Quote Originally Posted by Greedalox View Post
Odd because I have similar opinions on the matter and I played to 99 as SMN after I came back to see what was up. Before I came back my choices were Carbuncle and Garuda, after it was Garuda and Shiva and lesser still when I finished my Shiva staff.
If we're using anecdotal experience, at 99 I found consistent use for Ramah, Garuda, Shiva, and Leviathan for different purposes and inconsistent buy non-trivial uses for the remaining primes. Not every avatar was superior DPR, for sure, but the only one's truly trivialized post-75 were arguably just Carby and Fenrir.

Truly optimizing SMN 71-99, also meant keeping avatars out to maximize the inherent TP boost. As for party relevance, FFXI had a sordid history as a whole, this wasn't unique to SMN.

Regardless of someone's opinion on avatars or their place in a party, FFXI did power projection through summons better than 14 and matured the system enough to easily distinguish from being flashy BLMs.