I think that Battle has historically been elitist and I don't think that should change. I think there needs to be something that people have to do in order to get in. I do agree that maybe having to kill another player mage is getting harder and harder because of lower playerbase and if you happen to play at a low player count time. I do think that maybe any player kill of a known enemy (a bloodoath, a mage, a tribunal) would make it easier. But I have also been online for a while where I have had no enemies.

I will say that there are now (finally) two mortal leaders. I think that they could also assign some sort of task. I think it needs to be a concrete task mage related which shows either some knowledge of the game or is a challenge for the player at that level. I think someone posted on here something about "find your legend.." What is that? What does that even mean? I hate tasks that aren't concrete. I think that is what they were going for when they set the requirement up.

So yes, I do think there should be some task or requirement to get in to battle. I also think that due to the low player base that maybe it can be something besides find and kill a mage player.

As for do I think they are OP, yes. I mean the combination of deathblow plus resistance. They are designed to kill mages to spellbane takes care of mages. It reduces a mage almost to a melee character. You would be in trouble against any warrior. But then you have one who can hit 3/5 deathblows in a round and eat up 600 - 800 hp through abs in a round. Imagine if you will going against a hand to hand spec who hits you with 3/5 deathblows for the round then turns around the same round and drops a 5 hit pummel on you. As a warrior they have better resistance and better damage output than you do. So if you aren't ganking or if you don't have stoneskin/ haste you cannot out damage and out melee. Where is the weakeness in the design?

Add in bloodthirst. They are gonna hit you first every time. This can sometimes be used against ragers but not if they are stationary. This means that you lose any surprise or first attack you wanted to use. No charge, no sleep spell or song, no rot/wither.

The people who whine about village powers being limiting are the villagers who want you to think they aren't OP so their powers don't get nerfed. But whatever. My main thrust is the entrance requirements as above. I want people to get into cabals faiely quickly and have fun but not get rid of hat it is supposed to be entirely.