[Karinya]

Generally, its best to already have a high level job so you can have all the avatars before you level SMN, but SE decided years ago to dumb the system down so SMNs could have all the celestial avatars through solo fights before becoming higher in level.

Well, actually, the solo fights are *much* harder than party fights against the same avatars (even if you use a level 60 or 65 party, let alone destroying them with 75s). So it isn't really "dumbing down".

The fights to obtain Fenrir and Diabolos are uncapped fights, meaning they're full power against level 75 players. They will eat you alive if you try to solo them, and your celestial avatars, too.

IMO they should have added level 40 or 50 solo Fenrir/Diabolos fights - and made them the hardest solo fights in the game, making RDM Maat or the solo ENMs look like wimps. That would have been cool (and demolished the requirement - that ONLY SMN suffers from - of having another 60+ job in order to get all your spells).

Having another job leveled is useful to get gear for a lot of jobs, SMN included, but no specific piece of gear is all *that* job defining. Having all your significant spells *is* job defining, and in that respect SMN isn't quite fixed yet. But most players know about that, and since you can still contribute usefully to a party with Carby + celestials, I'd say don't sweat it; try to get together with a LS or something and get them when you can, but you can certainly level without them. Once you get to high levels and start doing endgame-ish activities you'll meet more players with high level jobs who can hook you up. Certainly by the time you join any endgame LS, they'll want to get you any avatars you don't already have.