I'm wondering what are the mechanics involved in being able to handle higher difficulty levels once you have a character at level 70. I tend to do bounties and rifts and I up my paragon levels and slowly I seem to be able to cope better at my current torment level so I go to the next one, but I don't really understand specifically what it is I'm doing that is making the current level easier.
Obviously the buffs provided by paragon points help to an extent, as does the cube powers, and finding and equipping better gear. I suppose mostly I'm wondering about the better gear drops. Is the quality of gear that drops related to the Torment level I'm playing at? Is it, along with probability/randomness, going to be some function of the level of my current equipped gear, or my paragon level?
With regard to set items, gear that I have at Torment I is not going to suffice if I try to step up to Torment IV. Should I be looking to craft a new version of a set item to replace it? And if so, what aspects of the game will determine that the newly crafted version will be better than my current version? Is it purely random?
tl;dr: how do I give myself a better chance of ensuring my gear levels with me in the end-game?
Best Answer
If you keep doing what you're doing right now, you're on the right path. Remember that it takes some time and luck to make a character strong.
To answer your question about quality and frequency of drops in difficulties:
Your main goal should be grinding for legendaries and/or sets (usually luck based) in order to boost your damage and defense but there are some tricks you can do gain a good boost in dmg/toughness that aren't too luck based. Personally I wouldn not recommend crafting unless you're getting really unlucky since it costs too many resources you could otherwise spend on reforging your gear.
Seasonal Journey
Now if you're playing a seasonal character you can complete your season journey in order to get a "free" set which helps a lot (note that you will get a set only once per season).
Most sets you get from the journey are built like this:
After this your main upgrades will come from finding (specific) ancient legendary Items and upgrading your legendary gems.
Gems
Gems are also a great Way to increase your damage. Having a high level green gem in your weapon will boost your damage by a ton. It's really easy to farm specific gems with the Broken Crown which is a fairly common item. Especially if you have access to the greed portal. Your main-stat gems in normal armor will give you a good boost but you should always prioritize getting the 130% more crit dmg on your weaponslot.
Non seasonal characters / alts
If you don't play on a seasonal character or you've already completed the seasonal journey all you can really do is grind, grind, grind. The things I've mentioned above should help you getting your legendaries faster but you won't be able to progress as fast as with a "free" set.