As far as gearing goes, the MSQ gives you some decent ilvl gear but ironworks (and augmented ironworks) will be the best you can easily get. HW base gear is ilvl 115, so anything around that level or better is ideal. To note augmented ironworks gear ilvl is on par with HW msq up until around level 56.

As far as your dying goes if you were new to those fights it’s entirely possible to have deaths in there, high level gear does mitigate some of that but experience, especially with several year old content like that, is the big divider. The exception to that being low ilvl in thornmarch, I’ve seen reports on here about people at ilvl dying from his ult. Either way keep pushing the content, update gear as you can. Weapon will be your most important upgrade in terms of damage done and healed, followed by your chest and leg pieces.