So I did completely terrible on the last Champions race. I only got to Lv13 before getting killed by Brutus. I knew his trick, in that I wanted to kill as few adds as possible as it only made him stronger. I still got stomped by him when he was around 20% HP or so, though.

I was playing a Ranger, and grabbed the unique bow. Was mainly using Poison Arrow and Rain of Arrows, and had Lightning Arrow slotted for bosses like Brutus where I didn't want to be doing AoE all the time. I also felt like I was just going way too slow. Maybe I was playing too cautiously? I'm fairly new to the game as well, so I'm sure that wasn't helping. What works for you guys in this race? How can I get through faster and survive to higher levels?

This was the build I ended up with, in the end:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAF4ILhmOGf4bAX11m42n1LvjxKLTftwV7YP-uv7I