In all the time I have played seasonal, I have received exactly one Primal Ancient item I could actually use. I think it was Dead Man’s Legacy, but I can’t remember exactly. Point is…I still had fun on all those seasons, and some of them I did far better than I thought I would.
It would be nice to be able to get something you can use, but I wouldn’t pin all my hopes on it. In our house, primals are something to joke about. “Wow, a primal Blackthorne. Drop everything so you can use that game-ending item!” We just don’t expect them to be useful.
For your specific situation, it does seem a little weird. Not too long ago, I posted on a similar thread about primals being too rare. I’ll say the same thing here, because you proved my point: Primal drop rates are too low. So low, in fact, that I have talked with players who don’t even believe they’re a real thing.
When I say that, the most common response I get is “looool, y not just give every player 100% primals hurr durr”. That’s not the point. Even if they raised the drop rate by 10x, they’d still be rare enough and there’s still no guarantee they’d be of any use.
I’ll go another direction with it: I really wanted to play an Unhallowed Essence Demon Hunter this season. I was curious to see how beneficial the fourth slot would be. What did I get instead? Literally every other set in the game. I had a complete Shadow set and was well on my way to completing Gears of Dreadlands, because of how loopy the loot system is. Gambled for them. Same story. Upgrade rare? 4 Marauders in a row, 3 Shadows. Something’s wrong with those numbers.
Once I finally did get UE to drop, the pieces started raining down on me. Thing is…only the pieces I already had. I had to convert set item in the Cube to complete it, and even then, the helm wouldn’t drop for hours. Others will call this an irregularity or just RNG, but it happens with every character, with every set I am collecting. Nothing random operates with this level of reliability.
How many of those items from other sets were ancient? I want to say at least 25-30% of them. Didn’t count, but that feels about right. Now look at the number of ancients for the Unhallowed Essence items I did manage to get. 0%. I usually get at least one Unhallowed Essence piece after every GR (gambling with Kadala), but still no ancients. Been trying for 2 days. Lots of ancients for other sets, but not this one.
All of that data tells me one thing: When you do get lucky enough to roll an Ancient or Primal Ancient, you’re not getting an item you want. When you do get an item you want, it’s not going to be Ancient or Primal Ancient. Not unless you play all day, every day, all season long.
It’s more likely to win the lottery while being struck by lightning. Twice. Oh, and the lightning is also made of winning lottery tickets.
Translation: Don’t worry about it. If you focus too much on what you’re not getting, you’ll stop enjoying the game. It happens to my significant other every season. She tries so hard to get things together and just ends up frustrated because of it.
