I will now attempt to explain why the Diablo III expansion has forced you to drop a difficult level or 3

Inspired by this post.

I am going to do something I normally don't do, and assume for the moment that you know nothing about the subject material of this post. This is not because I believe you're a moron who needs things spoon-fed to you, but rather because I'm in law school and can't get out of the mindset at the moment.



Diablo III is a game where you control one character and go around clicking things. When you click them enough, they die, but it's important that you click them enough before they click you enough. Otherwise you die.  When they die, they occasionally (often) drop items. Your character can equip these items to become more powerful. In addition, killing enemies gives you "experience." "Experience" is quantified as "experience points," often abbreviated to "XP." When you gain enough XP, you "level up" and the game difficulty marginally increases: the monsters get more health and do more damage, but on the other hand, they also drop better items. (You could also increase the difficulty manually to give yourself a greater challenge.)

Each item was not necessarily better than the item that dropped before it; some might offer an increase in damage in exchange for a reduction in health. Furthermore, you are limited to one "shoulder" item, one "chest" item, one "pants" item, and at most two "weapon" items at any given time. It was very likely that, due to the random special properties of the items you received, you would hold onto these items for a few levels. (For example, a "chest armor" piece you received at Level 25 might still be viable at Level 28, if you hadn't acquired anything better.)

For approximately a year and a half, Diablo III had a level cap of 60, meaning that once you'd beaten the game three-and-a-half times (in singleplayer), you would reach a plateau.  Monsters would become no more difficult, and the items you received would become no more powerful.  Shortly before the expansion pack, Reaper of Souls, launched, the game's difficulty system was overhauled and you no longer needed to beat the game on each difficulty before progressing to the next.

To repeat, Diablo III difficulty scales both automatically (by number) and manually (by name: Normal, Hard, Expert, Master, Torment).

Because you were stuck at Level 60 for a very long amount of time, you acquired a full set of level 60 items, allowing you to play the game at a higher difficulty than the difficulty you played at when your character first reached Level 60.  In order to expect to be able to play as well on the "Torment" difficulty at Level 65 as you did at Level 60, you would need a full set of Level 65 gear.  However, as I mentioned before, items do not drop at a sufficient rate for you to replace every single item with a superior version at every single level - unless, as was the case pre-Reaper, the game forced you to remain at one level for an inordinate amount of time. 

Someone with a full set of Level X gear is, of course, going to have an easier time at Level X difficulty (no matter the manual setting) than someone with Levels X-5 - X gear.

So there you have it.

Another theory has come to light. In contradistinction to the above, I shall enunciate this alternate theory in the parlance of those who play the game: "Malthael OP."