Fenrir/DiabolosFollow

I'm a returning player from a long time ago, and I kinda feel the urge to play SMN again. It's currently at lvl 40. I have all the basic avatars, but not Fenrir or Diabolos (Much less the 2 new ones) given that most people have several 99 jobs now, is it rare for a SMN to not have these 2 guys any more? And are you considered incredibly gimp without them?

I'm pretty sure I can get lvl 90+ help for Fenrir, not far enough into CoP yet for Diabolus, but my highest job is 69 (BLU) am I even able to enter the Fenrir fight at this lvl?

Like Vlor said, you'll want every avatar eventually. If nothing else, you'll need them for Voidwatch for procs.

However, for the short term, you're fine. I'd suggest getting Fenrir sooner than later, as he's an awesome avatar with awesome buffs. You'll want him by the time you hit mid 50's at the latest. As for Diabolos, you don't need him until later. Diabolos is a utility avatar, and isn't terribly useful outside certain endgame scenarios. You won't be missing much by not having him until you hit endgame where you're in a party with 5 other mages, or doing Voidwatch.

Thanks for the advice. What's the tuning fork trick?

Actually you don't have to skip them anymore. You can go back and collect the mini forks even if you've beaten the Lv20 fights. They fixed that a year or so ago without announcing it.

After you win the Lv.20 fights, you can still get the mini-forks, but the NPC won't warp you there anymore. So, you still have to skip the fights if you want the free warps.

If you're jumping into it at 70-75 with a bunch of other like-leveled Smn, then Leviathan probably would still be the better Avatar, as he was used due to the reliability of his Spinning Dive damage. If it hit, it was going to do good damage, simple as that. With Garuda, due to Predator Claws, while she'd potentially do more damage if all her swings landed, there was also a chance of her missing a swing, thus cutting down on damage a bit.

If you're doing this at high levels (like if you got Smn to 99, then went and fought Fenrir), Garuda should be fine for you to use. Since you're 20 some levels above Fenrir, so would Garuda, and therefore the accuracy issues that she might have if you were to use her at 70 would be greatly diminished.