I was running the nephlim rifts and bounties/ bosses to farm primal items. On the current season 36 I have gotten 3 total primal items. 1 that was the one you get for your first clear of GR70, one for random, one crafted from scrapping the previous two then upgrading a fav crossbow. I should have had three more because they did drop complete with the pretty red map icon and all. When I identified them every single one turned into a normal legendary. One was Leoric’s Broken crown, one was Goldspan, One was Nagelring. I could have used every single one of those in lots of ways but all three turned back into a normal legendary once I identified them. I have seen well over a thousand legendary and ancient items on torment 10 to 15 after those three changed and no further primals have dropped. I have tried every single method I can think about in an attempt to get one more to drop but nothing works. I have personally picked up over a thousand legendries, plus upgrading an addional 800 and over 800 from gambling. I haven’t scrapped them because I would have around 300 primal ashes if I had. The previous season I didn’t get any from completing GR 70 alone within time and the season before I Didn’t get one when I completed the GR 70 then either. The primal drop rate is broken in addion to glitches where they suddenly stop being primal once identified. All but one of the primals were identified with other items through Cain’s book and acquired in single player for demon hunter.
Soul Shards also drop as red. If you had a soul shard next to a legendary, you might have thought the legendary was Primal.
To get more primals, you need to be playing T16 and completing visions open in T16. I don’t play group, so all my primals have dropped in solo play. I’ve had enough drop that I have crafted several primal weapons. The key point is that I’m playing T16 except when I’m developing a new character class.
You have a sader complete set but it’s not properly geared. See Icy Veins or Maxroll for suggestions on how to gear sets to play higher T levels and GR ranges. Get geared up so that you can play T16 and you will see plenty of Primals. Also see Icy Veins and Maxroll for help on gearing your followers. Hint: to make followers effective, equip tokens that grant immortality and use the Guardian Set with RRG to get their primary stat up to 25000. With Guardian Set and RRG on followers, you can also equip to get extra death breath or to get extra GR Keys.
Soul shards do drop with a beam but I haven’t seen them marked as primals on the minimap. You can also get primals from running greater rifts. Best drop rates are from tier 90 to 100 and higher if you can do them fast enough.
Later update just for clarity: Soul Shards both have a beam and a swirling flame or something around the beam plus a special marking on the minimap. Embers, that need to be identified, also have a beam with some swirling… but they don’t show on the minimap.
I was seeing the pentacle and the red beam for the items. Turns out there were two potential errors according to the email I received one error was involving soul shards replacing the proper drop of primal sometimes, the other was a known error that happens because of lag spikes where either the wrong information is displayed or items simply change into something of lower grade when the lag drops to acceptable levels. Both errors are known and both errors are common enough that they actually get complaints about similar things about 20 to 30 a season. I don’ have the best internet so it does not surprise me.