Ramblings of a new player

Love the game, couldn't stop playing it at first. My enthusiasm is starting to die down because I feel like I am not making progress. Still, awesome game!

Love the idea of F2P, cool with watching ads for slight gold boost. being able to buy item spaces is kinda understandable, I did buy 3 expansions in my first 48 hours of playing, and I haven't bought anything in a game in about a year. The absolute ideal would be only being able to pay for cosmetic affects but The Merchant is so close to being perfect I can disregard buying inventory expansions. It also sounds like the faster quest/exp is fairly balanced and not OP which is great. I do like to support the devs!

• Tutorial. I think the tutorial does a great job of pointing the user in the right direction. However, I think it does a poor job of explaining more complex aspects of the game (material grades, other stuff im confused about).

• Crafting, awesome. dope. so cool. But how do the different levels work? My current understanding which I'm not confident in is that: You get a grade based on how long your battle with an enemy was. The materials that enemy drops get assigned whatever grade your battle was. When you craft, if you use all materials of a certain grade, you'll maybeish get that grade on what you craft. but not really. Also what grade do the materials you buy from people get? Basically, How do i make more purple shit? (none of this stuff is explained in the tutorial)

• Trading... Hmmm. Figured out that buying potions low and selling them high I make a decent profit. Is this true for all items? Is it worth buying the materials to craft something and sell it? what if i sell it from my inventory and not to a trader? Does selling something to someone cheap make them not happy or just give me lower xp?

• Random questions/confusion, Should my pdef have matk all the time? it feels so wrong. Should I farm T1 until I'm into my thirties with more heroes or just keep pushing? Do I stick it out with T1 equipment or start going for T2 stuff. Do I use permant pots? Which ones? on who? Anyway to make rare monsters appear more? should i always buy low and sell high from traders even on stuff i don't need? Which heroes should fight whom. Should I sell stuff now or keep it for a future hero going through low levels? What equipment should i generally wear on what people? HOW DO I DO BETTER?

Current Strategy, Farm T1 for days. I tried T2 and went back to T1, but I don't know how much longer I can stay here.

Here is my current situation. Please give all advice that you can muster.