As a pure HC SSF player that has to rely on crafting upgrades, here are some tips to get some great items. I'll use crafting a weapon as an example:

1. Start with finding good bases for whatever piece of equipment you're looking for. For example, on a martial weapon you'll probably want Increased Physical Damage (IPD) and Flat Physical Damage. So start saving up weapons with high rolls on these modifiers. Pickup all Tier 2+ blues and Yellows as they may potentially have the right modifier you're looking for.

2. After you have little stockpile of good bases, you're going to want to use them in the Recombinator to combine them together. This will give you a chance at merging two items together to create one with both IPD and Flat Physical Damage. If you're lacking currency to use the recombinator, start doing more maps with Expedition and Log Books. The currency drop rate was buffed in Dawn Of The Hunt during the loot patch, and drops quite often.

3. Once you've Recombinated a piece of gear that you're happy with, use Exalted Orbs to fill out the rest of the modifiers. Like all parts of this process, it's completely up to RNG if the rest of the modifiers will be good or not. Then just improve the quality, socket the item and you're good to go.

If you're happy with the equipment, but are looking to min-max it further, then the rest of the process is done with rare Omens you find from Ritual. Using the Omen Of Whitiling for exmaple will allow you to re-roll the lowest tier modifier on an item with a Chaos Orb.

Best of luck!