I'd rather lose both blade barrier and divine punishment, as long as I could continue to fly through the marketplace or various places quickly using leap of faith.

In reading the release notes, it does not say the Wind Dance will cost SP for sorcs (though everything else is identical), and since I don't have a sorc on lamannia I can't test it out...but if the class that has always had the wings ability gets it nerfed, and the class that never had it before has a better version of it, you can bet on me not being very happy. It's almost like giving rangers a huge damage bonus to greataxe damage (200%, 500%, etc), now all of a sudden everyone who has a barbarian with a greataxe will feel like a second class citizen because rangers would all of a sudden be the best class for greataxe.

I didn't think update 9 would be good for this game, but after spending a few months post update 9 I think it was a fairly good update for the most part. If this nerf to Leap of Faith happens, I will certainly give update 11 a try and will continue playing. However, I can guarantee that if I'm constantly unable to use my leap of faith because I'm out of charges, I will quit the game once and for all. Just like I can guarantee the Detroit Lions will not win the Super Bowl.

It frustrates me a great deal that the characters I've built, in order to use an ability that has been around for a long time and one that I like using, will be changed because of an ability that has been recently added. Please change the ability that was recently added, I doubt anyone is as attached to that as they are the old familiar ability.

As for boss kiting with Divine Punishment and using leap of faith....hah. My main character uses divine punishment and pounds on the bosses with an epic SoS. I don't use the leap of faith at all while tanking. Shoot, even my other favored soul which uses scimitars and doesn't do nearly as much melee damage (more of a healer/caster than melee/healer), would be better off adding in some melee damage than flying around avoiding the boss. Whether it be Suulo or Horoth or Sor'jek, etc, it's just much faster to stay in one place, add some melee dps and debuffs from getting hit so divine punishment will do purple damage. Especially if you stand still and let other melees in the group add in dps. I don't know what favored soul in their right mind would kite a boss around using divine punishment and have a bunch of melees standing around doing nothing because they are flying around all over the place. That will prevent the boss from debuffing himself/herself by hitting the favored soul, and not to mention the boss will surely die much, much slower than if the favored soul stood still and let melees pound on boss. If a favored soul kited a boss like that in a raid I was in, whether I was on my favored soul or any other character I have, I would ask him to stop. If he didn't stop, I would squelch him...easy as that.