Primal Ancients: Return of Viable, Customized non-Set Builds?

[MechaCThun]

I am aware of one of the big gripes that players have with D3, and that being the lack of customization in builds. At least from an end game stand point, Sets dominate the scene and are typically the only viable options to do Greater Rifts.

Legacy of Nightmares (LoN) is a great step forward to making custom builds again, but even so, only a couple are really only viable. If we are to look at the end game of D3 being GR pushing then all LoN builds don't cut it, save for 2-3 of them.

Now we have Primal Ancients.

I am attempting to find some math in regards to the stat increase from Ancient to Primal Ancient. If the secondary stats like Vitality, Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence, Armor and the like are much higher than the regular Ancient rolls, would that be a significant enough increase to ensure damage output and survivability in high GR's?

(1.) I first read on the official D3 forums that the increase from Ancient to Primal Ancient is around 16%. That would make it about 30% over regular, so from regular to Primal Ancient would be around 46%. Of course, I found no source to these numbers, so this could all be wrong.

(2.) Also on the official forums somebody linked this formula: 1.16 x 1.3 = 1.508. Again I am unsure of the source here, or even the context of this. Would the 1.16 represent the original, and the 1.508 being the increased outcome?

(3.) The rate at which Primal Ancients drop/reforged seems to be around 1%. Between the official D3 forums, diablofans.com, and icyveins.com the consensus many people are coming to is that it is easier to reforge Legendary items in Kanai's Cube. The amount of materials needed aside, the percent seems to between 0.5% - 1% chance still. If you are lucky, you'd be able to get a full set of Primal Ancient gear, with Legacy of Nightmare rings, in "no" time...

[Temp name]

1) Primal Ancients are just normal Ancients that have maxed out rolls. So there's practically no difference between a good ancient and a primal.

2) If the increase from ancient to primal was indeed ~16 percent, then it would stack multiplicatively, which would mean you'd get 1 (normal item) x 1.3 (Ancient) x 1.16 (primal) which gives you 1.508, or there about.

3) Primals are about as rare compared to ancients as ancients are to normal legendaries. You'll see very few of them. Reforging items in Kanai's cube is the quickest way to get a specific item to drop, which means you have more chances in the same amount of time to get them ancient or primal

But to answer the title.. No. Primal ancients aren't going to let you play weird builds in super high level grifts. You'll still want to play the meta for that.

[Sorshen]

Nah, they're just buffing the other classes and sets to reach necromancer level. Then they can truly go maintenance-season rotation mode.
Imho, LoN will be too weak compared to next patch sets.

[Thimagryn]

I feel like the only way that would be viable is if they rebalanced the game and simply folded all the Legendary/Set ability damage bonuses into the abilities themselves. Without any set bonuses, you lose out on so many damage multipliers that you'll never be able to compare. Legendaries should have been as they were in Loot 2.0, items that opened up different builds. Items like Jekangboard didn't need a x% bonus to Blessed Shield to be viable, all it did was split up your shield (which is already a DPS boost on its own). But back then, you could still be viable using a high stat shield with the right stats and not be too far behind a Jekang, unlike now where there's no reason NOT to use a Jekang for a Blessed Shield build.

Moreso with Blessed Hammer, there's no real alternative to using a cookie cutter Hammerdin set. You're pretty much forced to use Legendaries that boost BH damage.