Next Demi-Primal?

[Flana]

Depends whether they started from "we're doing this; come up with a reason" or "we can justify this in lore, so let's do it".

Phoenix has a ready-made reason; the same one that they already used to allow summoners to use Dreadwyrm Trance. Alexander is harder to justify because it hasn't been throwing its aether everywhere, but also because its actual powers don't become clear until late in that story arc. Compared to a dragon or phoenix, where you already know what to expect from them.

The major difference is that everyone knows about Bahamut, and thus the workaround makes sense. You can travel to Cartaneu regardless of your coil status and attune to the residual aether their while focusing on Bahamut's attributes in order to complete the ritual. If you didn't do coil, you have no idea Phoenix even exists. There is no way for you to attune to Phoenix's aether specifically, let alone know what attributes and abilities it even had. They literally wrote in you pulling an entire primal out of your butt with no real reasoning to accommodate a lack of coil progress.

And if you did do coil then SE just retconned the WoL into an asshole for both crapping on Luisouix's final wish that no one ever learns about Phoenix as a primal so they aren't tempted to call on it and for parading the corrupted reminder of their closest allies' beloved grandfather to do fat damage.

The whole thing was an awful idea from a story point of view but they did it anyways just for the spectacle.

Joking aside, I personally think the new SMN is genuinely a better designed class. It feels more like a SMN, and it's nice to actually rotate through all your summons rather than only seeing 3 the whole time while doing non-summony busywork like managing DoT's.

I disagree, I think the new Summoner is bar none the worst iteration of all from a design point. It is still infested with every problem Demisummoning introduced back in Stormblood, but every shred of complexity has been torn out in a terrible attempt at mitigating those same problems. All flash, zero substance.