It took me to level 38 and I finally killed Salazar. After dying to him some 30 times over the past 10 levels I was a bit miffed he didn’t even drop a rare, let alone an Epic item. Then I got to his treasure room and was all excited to open the Grand Chest and Heroic Chest. Opened both and to my shock, once again no Rare nor Epic items. All of it was white and yellow junk. This is my first time playing the game and don’t understand the loot situation. I thought I’d read that playing on Veteran level meant I’d get better stuff off enemies and chests, and chests like these you were guaranteed a rare or epic item. Did I read wrong, or did the game step on me?
Veteran doesn’t improve loot quality, only difficulty.
It may well be that you got too much loot, and having your loot filter still displaying whites and yellows hid the better stuff from view.
There is a one-shot chest in Salazar’s that guarantees you a blue item, so the above seems likely to me.
Veteran has an increase in the Chance of better loot because there are more hero mobs. On each char (regardless of Veteran/Normal) there are various “one shot chests” scattered around the world, that the first time you open them you are guaranteed a blue item. Hope this helps 
the one shot chest isn’t in Salazar’s treasure room, but just before, in the same room than enemies. you may have missed it :undecided:
If I missed it will I be able to go back and get it in another game session?
Yes.
/10chars
In my first fight with Salazar, a buddy of mine (in HC of course) convinced me to go with him there before we even cleared out Burrwich. I think he was 17 and I was 14. I had no ranged attack ability, or good gear of any kind, and we were only using gear that we’d found on the way there.
The battle literally took us 45 minutes, and we had to port out in the middle b/c we ran out of healing potions, but nobody died. Then we got terrible loot ofc, but still…
You might get a (green item) monster unique that summons a Harbinger as an active skill. (Long cooldown temporary summon, at most 30% uptime or so)
If it’s that hard to kill an enemy, though, it’s not going to be an efficient way to farm items regardless. You might need to respec some skills and farm some resistances before you go back to farming a stronger mini-boss like Salazar.