Actually, money making is simple
@Brae
At first I would have agreed with you, but after I tried out the 'Drop Rate' stat I found out that the author actually made making money extremely easy. Just stack the drop rate stat on everything you can, as soon as you can. You won't notice a huge difference between +0 and +5 drop rate, but the stat itself increases the drop rate of treasure chests and gold A LOT. I'm level 12 with about +35 drop rate now, and all I have to do is run the first area, green/yellow slimes and the lvl 3 wolves, and I'll have a full inventory worth about 1k-2k gold.
As for grinding, well, it IS quite similar to Diablo, and Diablo was a grind as well. Just pump up a lot of Agility to increase your defense, this will dramatically increase your survivability. Damage? Health? Crit Rate? None of those matter if, like you said, you get 1 hit-ko. Defense/Damage is the best stat build here. Go 3:2 or 4:1 from the start, and you'll be fine.