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I'm pushing through this right now.  Given that you posted about two months ago, you've hopefully blown through the blockade.

Good cards help A LOT.  There's a +3 equipment card that's perfect for leveling up gear in the Tainted World pack.  The extra pieces of gear outclass the x1.25-type bonuses most other cards provide and ought to buy you an extra level or two.

There are a few pieces of gear worth getting to LVL 2 as a priority - Star Shield, Longsword, and Fire Orb spring to mind.  The lvl2 boost lets you gain a 50% bonus to the passive, which buys you a lot of division shields and critical hit power.  I'd advocate having those active on the "way up" to the levels where you're struggling, since the boss fights grant the most XP fastest.  In fact, I'd consider a handful of taunt-heavy no-card runs since the point where these early equipment items start gaining XP is so low.  Those extra rounds without damage from the division shields and pushing Crits above 100% chance has a HUGE advantage - you'll soon find one in six hits or so doing over quadruple damage, which beats any of the active equipment attacks.

I burn most of my school bonuses on Horde.  It helps - a bunch of extra levels to things you only need to buy once and you've got another x2 or so to damage and health.  Gems spent on tripling the efficacy of heirlooms are generally well spent, too.

You should be able to get the Corrupted Soul Capacity up to seven to ten days worth with a bit of patience.  Then, with MORE patience, cap it once at that ridiculous value.  Now your Cryo will be vastly more productive than being active, at least for a while (this is what I'm working on at the moment).  While you're waiting for the CS to hit cap, remember : Minibosses at any level have the same CS drop, based on your highest Horde level hit (since prestige, I think).  So if you can barely squeeze through to a high-nineties value level, then back off to a lower level where you can comfortably get 1-hit-kills.  That way you can use all your equipment that boosts Miniboss spawning and drops and still wipe them out reliably.  Every day or two, check to see if you've got enough bones to squeeze out another level, each of which should cut a day or so off the time-til-max-CS.