ELR Mage tutorials

[bojck]

I uploaded two more videos doing a trial with lily + vial. You can find them in part 9!

[Surajnirmale]

Part 9: Levelling. Crafting toons

Coming soon...


How to level up a new character to level 70 by Kinnu
Here Kinnu uses high level items unlocked for level 1 heroes. This is NOT a new player strategy - it takes a lot of time and gems to get these items!

This is not the good video. Should post the video for leveling up from level 1 using low level items. 1 with fire lily + vows. 2nd without fire lily only with legendary VoWS.

[bojck]

right, also sometimes if you cast immolate near the very end of the level, shatter doesn't hit some ghosts behind you, and you have to go back for them

[Benedicto]

By watching this video, I learned my mistake on why I am getting trouble in using my mage in gold farming. I used to cast Frost Nova to the end mobs, so I am always getting DoT that makes my runs longer. Now I tried casting it before reaching the end and it worked! I am now getting the 20-second standard run time with desired 90-130k gold per run.

[bojck]

Part 11: Mobile

XP, story mode and gold farming work just as well on mobile. Pushing is noticeably harder than on PC, but trials above 160 are totally doable.

You may want to run higher vitality, armor and life on hit on mobile (and perhaps add some dodge).

V 1.10.2:

[bojck]

Yeah it's pretty awesome : ) I have 4156%. Note that this is with the bonus from War Supplies. I think last time I actually measured (the only time), in War Supplies, I made around 100 DC runs with 1 booster, and got roughly 11M, so about 110k per run on average. To be honest I don't really pay attention anymore - I know it's the fastest way to earn gold, so from time to time I just play some music, watch a movie, and just farm absent-mindedly... Actually I got the most gold when using public transport for work - I was literally making millions every workday

[kurtcabage]

i only get 80-100k gold in one run morgenheim, i have 3700% EG, not even close to your 130k
LOL 130k gold in one run! that was freakin awesome!

how much EG% do you have ?
and thanks for the video

[bojck]

I tried pushing on mobile - I preferred playing with the 'attack after moving feature' off. I think it could work both ways, guess it's a matter of habit... To prevent suicidal behaviour, I often did a 'tap-tap-double tap combo'. By this I mean tap to move away from the pack (or boss), then double tab to shoot an arc-lightning in the direction of the pack. Thus my toon didn't run back into some flying arrows... That said, I'm not used to pushing on mobile, so take this with a grain of salt

[Nintelten]

Thanks. That's what I've been trying to do. Right now I'm at TL129 but I'm going to practice the move/avoid at lower Garm to get a feel for it.

Thoughts on turning on Attack after moving for mobile? For the boss phase at least. I find I suicide run during clearing if it's on.

[bojck]

Not sure if it's by design, but that's how it is currently... You can try vortexing mobs a bit farther away from you before you start beaming. This way they won't shoot at you immediately after 'unvortexting'. I don't have any other useful tips...

Regarding Garm's blue circle - yes, if you beam in the blue circle, the healing effect is gone.

[Nintelten]

For the clearing.. and other parts. Since I'm mobile only... Is this as design that whenever I use Vortex after I beam my beam stops? There a reason you don't beam when standing in the healing circle?

Also find it much harder to dodge and draw symbols to keep the buffs going. Unless I have attack after moving on I'm losing a lot of attacks as well.

Any mobile hints?

[bojck]

Part 10: A New Beginning. Gems & budget


Levelling up to 70 in 13 minutes with 450 gems: https://youtu.be/OBjdSvwr_tg

Levelling up to 70 in 3.5 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKX_...oyanBatchvarov

ANB Bronze 14 series (budget dual-classing): CL2062 in 5 hours with warrior, push top 3 with mage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPcO...oyanBatchvarov

ANB Bronze 22: I did trial 160! Trial 159 Garm:

Trial 110 with xp/eg gear in 56 sec: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUYK...oyanBatchvarov


- How do I get to Trial 130+ in 6/9/12 hours? What about t150?

Good news is that you can actually reach trial 150 with mage, without spending a single dollar, on a budget of 2K gems. It takes a lot of skills and game knowledge. How frugal you are with your spendings is a personal choice. In this post I'll try to show you how to make the most out of gems spent.

0. Unlocking stuff. Buying crates and companions - MUST read for new players

Unlocking attacks, abilities, passives, companion slots and inventory rows is cheaper in ANB. Way cheaper. Also, Books of Learning help level up abilities. When the event ends, you can save this character and use it as your main.

If you are just starting out, you need gems to unlock those and see that an ANB event is coming, save your gems and spend them in ANB!

Stash space is not transferred to main. Ability upgrade slots are not cheaper (2nd slot costs 400, 3rd costs 900). Buying companions is not cheaper - 500 gems each.

If you are aiming at trial 130+, buy all the 'cheap' unlocks right from the start. Get that 2nd upgrade slot for 400. Spending 900 on the 3rd one is up to you! It is nice to have, especially in Gold. In Bronze it is possible to upgrade ALL your skills to level 10 (or at least get to synergy 170) without unlocking this slot, if you do a lot of very fast trial runs.

It is best to decide which companions and bigger crafting crates to buy beforehand, and get them right at the start.

1. Levelling

The first task in ANB is to level up to 70 and start upgrading abilites.

You'd also want to progress to at least Severed Mountain which is the first suitable place for gold farming, picking up Eileen and Marcus on the way.

1.1. Story mode

Move fast through story mode. Craft a weapon often, as well as boots and pants with movement speed. Level up fireball to at least level 3 for the splash damage. Decide whether you'll wait a few days to level up abilities, use gems, or just keep playing and use Books of Learning later on. These are all viable strategies, depending on your time and budget.

Given a larger budget, buy crafting crates and make xp items often. If resources are not an issue, go for rares or epics with some extra stats. Crafting better quality jewelry with gems helps a bit, but it's not a must.

If you buy MoTs (mark of Titans), craft GMC weapons and just shatter everything.

If not, craft a low level Vial of Wind Spirit. Until level 70 it pretty much destroys all enemies in range. There's no need to recraft it as you level up, except for the increased +xp bonus.

If you also don't have this, use fireball, blizzard, DfA, beam, Talisman of Power... anything that works for you : )

Do you have the recipe for Fire Lily? Use it to make a cheap low level Lily - ideally epic or legendary. It will boost your damage tremendously (4-5 times). Do not allocate any stats to critical rating/critical damage.

- When do I stop running story mode?
This can vary. Most people stop at Severed mountain and switch to doing trials until the event ends. Some choose to run to The Broken Dragon (before or after levelling to 70) to pick up Robin the archer. Others make it to 43 Darkhold Citadel, as they prefer to farm gold there. DC has a better yield and takes much less total runs than SM for the same amout of gold.

Some players actually switch to trials as soon as they hit story level 4.

1.2. Trials/levelling

When your character reaches level 10, trial 1 is unlocked. To unlock trial 2, either finish t1, or reach hero level 20, and so on.

There are two main ways of levelling: doing complete trials or doing hit and runs using portals.

- Complete trials
If possible, craft GMC weapons and use shatter. This makes your life tremendously easier. Lily and Vial make it a breeze. With a good staff and some +power on gear, monsters die with 1 shatter. For the boss fights, use whichever skills/attack that works best for you, e.g. frostbeam, blizzard, or just frostbolt.

With good +xp bonus and an xp booster you can gain 10 or more levels from a single trial. If you aren't lazy and have the resources, recraft every 10 levels. If not, just craft a good staff and pants and boots with higher MS and get going. If you really want to try hard, craft better xp jewelry often.

Aim at doing higher trial than your level, e.g. at level 25 aim for trial 3. There's an xp boost when fighting higher level mobs that caps at 10 levels above your current level.

- Hit and run (portal runs)
An alternative to complete trials is doing short hit-and-runs, be it in story mode or trials. Just walk into a level, cast a portal immediately, kill a few groups and go back to town. Do not abandon - there is a time penalty. Use shatter or an AoE skill like blizzard. Most people use this strategy on Severed mountain. The downside is that you get no resources on the way.

- Complete Severed mountain runs
Some players choose to do complete SM runs with +xp and +eg gear. The advantage is that you get a fair amount of gold this way. Note that Magroth feels pretty strong, especially if you don't have Lily equipped.

- Misty Island runs
Misty Island has an xp bonus and decent drops. Some players do some runs there as well (using the free dungeon keys). As I recall, you need to have 3 keys in your regular stash (not ANB) to receive new keys in the ANB toon's mailbox.

Use +100 or +200% XP boosters to speed up the process.


2. Hitting level 70. Gold farming. Crafting jewelry and xp gear

Once you reach level 70, it is time to create gold farming and xp gear. Keep them separate, unless you know very well what you're doing If you're comfortable with farming trials 100-105, xp/eg is a perfectly viable option.

2.1. Gold farming

Ideally, craft a GMC weapon set with EG (extra gold). Ephemeral boxes could be handy. Craft green/blue items with +gold and some useful stats - power/vitality/ar/haste. Craft a lily if you have the recipe. Optionally, use an ELR robe to increase the duration of northern wind by 2 sec.

Most players farm gold in SM. After 20 runs you begin spawning very close to the end chest, resulting in very short runs (about 10 seconds on average).

Siege of Anderhelm is also a good option. I use 'double shatter' there - nova, immo, DfA to kill mobs on the way.

2.2. Jewelry

In ANB you get 2 ephemeral rings and 1 ephemeral necklace as milestone rewards, as well as 3 jewelry boxes.

If aiming at top spots, you'd craft one set of jewelry in additional to the ephemerals. It is a personal choice whether to use ephemerals for push or xp/eg, or mix them.

You might also want to craft EG jewelry.

For pure legendary extra gold jewelry you need 27 EG necklaces and 54 rings. I find that too tedious to craft, and buy jewelry until I have 9 EG necklaces and 18 EG rings.

When crafting xp jewelry, you have to decide whether to use gemstones when fusing or not, and how many. You can also put off xp jewelry crafting until you've collected some gemstones. You can also use some of the jewelry boxes to craft higher quality jewelry.

If you still haven't - check Nhat's awesome jewelry crafting calculator!

2.3. Crafting XP farming gear

Since you are reading the ELR Mage tutorials, you'd want to craft ELR gear as soon as possible. If short on resources, use the ephemeral boxes. If you've bought a Legendary crate, just craft a full set straight away. Check the posts above for stats distribution and items.

At this point Fire Lily really shines, combined with a Frostbeam bracer. With decent beam skills, you can start farming t80-t100 in minutes. You can do very well without legendary items. To save resources, you might opt to craft rare or epic bracers.


3. Mid-game. Farming

The greater part of every ANB event is actually farming. Do fast trial runs, get the xp, materials, gold, books of learning. Improve your gear and champion levels and carry on farming. It is important to find the balance between clear times and xp and other goods earned.

On trial 80 most drops are epic, mixed with some rares and legendaries.
T90 brings more set items and legendaries (and more xp, naturally).
At T100 the dropped item levels increase slightly. There is a chance to get a few good items, but most drops are salvaged. Legendaries are less than half of all drops. XP earned increases until trial 103, which is why most people ultimately choose to run t100 or t105.
At T105 legendaries are a bit more than half of all drops.
At T120 all drops are legendaries.

Aim for short runs. How short depends on your skills, playstyle and strategy. It can be anything between 30 seconds and 2 minutes.

How to start farming 100-105 without buying any crates?

With the new drop rates (1.5.34), this is harder than it used to be. Still, if you know how to farm with beam, you can start doing trials 90+ very early.

My low-budget strategy is to buy a 50gem crate at the very beginning - it contains a ton of lesser essences. Then I rely on crafting and ephemeral boxes to gear-up. I aim at GMC weapons, frostfire sash, full ELR set, Integralas mantle, Fire lily, Talisman of Power. Remember that some of the items cannot be crafted with ephemeral boxes! Finally I craft frostbeam bracers (epic is perfectly fine). This needs MoTs, which take some time to acquire.

What if I don't have lily/bracers/etc? Can I reach trial 90/110/130 then?

It is possible to reach trial 130 or above in any ANB, starting with 0 glory! That said, this is very unlikely to happen in your first ANB. There's a lot to learn about the game and events to do that, so my advice is to play and enjoy the process If you reach 90 in your first ANB (and get the first Celestial Transform) I'd call that a success, 110 would be a major success : )

If I don't have any glory recipes, I'd craft GMC, ELR, integralas, normal trinkets & bracers with +frost damage.

I'd buy the frostfire sash recipe (10 glory), then Talisman of Power (20), then Slayer enchantment for weapon (20).

Then I'd get bracers and lily (100 glory each). Then other trinkets - ToS, Vial of wind spirit, etc.

No rush, you'll get all the recipes you need after a few ANBs!

I'm a DfA fan, can I start farming with DfA?

Sure, just use Sash of the Igniter, ideally DfA bracers and put +fire (and +frost) on your gear. Check the farming tutorials above!

4. End-game. Crafting push gear

When going for the highest trial possible, you aim at crafting the absolute best push gear given your resources. Ideally, all items should be socketed and enchanted. The most important item is the staff, as it is the single biggest damage contributor. Still it might be a good strategy to stick with a 76 staff and craft other gear instead of spending all your resources going for that 77 staff.

Personally, I prepare a push-gear checklist. Thus I know which items I will have to craft/reforge/socket/enchant etc.

Ultimately, you want to take 1-2 level 77s out of ANB (as long as you need them for your main character). Be prepared that this will take a lot of crafts. The first 77 is expected within crafts 1-64; the second one should come between 65-128.

Also, write down all the crafting attempts you make. This will help you work on your strategy in the current and future events. It can also serve as something to refer to when you're complaining about how unlucky you are after the event (which is an essential part).

Remember to always socket before you make the items celestial! E.g. if you craft a level 77 robe, be sure to apply both sockets for cheap!


5. Push

How much time should I leave for push?
It depends... If you are already above CL 1900, levelling up further gets quite slow. As long as you have all the resources for crafting decent push gear, you may choose to do a longer push. I would recommend leaving 1.5-3 hours for push.

Usually up to 10 levels below your max you can skip trials and levels go fast. Then clear times get slower than 6 minutes and you have to do consecutive levels. The last few levels it is expected to have to abandon early. Learn how to identify a bad mob phase early and quit without wasting too much time (e.g. early deaths, too many elites and healers, or just slow clear). Know how much time you need for each boss and abandon before the boss fight if you won't have enough time.

Try to allow for some customization in your gear for different bosses, using sockets/passives/auras.



6. One last thing - whether you aim for trial 90 or 150, have fun and enjoy the game


A very well composed ANB guide from the point of view of a mobile player - Probabilist:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...h.5sbhuepvwm6i

[bojck]

Part 9: Crafting 77s. CTs and real end-game. Levelling crafting toons.

The ultimate end-game goal is playing with full Celestial level 77 gear and pushing the highest trial possible. With epic skillz you can be very close to the top spots on the leaderboard, even without the perfect gear. Skills always trump gear, but for top spots you need both.

Even if you're not running for top spots, crafting perfect gear is very lucrative! After all, RPGs are all about the loot It's a slot machine that runs on dead skeletons! In this case monsters rarely drop good stuff. There is an occasional level 77 drop of the right kind with the right stats, but that's incredibly rare. To obtain the end-game gear you want, you farm gold, xp and materials, then salvage and craft.

How do you get all 77 Celestials?
One at a time, with a lot of grinding and crafting. Try to take 2 77s out of every ANB event. Be patient and do your best not to CT any item lower than 77 (except for a perfect lower level bracer). Also, grind fast and smart, and craft efficiently. Create 'crafting toons' for crafting every level 77 item out of ANB.

How do you get 5M+ damage?
That's easy - you craft all 77 celestials! You also switch as much defensive stats to offense as possible.

Use a crafting-assisting tool
There is an online tool that helps you see the odds for your next crafts. It's available in a nice and easy online user interface, the Pythia. Check out the Eternium server in Discord for details.
There are now 2 links active. In case one of the two fails, you can switch from one to the other:

http://pythia.epizy.com/

http://pythi.a.gp/

Crafting toons - why do I need those?

This is an end-game topic, and not a beginners guide to levelling. It is only useful if you have a high Champion level (say 1500+) and enough materials to craft at least 15-30 legendary items.

The first two videos can also help you level up in ANB!

With the current crafting system when crafting end-level set and unique items, you have a guaranteed level 77 (exactly one) in the first 64 attempts with a new character. The next 77 will come in the second 64 crafts. This is a 'bad-luck prevention' algorithm implemented in the game to avoid long bad-luck streaks.

Thus, the best way to craft a 77 is to create a new toon, level it up to 70 and craft until you get a 77. Then delete the toon and repeat. This has been discussed in a lot of places here and in Discord, so for details check the other topics to keep this one on point.

It took me weeks to get to level 70, you say you level up in 20 minutes?

It depends on the recipes you have. The gist of it is to have a lot of Champion levels. All characters share those, including the new toons.

- If you don't have Fire Lily, and don't want to unlock items with gems, you'd want to unlock a second ability slot and put Nova and Immolate. Most of the damage here comes from Shatter. Craft full xp gear once every 10-30 levels. Craft GMC weapons often - you could just recraft high level staffs, as most of the damage comes from there. Use an xp booster (for me a 15-minute mushroom soup is just enough) and do trials until you hit level 70. Use Shatter to run trials quickly. Use a Vial of Wind spirit (any level) for the additional AoE damage.

If you do have a Lily, craft a legendary low level Lily and Vial and just use fireball (level 3+) and Vial to farm trials until level 70. With Champion levels and Lily damage is not an issue. There is no need to unlock items or ability slots. I'll post a video on clearing a trial with vial and fireball.

If you intend to make multiple crafting toons, stash some useful gear to use with the next toons. Personally, I keep a level 50 ELR set in the stash, along with some useful staffs, lily and vial. A low-level fireball bracer is also handy.

Note that low-level toons have a bigger movement speed bonus, so always buy coffee and craft +ms boots and pants.

Levelling up in trials using Shatter, Vial and Lily (30 sec trial run). 75 gems spent per crafting toon (+50 for deleting previous toon)

Levelling up in trials using Fireball, Vial and Lily. 0 gems spent per crafting toon (+50 for deleting previous toon)

If you want to see your new characters flying around, unlock higher level gear to be used by level 1 characters. This is costly, but can be very satisfying! Check topics on 'Speed-running' in the forum, and take a look at the video below:

How to level up a new character to level 70 by Kinnu
Here Kinnu uses high level items unlocked for level 1 heroes. This is NOT a new player strategy - it takes a lot of time and gems to get these items!

[bojck]

Part 8: Lily or Crit?

The biggest question standing for ELR mages is always 'Lily or Crit?'.

Ultimately results showed that both type of builds are really good at both XP farming and push. Lily is miles ahead when it comes to character levelling, as well as playing with lower Champion levels or lower-level gear.

When it comes to push, Lily is capable of dealing with at least trial 161. It is up to you to find out where the limit is : )

In ANB almost all mages will have better results with Lily, except a handful that can really leverage the power of a crit build.

Why should I use a Crit build after all?
1. You are short on Glory. Lily costs 100 Glory.
2. You want to push 160+ and don't want to risk it. The Crit build is proven to be capable of dealing with trial 164 or more.
3. You like to deal massive damage in one blow. If ToS (Talisman of Storms) is up, and you deal a critical hit when triggering Thermal shock, you deal humongous amount of damage at once, which is kinda cool! Not that cool when you don't do a critical hit. With top-notch gear you are looking at 2000% critical damage or even higher. Combine that with +3000% from ToS...
4. You don't have a ton of Shadow essences to make proper Lily gear

Why Lily?
1. You already have the Glory, or expect to obtain it soon.
2. You want to farm xp consistently, and get Kara down with 1 beam and nova @trial 100-105 every time. 3. You like damage to be more even. Not a fan of RNG? Lily makes gameplay smoother and more predictable.
3. You can accommodate more defensive stats without sacrificing that much damage
4. You can get better results with Epic gear
5. You can put both XP and EG on gear, and still have good overall stats
6. You don't have a ton of fire essences for crafting Crit gear

For details on which stats to use, please refer to the posts above.

[bojck]

Part 7: Push stats. Passives & Companions.
There's a wide range of stats that can work very well with ELR. It all depends on your playstyle (and device). I was thinking of including default gear and stats here, like in the xp farming section, but there really are no defaults! Here are some tips on what stats to aim for.

Crit build
- Put critical damage on every item
- Aim for 1500-2500 haste. Most players use 1700-1800. Note that Vial of Wind spirit adds further 0-450 haste depending on the number of charges. Higher haste means higher Frostbeam and Thermal shock damage (roughly 1% additional haste = 1% additional damage). As an experiment, run Training grounds with different haste values and observe the number of Frostfire charges. More haste also means more alacrity, therefore lower cooldowns.
- 1500 Ability rating is the default. With an Integralas mantle, that's around 2000, which is enough for most everyone. A lot of advanced players prefer Carnival cape and use lower AR, but I'd suggest using Integralas mantle until you have a very good understanding of the build and easily clear trial 150+. Of course, feel free to experiment!
High AR means lower cooldowns which results in more beams. The choice of companions (number of healers and warriors) is an important factor here. Usually we use vortex with every beam in mob phase.
- 45-50+% Critical chance. High critical chance makes damage less spiky. Currently Thermal shock does huge damage when it crits (especially if ToS is up), but negligible damage otherwise.
- Power - the more the better, if not at the expense of something more useful to you. A simple rule of thumb when choosing between power and cr - if a power gemstone adds considerably more damage than a topaz (e.g. 1.3% vs 1%), add power.
- Armor & vitality - put enough to feel somewhat comfortable. With high toughness you have less sheet damage, but don't have to dodge as much, so you can effectively beam longer uninterrupted. Some types of mobs and attacks still need to be avoided. 1 Million toughness or more is the norm above trial 150. If you are quick and dodge well, you can do with less. Many players, especially mobile, run 2M+ toughness.
*Gemstones are the best place to put additional Armor. Adding armor as a stat on gear is not optimal. Armor on jewelry is right in the middle. For reference, compare it with another stat, e.g. vitality. You get 50 vitality with a gemstone, and 140 as a stat on a 77 item. With an armor gemstone you get 200, while a gear stat adds just 280 armor.
- Life on hit - at least 2000. 2500-3000 is quite common. Experiment to find out what works best for you. Keep in mind that while casting Frostbeam you recover much more health per second than with regular attacks. Some bosses are much easier with higher LoH, namely Kara, Elban and TBD.
- Movement speed - both pants and boots
- +frost damage in all 4 possible slots
- dodge - a few items with dodge can be useful. Note that dodge adds much more toughness in an end-game build compared to vitality/armor, but it is unreliable. E.g. you'd prefer to add vitality and always survive one Magroth hit,rather than add dodge and die from every second hit If you have high toughness from vit/armor and can already tank multiple hits, dodge is a very good option. Note that dodge is the best of the 'unreliable' defensive stats (dodge/parry/deflect). I'd suggest not to use any parry, deflect on gear, at least until you have tested them well. Certainly no life regen.

Lily build
With a Fire lily build Critical rating and damage are ignored, which leaves more room for other stats. The desired stats are similar to the crit build, with a few exceptions:
- Put power on every possible item and enchantment
- Use higher haste for extra damage
- Allocate all champion points to haste and power
- Do not put any CR or CD

Special Enchantments
- Slayer on Staff - double damage against bosses and elites, 3*5 sec per minute. Boss/elite has to be selected as a target
- Osmosis on Helm - 1.01^K damage with K Osmosis stacks. Up to 30 stacks per minute. After 5 minutes this multiplies damage by more than 4x
- Obfuscation on Tome - increases defense against ranged attacks
- Enchant every gear item possible.
- Dodge is the best value-for-money glove enchantment

Passives and Companions
Vortex is the single most important companion skill for a Beam mage. Running with 2-3 healers is the norm. Marcus's Stun and toughness bonus and Robin's attack speed bonus are excellent alternatives.

Passives are chosen between Endurance, Glass cannon, Power Infusion and Celerity. They allow for some easy customization for each boss - e.g. fighting Kara benefits from adding toughness and recovery, while Garm requires more damage.

Lily/or crit?
Lily and crit ELR are both pretty awesome! Both can clear high trials (160+). Lily allows putting more defensive stats, which is why a lot of mobile players prefer it. Currently crit can push several trials higher, but only with very good skills and good gear.


Spiritstones and legacy gear:

Both manastims and velocinites work well with ELR. Mix them depending on your playstyle.

If your playstyle is centered around timing ToS (which is an advanced technique), velocinites are a good fit.


Edit (1.5.80): Bracers: If you have a few frostbeam bracers and are wondering which one to keep, take a look at this: https://forum.makingfun.com/forum/et...ons#post201010

'Here's a rough guideline you can use (these are separate rules): 10% beam damage = 1% total damage increase;
2% frost damage = 1% total damage increase;
1 bracer level = 1% total damage increase (assuming that the bracers are both CTed, or both have the average stats for the level);

If you want to be picky, you can calculate the effect of all stats if these two were celestial, so in order of importance frostbeam, +frost, 4 other stats (incl vitality), armor. Also you should factor in your current stats and also the trial sheet stats.

To simplify things, say you deal 50% damage with beam and 50% with thermal shock (both are frost). Also say you have +90% frost damage with all your gear.

If you increase frost with 2%, your damage increases by 1.92/1.9 which is roughly 1%.
If you increase beam damage from 450% to 460%, beam damage increases by 5.60/5.50 ~ 2%. Since it amounts to half your total damage, the total damage increases by ~1%.
Each of the other stats is not that important on its own, but they add up.

Personally I'm sticking to the cheat sheet above, as it just takes a few seconds to make a reasonably good comparison.

For xp it can be a tad better to go with the higher +xp, because beam is mighty enough anyway : )'