Tips on how to get highest level possible?

[Lea]

I saw some screenshots of people reach 80-100 lvls and I have no clue how to do it.

So I pick Merris for her infinite range and all my gear is +exp, except for the ring +6% master and the amulet +60% spell duration.
I go for Time and then Mort/Lightning/Fire or Judgement for dash if I don't have Lightning.
My record so far is 59 lvl.

So here are some questions:
1) Should I always rush for encounters or sometimes it's better to clear the screen for exp?
2) What blessings you want to max out first?
3) Am I right in an assumption that you simply cannot reach 80+ level in case you didn't get lucky at +exp encounters?

Besides that, any general tips are appreciated.

[Cujo]

+exp gear is where it's at for levels

The xp tree also really helps but primarily the gear.

[Zoid13]

the key things

Merris
Spacetime Sign.
Multihead staff +3 attack proj + 3 spell proj
multihead is super low damage (this is important)
exp% gear

gods
Summer - Gehenna legendary + breath of fire + things that make thigns burn
Time - The Taste of Time legendary, warped strike, Gem high, Wisdom, Force and Temporal Lord for repeating the giant skelly wave at the end.
Krom - Bloodlust, Shurikens, Blades, Chains of War
Moirai - Splinter, Fury

shrines;
60% exp shrines
Shrine of Music - Gain 0.9 Experience per second.
Shrine of Penance - Gain -400% Dash Range for 30 seconds. Gain 2 levels.
Shard of the Fallen- Gain -166% Damage against enemies below 50% Life and +100% Damage against enemies above 50% Life.
Tree of Wisdom - Gain -540 Pull Area. Gain +50% More Experience.
Withering Tree (mid to late game once you have your setup going) - All skills offered are Novice. Gain +111% More Experience. at this point it no longer matters that the skills are all offered at novice. jsut don't take it too early before you have all your core skills going.
attack speed shrines

banish things that can ruin the low damage hit milking (alteration ritual can give you southeasters.. that's a no no they will destroy the enemies way too fast banish alt ritual)

its focused on Summers Gehenna legendary -Gain experience for every instance of damage you deal. once you have everything rolling the idea is to have Gehenna giving you more exp than you would get by killing the enemies at speed.
you want to have as many hits / ticks of damage as possible. Shard of the Fallen shrine lets you milk the enemies for more hits with its reduction in damage dealt under 50%
this is also why low damage is important.
you'll still have plenty of damage to take out bosses and the monsters you just wont destroy instantly which is what you want)

with this setup you can go well over level 100.
you will likely lag hard thanks to Shurikens :)

my record run crashed the game for the first time ever at level 107 on the skeletons.

[sultanov]

as much gear with "+% exp " as possible
merris with infinite pull + time + death + summer
time ; rush for wisdom master and warp strike for exp shards and bounce + gemhigh
mort : execution gives more exp
summer leggendary "gehena" gives exp for each instance of dmg
max atk speed as much as possible so you get :
each attack projectile generate exp shard on hit + exp from gehena multiplied by amount of projectiles multiplied by amount of projectiles + exp on kill from execution

very rng based ; there is a shrine that looks like a tree that gives " 50 % more exp , - 500 pull range "

you may reach higher than lvl 100 ( same as Skadi lvl 70 XD )

1 ) you move for shrines , trying to find those that give extra exp , warp strike + gemhigh + infinite pull range should be able to handle all the mobs on screen anyway
2) Wisdom . more exp > warp strike lvl 1 + gemhigh > execution + soulsteal > gehena
3) meh , i was able to reach lvl 70 with skadi with only 70 % more exp from gear and wisdom , with the above setup you probably can reach 80+ with the above setup without finding the tree that gives 50 % more exp