Pawn Scales for WOW

Since a lot of folks have been searching this blog for information about Pawn scales to use in World of Warcraft, I thought I'd do a summary with all the current information available.  The Pawn software is downloaded from Curse.  This link is for the download and tells you where to follow Vger on Facebook for news, etc.  Don't rush to download, though.  Read on, McDuff.
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/pawn

Pawn scales are used to compare two pieces of gear to tell you which will give you the most boost in your character's stats.  Apparently by Pawn version 2.3.11 (November 3, 2019) Pawn works for WOW Classic in all languages that it works in for WOW Retail.

You will still need to import your own stats for Classic as they are not built in for this version of the game.  How do you do that?  If you are really really into theory crafting, you'll want to read this WOWHead article about Pawn and SimulationCraft.  Be warned, though, WOWHead has inaccuracies now that it is a for-profit company, not the obsession of bloggers and extremely knowledgable gamers.  The Solo MMO Player has found at least three instances of incorrect information over the last month.
https://www.wowhead.com/how-to-use-simulationcraft-and-pawn

There is some question as to the accuracy of the built-in Pawn scales in Retail.  The best way to make Pawn scales as correct as possible is to build your own.  The second link below is to a Google Doc that explains how to do this with SimulationCraft.  I don't know how up-to-date this is since the G-Doc isn't dated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/57vlvo/how_accurate_is_pawn/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pW5mWY9nkfWoRCOHfoXqeeGb8s-jMoSVy-g8uveUv4c/edit

Icy Veins' forum has a nice summary of how all this works using a Warlock as an example (dated 2014).  The author reminds folks that Pawn or SimulationCraft stats are about current gear.  They don't give you any information about what sort of gear you should seek down the road as you play.
https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/7275-scale-factors-and-you-an-explanation-of-stat-weights/

By the way, Weebly has stats for you to import.  This is old information derived from The Elitist Jerks and MaxDPS, so don't use it unless you are playing The Burning Crusade.  I am only including this for the sake of completeness because it sounds likely Blizzard will have a Burning Crusade server opened in 2020-21.
http://tbcwowaddons.weebly.com/pawn.html

UPDATE:  This article has proved very popular among those who want to data mine WOW, so I've added it here so similar things are together in one place.
https://solommo.blogspot.com/2010/07/learning-data-mining-in-your-spare-time.html


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Skyrim: Dragon Armor versus Daedric Armor

Which armor is best?  The stats are better on Daedric armor but dragon armor is made from more easily found items and it is also lighter in weight.
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Armor

Here's an in-depth discussion of this issue.
http://forums.techarena.in/video-games/1439475.htm

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Why Damage Meters and GearScore Are Evil

Spelled out in two good articles-
http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2010/04/28/damage-meters-corrupt-absolute-damage-meters-corrupt-absolutely/

http://www.wow.com/2010/04/28/spiritual-guidance-the-gearscore-is-a-lie/

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Elitist Armory, Better than Gear Score?

Rilgon (hunter) thinks Elitist Armory is a better way to evaluate gear than Gear Score and he loves EA's Raid Experience calculator. Here's why:
http://www.stabilizedeffortscope.com/?p=1453

Here's the link to the Elitist Armory website in case you need more information:
http://elitistarmory.com/

A bit more about Elitist Armory.
http://pwnwear.com/2010/05/04/elitist-armory/

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Set Bonuses for Hunters' Tier 9 and 10 Gear

All about the advantages the tier 9 and 10 set bonuses bring for each hunter spec with a recommendation for each hunter type.
http://www.wow.com/2010/03/04/scattered-shots-hunter-set-bonuses/

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100 Great WOW Videos (and More) UPDATED

Coldbear's list of great WOW video moments, suitable for browsing the next time WOW's down all day for maintenance (which will almost certainly be next Tuesday).  These seem to be in date order with the most recent at the bottom of the list. Some of the earlier links are dead.
http://coldbear.wordpress.com/best-of-wow/

UPDATE:  Coldbear has been working hard and has come up with another list of great WOW items.  Most are videos, but not all.  There's an easy to use gear simulator called AskMrRobot listed, too.  Note that it only works for some classes.
http://coldbear.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/best-of-wow-25-playing-catch-up/

http://coldbear.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/best-of-wow-26-this-aint-rocket-surgery-folks/

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Podcast: Interview with GearScore

I almost never mention podcasts here since they rarely have solid information for players, but this one I can't resist.  It's an interview with the creator of GearScore.  I haven't listened to it so I do not know how professional the podcast is. Some are quite sophomoric.
http://www.brigwyn.com/2010/01/14/episode-20-thl-podcast-special-edition-interview-with-the-creator-and-developer-of-gearscore/

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Gear BEFORE Level 80: The Tools

Gnomeaggedon has written a nice guide to choosing gear before you hit Level 80.  It covers it all, using WOW Head to create a profile, how lower level is often better than new stuff, why agonizing over gear is silly, etc.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/26/minmaxing-gear-before-80-part-1/

Using RAWR and Character Profiler and creating a spreadsheet of your characters and their gear.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/27/minmaxing-gear-before-80-part-2/

More on spreadsheets and building an upgrade list.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/30/minmaxing-gear-before-80-part-3/

You can always find this again by searching for "gear guides" using the search box at the top left corner of the page.  Many thanks to WOW Insider for pointing me to this resource.

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RAWR Interview: DK Tanks Lead Developer

Here's an interview with the contributing developer for Death Knight tank information at RAWR.  He talks about what RAWR does poorly for DKs and what it does well.  Shazear also talks about what he'd like to do in the future.  If you have a DK and use RAWR, you'll want to read this.
http://pwnwear.com/2009/11/17/rawr-tankdk-guest-post-from-the-lead-developer/

Not everyone thinks the RAWR simulations provide good in-game data since the numbers used are squishy.  Such sims also seem to feed the Great Gear Myth, but as long as you know what you are getting, this can be a useful tool.

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Effective Health Formula (Tanks and Tenacity Pets)

Big Red Rhino has posted an article about the Effective Health formula, used by tanks to choose gear.  He uses this formula to calculate how much damage his tenacity pet can take.  To quote the Rhino himself-- "Simply put, it’s a mathematical calculation of HP and armor that calculates how much raw damage the tank can take before dying."
http://bigredrhino.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/effective-health/

Tanks and tenacity pet owners alike may be interested in this.

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Gearscore and Why We Love/Hate It (Addons)

Cold Comfort takes a critical look at Gearscore and how it supports the Great Gear Myth.  He points out the variety of gear scores various sites and addons give for the same toon, explains just what Gearscore counts and what it ignores, explains how to game Gearscore, and talks about why Blizzard probably won't ban its use.  This article has links to Gearscore and Gearscore Lite download sites and explains the difference.
http://blog.cold-comfort.org/great-gearscore-debate-09/

Here is part two from Cold Comfort, which looks at the addon Experience which shows character stats, including how many times someone has killed a boss.  He advocates using "experience" as a measure of how much of the game someone has gone through instead of looking at gear, which can come to a player who has not done much in-game through various routes.
http://blog.cold-comfort.org/inexperience-weakness/

If you are feeling particularly silly, you might be interested in Namescore, which rates character names as to legibility, appropriateness and asthetics.
http://www.nostockui.com/2009/10/forget-gearscore-try-namescore/

Dreambound feels pretty much the same way about PUGs as Cold Comfort.
http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-pug-raids-and-gear.html

And yes, I know I've just posted four blog entries about addons.  It seems folks talk about the same topic simultaneously.  Must be something in the Internet....

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Guide to RAWR

Curious about RAWR?  This site has a quick guide to how it works.
http://runeforgegossip.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/a-quick-and-dirty-guide-to-rawr/

Graymatter has written an article about the plus and minuses of using RAWR.  I always like to know the bad points about anything, so this was helpful to me.
http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2009/10/moonkin-tools-rawr.html

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Does This Gear Make Me Look Fat Redeux

Browse various realms, their players and their gear, or try on various combinations of gear/talents/enhancements/buffs/gems/ to see how stats change.
http://www.warcrafter.net/

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PAWN Explanation

An explanation of how PAWN works to compare gear.  Note that the folks in the comments like Rating Buster, although it doesn't seem to do exactly what PAWN does.  The Solo MMO Player says Rawr is replacing PAWN due to PAWN's complexity but he still thinks PAWN gives him exactly what he wants.
http://druidreliquary.blogspot.com/2009/09/gearing-with-purpose-pawn-and-true.html

By the way, I capture links to all the scale tags I can find.  If you use PAWN and want to see the scale tags I've found, search for "scale tags."

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Hunter Tools

The Hunter's Mark reminds us of two not-well-known hunter resources--Hunter's Loot and Zeherah's DPS anaylzer spreadsheet.

http://www.thehuntersmark.net/2009/08/07/hunter-loot-and-dps-analyzer/

Hunter's Loot has all the loot a hunter can get and lets you pick and choose and then see the results for each hunter style.

http://hunterloot.com/

The DPS Analyzer isn't a download but a tool you can use online to look at your gear and how much DPS it produces.

http://www.femaledwarf.com/

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Shock and Awe, PAWN, and EnhSim (Addons)

You are probably gloomily trying to rebuild the UI Blizzard casually destroys with each big patch. You might want to consider replacing what you used with this integrated UI that will help you evaluate gear. Sadly, I cannot tell what role Diriom plays but I'm guessing an enhancement shaman.

http://bighitbox.com/index.php/2009/08/integrating-enhsim-shock-and-awe-and-pawn

UPDATE:  Here's an article by an enhancement shaman about using Shock and Awe that concentrates on options, timer bars and the priority frame.
http://www.wow.com/2010/02/20/totem-talk-shock-and-awe/#continued

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RAWR, The Gear Comparison Addon

Here is RAWR's website. Note that I've found some users complain it doesn't work well on Macs unless they use Bootcamp or Parallels to run Windows first. Apparently it was designed for Windows machines only.
http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr

Druids especially like RAWR. Note that the Druid Wiki talks about using it on Macs using Mono.
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Rawr

Big Bear Butt Blogger has tried RAWR. Here is what he says--
http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/06/12/as-long-as-im-repeating-myself/


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Gear Comparison Tools (Does This Sword Make Me Look Fat?)

I Sheep Things had trouble choosing gear and I wrote a comment to help that I was unable to post on the IST blog. I'll repeat what I said here in case this summary article helps someone.

Gear comparisons aren't exactly easy. I've got a bunch of sites that help, but figuring out the one that works best for you means looking at them all. But there they are.

The addon PAWN does a great job but it is quite complex to set up. You have to input scale tags into it to make it work. (i.e., Math!) You can look up all the scale tags I've managed to find by using the search box at the top left with the term "scale tags." PAWN can be downloaded via Curse.

I've heard Lootzor does the same thing without having to use an addon.
http://www.lootzor.com/

WOWhead has an item comparison tool.
http://www.wowhead.com/?compare

Gearwish List lets you find the gear you should have.
http://gear-wishlist.appspot.com/

Feral druids can use the Druid Wiki's gear methodology.
http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod

Character Planner helps you plan the gear you want.
http://www.chardev.org/

And this site lets you see what loot your character can use, which is another nice planning tool. Click on your class icon to get started.
http://www.wow-loot.com/

I hope all this helps. Figuring this out isn't easy which is probably why I Sheep Thing's guild mate got frustrated trying to explain their reasoning why this article is better than the other one in this situation.
http://www.isheepthings.com/blog/ups-and-downs/

Browse various realms, their players and their gear, or try on various combinations of gear/talents/enhancements/buffs/gems/ to see how stats change.
http://www.warcrafter.net/

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BBB says Rawr

The Solo MMO Player and I were discussing Rawr this week. Obviously BBB overheard (or he's psychic) as he has a posting about using Rawr to compare gear and look for gear upgrades on his blog this morning.
http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/06/12/as-long-as-im-repeating-myself/

Here is the Rawr website if you want more information or a download.
http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr

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