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<h1>Pawn</h1>
<p>
Pawn calculates scores for items to help you easily find upgrades for your
gear.
It's completely customizable, and applicable to any class and situation:
for example, it can help you
decide whether to equip the ring with a higher item level but one stat you
don't want (say, strength for shamans), or the ring with the lower item
level but all good stats. It's that level of customization that makes
it very different from more general mods like GearScore and more specialized
mods like TankPoints.</p>
<p>
Pawn can be used by new players right off the bat without needing to change
any options, or by advanced players who plan out their gear upgrades,
build Excel spreadsheets, install Rawr, and read Elitist Jerks.</p>
<p>
I welcome your feedback—see the Notes section.</p>
<h2>
Installing Pawn</h2>
<p>
Pawn is installed like pretty much every other World of Warcraft mod on the
planet. Extract the contents of the zip file to World of Warcraft's AddOns folder,
generally located in one of these locations:</p>
<p class="codeblock">
<code>C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface\AddOns</code><br />
<code>C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface\AddOns</code><br />
<code>C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface\AddOns</code>
</p>
<h2>Comparing items</h2>
<p>You can use Pawn to easily compare two items. Open the Pawn UI and
click the <strong>Compare</strong> tab. Then, place an equippable item
from your inventory in the empty box in the upper-right corner. Once you
do this, Pawn will automatically fill in the slot on the left with whichever
item you currently have equipped in that slot. (For example, if you put a
cloak in the right slot, Pawn will automatically put your currently equipped
cloak in the left slot.) In the case of trinkets and rings, you can switch
between both equipped items using buttons in the lower-left corner.</p>
<p>The Compare tab shows you a breakdown of the two items by stats, and makes it
easy to tell which item is better by showing the total Pawn value for each item,
and highlighting the item with the higher value. Only stats in the
currently selected scale appear in the stat breakdown, so if you're viewing two
DPS axes but have a frost mage scale selected, the stat list will be pretty
empty since your frost mage probably doesn't care about agility and expertise.</p>
<p>The Compare tab always compares the base versions of items, ignoring
currently socketed gems and enchantments. (Items with empty sockets will
get points based on the gem that Pawn suggests putting in those sockets.)</p>
<h4>Comparing an item that just dropped to what you currently have</h4>
<p>If you're deciding whether to roll or bid on an item, you can't pick it up
and put it in a slot in the Compare tab, but you can still easily compare it to
what you already have. Just right-click on an item's icon in the roll
window to put it into the Compare tab. If it's an upgrade the Loot Upgrade
Advisor appeared, you can click anywhere on the big yellow tooltip. Or, if the item was linked in trade
chat, click on the link to open the item link, and then right-click on the
window (tooltip) that appears.</p>
<h4>Comparing items in AtlasLoot and other mods without clicking</h4>
<p>You can also compare items without having to click on them, which is useful
for items you see in mods such as AtlasLoot. To do this, you'll need to
set up key bindings to <strong>Compare left item</strong> and <strong>Compare
right item</strong> in the Key Bindings window. Pawn will try to bind the
<strong>[</strong> and <strong>]</strong> (left bracket and right bracket) keys
to those commands if those keys aren't already bound to something else, but you
can customize the key bindings to whatever you want.</p>
<p>Once you have key bindings set up, hover over the left item and press the
Compare left item key <strong>[</strong>, and then hover over the right item and
press the Compare right item key <strong>]</strong>. (This doesn't work on "unsafe"
items with a red border in AtlasLoot.)</p>
<ul>
<li>You can use Compare right item to evaluate an item upgrade that drops
from the boss you're about to kill. Pawn will automatically fill in
the left item with whatever you have equipped.</li>
<li>You can use both Compare left item and Compare right item to see the
stat difference between two different badge rewards or the current PVP
season's Pendant of Dominance and Pendant of Subjugation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Notes</h2>
<p>If you're interested
in customizing Pawn further, check out the <strong>Options</strong> tab of the Pawn UI.</p>
<h3>Contacting the author</h3>
<p>I'm interested in knowing what you think of Pawn, and what you use
it for. Bug reports and suggestions are cool too. The best way to contact me is through
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/vgermods" target="_blank">Facebook</a> or on the
<a href="http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/8214/" target="_blank">Pawn page at Curse</a>,
which I check daily. You can also contact me through in-game mail: Vger on Azjol-Nerub (US), Horde.
(Just make sure that you keep a character on
my server and check your mail, or I can't respond!) Also, check out my
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vgermods.com/">official site</a>, where you
can find links to all of my mods.</p>
<h3>Reporting bugs</h3>
<p>When reporting bugs, it's helpful to be as specific as possible. Does
the problem always happen for you, or just sometimes? Can you think of any
mods that you're running that might be related? Does the problem still
occur if you disable all your mods except Pawn? What item
does it happen on?</p>
<p>WoW now hides interface error information from you by default. Reenabling it
in Interface Options would
be helpful; the error text includes useful information about where the error
occurred. Any information you can provide to help Vger track down the bug is great.</p>
<p>Also, when reporting bugs, please make sure that you mention which language
you play World of Warcraft in.</p>
<h3>Slash command</h3>
<p>You can also open Pawn by typing <strong>/pawn</strong> into a chat box.</p>
<h3>Key bindings</h3>
<p>In addition to the options in the Pawn UI, you can also set a key binding to
open and close the Pawn UI. Look for it in the list of key bindings under
"Pawn." There are also key bindings for putting the item you're
currently hovering over into either slot of the Compare tab.</p>
<h3>Making a backup</h3>
<p>You can back up all of your custom scales. Just type <strong>/pawn
backup</strong> in the chat box, and a window will appear. Press Ctrl+C to
copy its contents to the clipboard. Then, create or open a file on your
computer where you'd like to save the backup, and press Ctrl+V to paste your
scales to that file. Save the file, and now you have a backup of all of
your custom scales in case you accidentally delete them, or just want to share
them all with someone else.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> The scale Import feature only lets you import a single
scale at a time, so to restore your scales from this backup you'll have to copy
and paste them one-by-one.</p>
<p>You can also back up your SavedVariables file. Open your World of
Warcraft folder, and then in that location there is a folder named WTF.
Open it, and then the folder inside it with your account name, and then the
SavedVariables folder. Look for the file named "Pawn.lua" and save a copy
of that file to a safe location.</p>
<h3>The starter scales</h3>
<h4>Hiding</h4>
<p>(In Automatic mode, which is the default, this is handled for you
automatically when you change specs.) It's easy to hide any of the starter scales that you don't like from your
tooltips. Just select a scale from the list and then uncheck <strong>Show in
tooltips</strong> on the Scales tab. Or just shift-click the scale.</p>
<h4>Resetting</h4>
<p>It's possible to customize the colors of the starter scales. If you'd
like to undo any changes you've made to the starter scales, you can execute
these two commands at a chat window:</p>
<p class="codeblock">/script PawnResetProviderScales()<br />
/reload</p>
<h3>Developers</h3>
<p>If you have a World of Warcraft mod that you'd like to integrate with Pawn,
please consider getting in touch with me. I may have suggestions that will
make your life easier. I've also made it possible for other developers to
create their own "scale providers" that can feed stat weights into Pawn just
like the Wowhead scales. If you'd like to create your own scale provider,
take a look at Wowhead.lua, and contact me if you have any questions, or
suggestions on ways that Pawn could be improved to work with your mod better.
(I can't, of course, guarantee that I'll make changes, but I might be able to
help.)</p>
<h2>Item valuation notes</h2>
<p>Here are some notes that may help you while you're setting up your Pawn
scales.</p>
<h3>Gems and socket bonuses</h3>
<p>
Pawn assumes that you'll fill in any item that has sockets with
appropriate-level gems that will maximize that item's value, whether it's using
the best gems of the correct colors to get the socket bonus, or gems of all one
color and ignoring the socket bonus. (In past versions of Pawn it was
possible to manually set a value for sockets, but Pawn's smarter now and that
manual override is no longer present.) There's no way to fine-tune what
Pawn considers "appropriate-level" gems, but in general it's what you'd expect—a
blue-quality or better Mists of Pandaria item will use blue-quality Mists of
Pandaria gems when determining the value of the item, Wrath of the Lich King
epics will use Wrath of the Lich King epic gems, and so on. You can use
the Gems tab and type in a specific item level to see exactly which gems Pawn
suggests that you use for a given scale and item level—the items that it
suggests there are the same ones it uses in its calculations, and they're the
same ones that it suggests in the socketing advisor that appears when you
shift-right-click an item.</p>
<h4>
Base versus current values</h4>
<p>
The socket values based on the gems that Pawn suggests for you only apply to the base version of an item.
No points are awarded for empty sockets in the current version of an item.
(You should gem your items and not be such a scrub!) So, for items with
empty sockets, the current value for the item will be <em>lower </em>than the base value. This makes it easy to compare socketed items with non-socketed items
based on their <em>potential</em> stats—just always
compare the base values of the two items. The Compare tab already does that for you.
(In almost all cases you always want to compare the base values of items.
The only time you really want to compare anything else is when answering the
question "should I equip this item right this very moment before I have a chance
to gem, enchant, and reforge it?")
</p>
<h3>Weapon speed</h3>
<p>Weapon speed can work a little differently than the other stats. Some
people value weapon speed based on how much faster or slower a weapon is than a
particular speed. The "speed baseline" stat (which isn't really a stat,
per se) lets you choose this baseline speed, instead of 0, which is the speed
baseline if you don't pick a different one. For example, to give an item 1
point for every tenth of a second slower than 2.9 seconds per swing (useful for,
say, enhancement shamans), set speed to 10 (10 = 1 / 0.1) and speed baseline to
2.9. If you value faster weapons, pick your preferred speed baseline and then set
the value speed to be negative, because higher numbers for speed are bad for
you.</p>
<p>Speed baseline shows up in the "special weapon stats" category.</p>
<h3>Special weapon stats</h3>
<p>If you want to value different types of weapons differently, don't use the
regular DPS, minimum damage, maximum damage, and speed stats; instead, use the
ones in the "special weapon stats" category at the end of the list. For
example, if you're a hunter, you might value ranged DPS much higher than melee
DPS, since most of your damage comes from ranged attacks.</p>
You won't want to use all of the weapon min damage, max damage, and DPS
stats all at once.<ul>
<li>Do you care about top-end damage only? Use the max damage
stats. (max damage, 1H: max damage, Ranged: max damage, ...)</li>
<li>Do you care about damage per second only? Use the DPS stats.
(DPS, 1H: DPS, Ranged: DPS, ...)</li>
<li>Do you care about only melee weapons in general, but not which
hand? Use the Melee stats. (Melee: min damage, Melee: DPS, ...)</li>
<li>Do you care about the top end damage of all melee weapons that fit
in your main hand? Use MH: max damage <em>and</em> 1H: max damage.</li>
<li>If you use the specialized versions of stats, don't also use the
general ones. For example, if you use Melee: DPS, don't also use
DPS.
If you use Melee: min damage and/or Melee: max damage, you probably don't want
to also use Melee: DPS.</li>
<li>The OH: DPS stat and other off hand-related stats do not take
into account the decreased damage and hit rate of off-hand weapons.
The information is, as always, pulled straight from the tooltip.</li>
<li>If you care about average damage versus minimum and maximum damage,
take the value you would have assigned to average damage if it existed
as a stat, and add half to minimum damage and half to maximum damage.
For example, if you wanted to set Ranged: average damage to 10, but then found
out that Ranged: average damage doesn't exist, set Ranged: min
damage to 5 and Ranged: max damage to 5 instead.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Normalizing values (like Wowhead)</h3>
<p>With the "Normalize values" option disabled (the default), Pawn calculates values by multiplying each stat on
an item by the value of that stat in each of your scales. If you enable
this option, Pawn will take that number and divide it by the sum of <em>all</em>
of the stat values in each of your scales. This helps to compensate for
how some scales might use numbers that average out to about 1.0, and others use
numbers in the tens.</p>
<p>For example, if your scale were ( Stamina = 1, Intellect = 2,
Crit = 1 ), then Wowhead would divide the item's total value by 4.
An item with 10 Stamina, 10 Intellect, and 20 Crit would have a value
of 50 with this option off, and 12.5 with this option on.</p>
<h3>Special effects and set bonuses</h3>
<p>Pawn doesn't have a value, for example, for "Equip: Increases the effect
that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%" because only a few
items do that. Also, set bonuses are completely ignored by Pawn. You'll need
to take those special effects into account manually when deciding between an item that would give you a
bonus and an item that would not, as they won't be factored into the upgrade %
numbers shown by Pawn.</p>
<h2>Mod support</h2>
<p>Have a favorite mod that doesn't seem to work with Pawn? Let me know.
I may not be able to add support for your favorite, but I might be able to
suggest a replacement, or update Pawn to work better in a future version for
popular mods.</p>
<h3>Mods that have been tested and work with Pawn</h3>
<p>This is not a conclusive list. If any of these mods doesn't seem to be
working with Pawn, please make sure that you have the latest version of both it
and Pawn.</p>
<ul>
<li>Ackis Recipe List</li>
<li>ArkInventory</li>
<li>AtlasLoot</li>
<li>Armory</li>
<li>CowTip</li>
<li>EQCompare</li>
<li>EquipCompare</li>
<li>FuBar</li>
<li>ItemSync</li>
<li>Link Wrangler</li>
<li>LootLink</li>
<li>Mendeleev</li>
<li>MobInfo-2</li>
<li>MonkeyQuest</li>
<li>MultiTips</li>
<li>Outfitter</li>
<li>RatingBuster</li>
<li>Skinner</li>
<li>Spyglass</li>
<li>tdItemTip</li>
<li>tekKompare</li>
</ul>
<h4>ArkInventory</h4>
<p>When you have ArkInventory, ArkInventoryRules, <em>and</em> Pawn enabled, you can use the <code>pawnupgrade()</code> rule in
ArkInventory to run a Pawn comparison on items in your inventory for sorting. This will return true if the item is
an upgrade and false if it is indeterminate or not an upgrade. To determine if something is not an upgrade, use
<code>pawnnotupgrade()</code>. This rule will return true if the item is definitely not an upgrade, and false if it is
indeterminate or an upgrade. This can be used for auto-sell rules, such as <code>bind(3) and pawnnotupgrade()</code>.</p>
<h3><span style="text-decoration: underline;">In</span>compatible addons</h3>
<ul>
<li>FreeUI<ul>
<li>FreeUI changes a bunch of text on tooltips that makes it impossible
for Pawn to read some stats off of them anymore. For example, it
redefines ITEM_MOD_CRIT_RATING so that what would normally be "+25
Critical Strike" shows up as "Crit +25". Pawn doesn't support any
addon that does that.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Combat Numbers Separator + Titan Panel Artifact Power<ul>
<li>These addons change the way that numbers are displayed on tooltips,
which causes Pawn to misread item stats. Right now I don't have
any way or plan to support them.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Undermine Journal</li>
<li>TipTac</li>
<li>TradeSkillMaster</li>
</ul>
<h2>Updates</h2>
<h3>Version 2.7.12</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed another error that could occur in 10.0.2 when using
Pawn-compatible bag addons while Pawn's bag advisor is OFF. (When that
option is off, and a bag addon asks Pawn for help finding upgrades, Pawn
just asks the game what it would have done. But the game removed its bag
upgrade code in 10.0.2 so Pawn was freaking out.)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.11</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Yet another change to work with Pawn-compatible bag addons
(thanks Merathilis!).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.10</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Additional fixes for Pawn-compatible bag addons (thanks
Caedis!).</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed a bug I introduced in 2.7.9 that would cause your
chat window to be filled with messages like "nil nil" if you were using a
Pawn-compatible bag addon.</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed a problem that was preventing the "Equipped"
shortcut buttons on Pawn's Compare tab from working after 10.0.2.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.9</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: <strong>In 10.0.2, Blizzard deleted the code for the
game's built-in bag arrows. For now, green arrows in your bags won't work
unless you have a Pawn-compatible bag addon installed.</strong> You can
still see upgrade advice when you hover over the item, just not on the
item's icon itself.
<ul>
<li>This version includes an update so that Pawn-compatible bag addons
will work again.</li>
<li>I'm as confused as you are.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Evokers in the starting zone who haven't chosen a spec will now see Devastation
advice when in Automatic mode instead of Preservation. (It doesn't really
matter right now because both of those scales are placeholders for the time
being.)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.8</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Pawn's keybindings will now once again show up in the
keybindings list without having to search for them by name.</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Pawn now knows about the new gems from the Dragon Isles,
but it won't suggest them until you start getting gear from there.</li>
<li>Wrath of the Lich King Classic and Burning Crusade Classic: Fixed an
error that would occur when socketing an item when using a custom scale for
which there are three or more colored gems that have exactly the same value.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.7</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Updated to work with changes made to the game's comparison
tooltips on the 10.0.2 PTR and beta.</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed the error that would occur when clicking the Pawn
button in the Interface Options window.</li>
<li>Adds support for a future version of Ace3's configuration window.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.6</h3>
<ul>
<li>All Classic versions: Pawn will not provide upgrade information to bag
addons for now, to resolve some extreme performance issues that some players
are having. (I hope to let bag addons on Classic versions add green arrows
like you get on modern WoW again in the future!)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.5</h3>
<ul>
<li>German Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Added support for additional
items with armor penetration rating.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.4</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: The bag upgrade advisor (Pawn taking over the green arrows
in your bags) now works with all styles of bags.</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed a problem where sometimes you couldn't right-click
on items in your bags to use them.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.3</h3>
<ul>
<li>Fixed a harmless error that could occur when selling certain unusual
types of items, such as caged battle pets.</li>
<li>Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Fixed a problem
where socket bonuses were sometimes being ignored in the advice given by the
socketing advisor. (The item's values and upgrade %s were, however, not
affected—just the shift-right-click window.)</li>
<li>Dragonflight: Pawn now annotates the tooltip when hovering over the item
to be crafted in the professions UI, so you'll see upgrade information (and
item scores if enabled) when you hover.</li>
<li>Russian Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Added support for additional
items with armor penetration rating.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.2</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: The bag upgrade advisor (Pawn taking over the green arrows
in your bags) now works with the classic (non-combined) bags in WoW 10.0.
(Thanks Triadian!)</li>
<li>Simplified Chinese Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Added support for
additional items with parry rating.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7.1</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Fixed a problem where Pawn would display an error when
evaluating armor for evokers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Version 2.7</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dragonflight: Pawn now works on the Dragonflight beta and the WoW 10.0
PTR. Stat weights for evokers are placeholders.</li>
<li>Shadowlands and Dragonflight: Fixed a problem where new characters
(before level 10) could show item advice for blood death knights or another
seemingly random spec when in Automatic mode.</li>
<li>Wrath of the Lich King Classic: Northrend awaits! Pawn will no longer
suggest that you put gems in your Burning Crusade items, unless you've
turned off the "Ignore sockets on low-level items" option that's on by
default. With the option on, Pawn will start suggesting you socket gems
again when you start getting level 187 gear (about level 78).</li>
<li>English Classic versions: Added support for a few items that add armor
penetration rating in an unusual way.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Older versions</h3>
<p>See the <a href="Version%20history.htm">version history</a> document for
information about older versions of Pawn.</p>
<h2>The fine print</h2>
<p>© 2006-2022 Travis Spomer. This mod is released under the Creative Commons
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" target="_blank">
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0</a> license. In short, this means
that you can use it, copy it, and share it, but you can't sell it or distribute
your own altered versions without permission. By using the mod you agree to the terms of the license. For more information, click the link.</p>
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