This is something I was thinking about when I was considering rolling a new battle character after the failure of Dreep...

The character builds best suited to excel in the village are those who are also best suited to fighting melee type enemies, and least suited to fighting and killing mages.

This seems off to me. It isn't just the set up of the rights either, but also the overall set up of battle's enemies. Without a real mage cabal as a primary enemy, it seems that most of your enemies will indeed by melee types. Nexus doesn't have enough mages at any given point, and scion is by definition small. The largest enemy cabal, Empire, is usually dominated by melee characters with the black and divine sect only housing a few characters at any given time.

I'm not sure of the point of this, exactly, but perhaps to spark a discussion of whether or not my hypothesis is correct, and perhaps more importantly, if correct, if this is how the village should be.

While there may be other classes that are also well-suited for fighting mages, warriors that dish out fast and heavy damage are amongst my more feared enemies as a mage, esp if caught unprepped. I would like to think that Berserkers at least are these sorts. Another type of enemy I would classify under dangerous, or pesky at least, would be warriors that heap on the bleeding, which can be meddlesome esp in situations like raids.

Most rager powers are good for defeating or at least keeping a mage in a fight too..take for example that unbeatable fully abs'ed scion voker, would prolly have more trouble killing a scout compared to anything else on a solo basis.

I see Scion and Nexus as permanent enemies of Battle. When there are some of them awake it can get pretty fun. Bonded warriors behaving like mages can be pretty damn tough.

As for the Rites, it's part of Battle tradition and would only make sense for barbarians to compete amongst themselves in a bloody fashion. It also gives the imms a good chance to survey all the chars at one time, see how they interact with each other, observe their abilities on a solo and group level, etc.

While defeating all your opponents in the Circle certainly adds points to your card and is sometimes the tie-breaker for selecting a Commander, it isn't the only thing that matters. The Wits are equally as important, and we also do look into other factors. There is also a reason why we can check mage-only kills, and why we check it often.

Random thoughts back at your random thoughts!

I always have a harder time fighting members of the village as a warrior than I do with a mage. My mages always seem to stack up better than my warriors do. That just seems stupid it me.