So, there's a bit of hum drum going on with the new information coming out about Diablo 3's expansion pack "reaper of souls." It seems quite a bit of vanilla content is being removed and moved to expansion only, including various item properties and difficulties. The loot system is being overall changed, and many of the current items in the game are being heavily nerfed and downgraded, with their equivalents only available in Reaper of Souls. Currently on the PTR, this makes the vanilla content of the game at higher difficulties near impossible without access to the RoS content.
Post discussing this issue:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10973477708
Post discussing this issue:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10973477708