The current state of leveling
 

Greetings newbies and oldbies, here is an informative guide of just how long it would take to reach max level via Brutals. I personally haven't seen any non-max levels able to grind xmas dungeon for the required gear to do more things, but more power to you if you were lucky =]!

I am running Brutals with a hook of Bile +3
I currently have 23 STR, 24 DEX, 23 CON, 11AC, and 69 Armor. With a 3 running speed, more than an average newbie would have

One brutal gives 52,641 experience
This means you will need 29839 Brutals to hit maximum level, which would require 179039 minutes, or 2938 hours, of JUST grinding brutals.

I believe there needs to be something inbetween Brutals and end game loot runs, or give better rewards for Brutals so that someone can even make it to late game.

The nihil shop introduced 25% increased experience, which will cut the time down to a mere 2237 hours, still something unlikely for someone to stick around with compared to modern games out.

*edit* This was averaging 6 minutes a brutal,I was doing non stop killing

You can grind in the brutal maps till you are level 50 phys, and just go ahead into the samurai dungeons, reapers at night or continue in the ice dungeons. You do not have to make your levels in the brutal maps.