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


***************************
Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

WOW Classic: The Elitist Jerks Live Again UPDATED

Probably the most famous WOW guild back in the good old days was The Elitist Jerks.  And they were just that—plus the most amazing theory-crafters you'd ever see.  Many ended up working for Blizzard later.

Their forum website and all the information therein is gone except for traces in the Wayback Machine.  I found an April 2008 listing of blogs members of the EJ created.  (They aren't traditional blogs but appear to be more discussions and short articles in most cases.)  This is as far back as the Wayback Machine goes for this section of the website.  Change the date slider to explore further.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080415041127/http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/all/

Probably most of these are dead links but I'm going to see how many still have information available. Just because….

Ok, how about this—Application of Military Leadership to Raid Leadership.  (The Solo MMO Player is going to laugh himself silly over this one.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20080421233405/http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/malan/101-application_military_leadership_raid_leadership.html

Here's the Small Wars Journal's article referenced above, just in case the link breaks.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080814003544/http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/12/fm-30-operations-sams-rewrite/

Again from April 2008, here's the Theorycrafting Think Tank. First link is the intro.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080407040725/http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/boethius/91-finally_birthing_ttt_blogs.html

Here's the meat of the section.  Have fun exploring.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080409231823/http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t21302-theorycrafting_think_tank/

UPDATE:  If you are pining over the loss of the Elitist Jerks, then this site below is for you.  Why do I think that?  Let me quote from the home page:  "Increasing class synergy and the prevalence of proc-based combat modifiers have eroded the accuracy of traditional calculators that rely upon closed-form approximations to model very complex mechanics. The goal of this simulator is to close the accuracy gap while maintaining a performance level high enough to calculate relative stat weights to aid gear selection."

You are welcome.
http://simulationcraft.org

***************************
Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

Moonkin Theorycrafting: DoTs and Eclipse

Graylo asks and answers the question:  Should moonkins cast DoTs only at the beginning of Eclipse?
http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2010/09/fun-w-simulationcraft-wotlk-rotations.html

***************************
Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

The Shadow Priest Site (SimulationCraft)

Information for shadow priests.  There is a forum for questions and discussion and tabs about the best raid gear and the best hit (PvP?) gear and more.  However, the "best" lists seem to be end game items for Level 80s.

Theorycrafters will be interested in the "scaling" FAQ tab which is based on SimulationCraft.
http://www.shadowpriest.com/

UPDATE:  WOW Insider describes SimulationCraft (also known as SimCraft) here.
http://www.wow.com/2010/02/01/blood-pact-using-simulationcraft-for-gear-selection/

***************************
Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

Using SimCraft for Moonkins UPDATED

Graylo of Gray Matter has written a long article about using SimCraft to model DPS and spell rotations in his moonkin.  Note that this system is used for most of the classes in WOW and that Graylo's tips are only good for those using Windows.  He does give links that will help you if you don't fall into those categories.
http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2009/10/moonkin-tools-simcraft.html

UPDATE: WOW Insider describes how to use SimCraft (or SimulationCraft) here.
http://www.wow.com/2010/02/01/blood-pact-using-simulationcraft-for-gear-selection/

***************************
Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com