I am telling you that in ExWoD, its just flatout stated that Archmages exist.
E5 Celestial Exalts are explicitly calibrated to Arete 10 archmages and Dharma 10 arhats for the purposes of some mechanical interactions in ExWoD:
Therefore:
In general, if something is asking you to roll or establish a difficulty based on some trait an Exalt simply does not have, use Willpower instead.
In general, if something seems to be designed to have balanced, resistible or recoverable effects against a certain type of targets, while other, low-value targets just get screwed hard, treat Exalts as though they fall into whatever category of being doesn't get shafted as badly.
In general, when dealing with absolute effects, if one of the night people has a power that says it turns you into a pig, and an Exalt has a power that says it stops people from turning you into a pig, the Exalt's power wins. If two Exalts throw absolute effects at one another,
whichever seems more like a defense wins. If neither seems that way, make a contested Willpower roll to see who wins.
Finally, some powers (such as Dominate) concern themselves with how powerful their target is, according to a game's central ranking for power. Exalts don't have a place in those particular continuums of power, but the charts on the next page show how they stack up if you want to see if, say, an Exalt is immune to Dominate, or if a spirit's curse washes off of them like water off a duck's back.
These charts, it should be noted, are intended to be used to calibrate mechanical interactions, not to say that an Essence 5 Solar is equal to an Arete 10 archmage in a fight. Celestial Exalted Power Equivalence
| Essence | Generation | Rank | Arete | Dharma |
| 1 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| 3 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 6 |
| 4 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 |
| 5 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 10 |
Terrestrial Exalted Power Equivalence
| Essence | Generation | Rank | Arete | Dharma |
| 1 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | 9 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 5 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
It explicitly says not to assume that one beats the other though.
Regardless, at the point where the threat profile includes Antediluvians and Arhats from the WoD side, as well as Great Dragons, Fallen Angels and Lovecraftian demon gods on the Dresden side, I think the argument about Arch-Spheres being too powerful for the setting is moot.
