What I think arcanist/summoner will be

[Renen]

I thought it was established in ff9, that Alexander is no weak summon?
Him kicking Bahamut's ass w/o any problems

[JasonStormblessed]

My speculation is that the magicked gemstones will be equiped in the Arcanist's main hand. In other words, the Arcanist's weapon will be Carbunkle, which will be summoned whenever they go into Active mode.

[Quatre]

Summoning big Primals as a SMN's limit break would be fracking genius.

[Akujin]

I had written out a character once, long time ago, that drew on a 'mantle' of different Eikon's, surrounding himself in their essence basically and being able to channel their power through himself, like a medium. I could honestly see SMN doing something similiar..

The SMN calls on Ifrit's soul.. a shadowy image of Ifrit appears, overlaying your own character, albiet smaller in scale possibly and so the SMN can call out abilities and a special move provided by the Eikon at that time before it falls away again.

Leaving the 'Real' Primal available only to the FC's that defeat the Primal in battle and then can call on it before it returns to its free roaming state, as described before. That way SMN's can continue to use the 'essence of Ifrit' while FC's and still use the 'real' Ifrit in combat.

[Darkhaund]

No... i am sure the summoner will have a wide array of lesser avatars to summon

[Arcell]

It's a lost art just like White and Black Magic. The WHM and BLM lores aren't any different really and I don't see what's the point in telling us what we can't do in the official description on the main website.
If we were meant to get lesser summons they would've said so but they only mentioned the primals.
It's like Scholar and Dancer in XI. People used to do it =/= people can't do it anymore. If mages in the past could summon the primals what's so different now?

They've said before that Summoner will get to summon lesser spirits/Primals, not the big Primals. So far the official statements have all said that the big Primals (Ifrit, Garuda, etc...) will be Free Company summons that only one can own at any given time.

This leads me to believe that Summoner will have access to smaller Primals or spirits. Until an official statement comes out saying that Summoners can summon all the big Primals at will, I'd stick with the official statements that have said that they won't.

[Arkine]

Arcanist will be something people level just to unlock Summoner.

[Darkhaund]

I am starting to think that they will make clases more limited to give more power to the jobs (with IMO is a good thing)

Question is.. will Arcanist be stuck with JUST carby? or will they carry these "gemstones" like archers carry arrows and depending on wich stone they equip means the avatar that they can summon?

Would be AMAZING if these magicked gemstones are obtained via questswith nice story behind them

[Babydoll]

I hope we get lots of lesser summons I wonder what type of class it will be though. DD, support, healer, or all of them? >.>

[Arcell]

I hope we get lots of lesser summons I wonder what type of class it will be though. DD, support, healer, or all of them? >.>

Kind of hoping they go a route similar to Aion where different summons had different uses. Earth focused on defense/HP, Fire focused on attack, Wind focused on speed and Water focused on magic.