Its worth pointing out the Primals have been beaten by soldiers before. Its just extremely costly. There was an interesting talk about it at a Fanfest which used the Company of Heroes as an example. They used numbers to overcome the primal cause inevitable they would have to fight their first wave. So the first wave would attack and get tempered, the second wave would intercept the first wave and then the third wave would engage and overpower the primal.

Its not to say that Primals aren't hugely powerful just on their own. It's just that there are forces out there capable of pulling them down. We are certainly among the strongest soldiers in Eorzea. But that doesn't mean the standing armies forces are ants to us, particularly among their elite. Lolorito isn't stupid and has resources we don't know about. He wouldn't have come there without serious backup if the Scions did decide to fight. Don't think Ilberd and a bunch of grunts was all we would have had to face. As I said before, this is a guy with Sultansworn Paladins in his pocket.