Battles weakness is in mobility more so then not having the head. True not having the head sucks but cabals with the exception of scion are balanced with the idea that they have their cabal item most of the time and that usually is the case.

I don't know why people think berserker is so much better then defender and scout in terms of power. Personally I think defender is the strongest path with most builds. In the mid ranks it is totally way more powerful then berserker (you can pretty much fully heal in 4 ticks so you can harass the heck out of groups with hit and run) and you are way more survivable in drawn out raid situations where you see a lot of kills at the hero ranks.

If you want to fix the swings then make a way into empire they can't block with cents. Unless nexus has a large bashing/fiend gank you can eventually retrieve from them with hit and run, same with scion, but with empire there is no whittling, it is all or nothing due to cents (the fact that any villager worth his salt is usually wanted and the number of guards in balator doesn't help but its not really that big a deal)