Use lower tier recommended gear i.e. faction gear often comes in two variants.
Where in the game are you?
To me, it just seems you are equipping the first Epic and Legendary item you can get hold of without thinking about getting any resistances and health etc for you and pet stats. Look for green items that drops.
Drop the rifle and get a good pet scepter/weapon and off-hand (or shield with physical resists and other stuff)
Quests: 
I have not gone into the Skeleton Key area of Port Valbury yet. I have trouble on The Shattered Realm and Cleanse the Corruption. I think I have uncovered all of the map and all rifts. I have gotten all shrines available on normal.
what difficulty? 
Skip the skeleton key sections
Sorry, I’m confused. I’ve stated I am on normal, is that not the difficulty?
The only reference to normal I see is that you said that you have taken all shrines.
You are running a pet build, but you do not seem to focus on the pets judging from the gear you are wearing.
In order to get higher level and higher faction rep, you need to move on to Elite. Level 71 in normal, I usually start ultimate at level 75 
The recommended gear is mostly faction gear, and you need to do quests to get reputation
So you are saying I can use the scepter and still be ranged? What should I use as my main atk (aside from my pets)?
You should not do any attacks, you should just relax and let the pets do the work Your attacks will do 0 damage compared to the pets.
btw it is extremely hard to make “hybrid” builds in Grim Dawn, even with good gear. You need both players and pet stats, player and pet skill points, and by attacking mob you will draw aggro etc.
Wow - that is really important information! Thank you - I had no idea!
That is the whole idea of a pet/summoner build. Just sit back and let pets do the work and you just debuff monsters and make sure your pets are healthy and happy
Perhaps this thread can give you some insights Looking for non-passive pet build
I did not see that anywhere in the build I was looking at - I have been stressed searching what was supposed to go on my skillbar and main atk. It’s probably common knowledge for more familiar players that pet builds don’t main atk with weapon, but knowing that solves a lot for me now! I have been struggling trying to wield a scepter/dagger and not die when attacking - hence why I have a rifle equipped to be able to range and stay away from death.
Regarding gear - I have been equipping what has dropped for me for lack of other info available. I have a list of items I will buy/craft when I get to the appropriate lvls, but have been winging it until such a time (again - in part where I could have used some handholding). I have been too low to get anything but the helmet and I was only just able to equip that 3 lvls ago, but I can get two more pieces now that I hit lvl 70. The lvl below the lvl 70 items is 35 for those pieces and I thought that too far off to be the best option.
Thanks for the input - I will adjust my playstyle and see if I fare better now! 
idk perhaps it is kinda understood that a pet build needs pet stats on gear and that a pet player let the pets attack for him 
And generally speaking, if you are leveling similar as the goal build (some builds have different leveling shecme) you should try to mimic gearing but lower tier “versions” of them. I.e. if you are aiming to do a fire damage build, you should use items that gives +to your skills you are using, +% fire damage and the regular stuff (OA, DA, armor, resistances, health).
If you want to try an other build, where you have a more active role, try this one ; Fire birb pet pyromancer
When I leveling I do 50 to 70 with my hellhound and I’m a little nostalgic^^
Thank you, agraf! I might try that out - it looks pretty fun!
yeah but same applies, you need to get items with defensive stats for you and both offensive and defensive stats for them pets
will probably take a few hundred hours before one has that kind of gear, one can probably do a budget variant of it though.
Straight from my guide:
But regardless, @malawiglenn has already done the work for me. So, basically everything he said 
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
I personally love levelling. I always did. And I have a few characters that I play. But with all of them I am at lvl 50-60 ish, and all of them are still in normal (veteran) difficulty. The thing is that I finished normal at about 45-47, with all the quests done (that I could find) and started AoM. And with my highest character I just unlocked the Steelcap district vendor (Hyram?).
The thing is that I did not do any farming, and yet, I still have to finish up AoM (no idea how far I am from the end) and I haven’t even touched FG. Going at this rate, it makes me wonder what level would I be when I finish all of them and move on to Elite.
So, my question is, should I do something different? Should I skip AoM and FG? Or and I killing too much stuff?
Also, side question, why is the occultist skill-line bloody pox considered bad (overall and compared with DEE)? My cold chars are wrecking everything in my path, so I seem to have no issues killing stuff quickly.
Thanks.
Edit: I read that the chance to get legendary items is greater in elite than normal, and greater still in Ultimate, but I am not sure when to do the switch.
Do you own AoM and FG? just do them in Normal/Veteran before you go to Elite.
With more knowledge, i.e. how to do the quests, where things are located and so on, you will speed up the process. Also with experience potions and faction mandates.
I’d say push one char, the one you like to play most, as far as possible (revered with as many factions as possible to get faction mandates for other chars, experience potion from Malmouth resistance, and possibly some difficulty skip token from FG vendor) . Having one or two chars doing the ground work first will benefit the leveling of other future chars a lot rather than leveling up multiple ones parallell.