How to Pawn

I’m in love with Pawn!  No, not that sort of porn! The Pawn addon.

For a fair while i’ve been using the RatingBuster addon to compare gear in-game and LootRank while out-of-game.  RatingBuster is a good addon and I recommend it, however once you get past the leveling stage and you are trying to compare gear it is less useful.  If I have two similar items but one has 40 Critical Rating and the other has 30 Haste Rating, which one is more useful?  You might say, “meh, whatever” and just pick the one which you think you need more and thats perfectly valid, but if you are using a tool like LootRank to get a high quality set of gear together then why not make use of it directly in-game?

This is where Pawn comes in.  When using LootRank or similar tools you assign a value to each attribute and use it to generate a total score for an item.  The higher the score the better generally.  Pawn allows you to bring this directly into the game using your own scales.   Other addons use similar ideas to generate TankPoints or HealPoints, or similar for each item.

Firstly to use Pawn you download and install it like any other addon.  I suggest you also use a addon like EquipCompare, which allows you to easily compare any item with the equivalent item slot your currently wearing.

Once you log on to your toon select any item and mouse over it.  You will see it now has a new property called “Pawn value” on the bottom.  This is what Pawn does.  The default Pawn value scale is pretty useless so here is how you add new ones.  Note that the scales are character specific.  So only add the scales you need for each character, while logged on to the character.

1. Type “/pawn” in chat.  Bwahahaha!  I have now installed a trojan on your PC allowing me to… never mind.
2. When the options window comes up you should be able to see “Pawn value” selected in a drop down.  Uncheck the box that says “Show this scale in tool tips”.
3. Click “New empty”.  This will create a new blank scale.
4. Select and set the value of any of the attributes you wish to include in your scale.
5. Ensure “Show this scale in tool tips” is checked and close the window.
6. Mouse over any item and your new scale should be displayed.

Thats it.  Very easy to use.  Now if you don’t want to make up your own scales you can Import scales which other people have created.  Instead of clicking “New empty” click “Import”.  Copy and paste the scale into the box provided and hit ok.  Find the new scale in the drop down list of scales and “Show this scale in tool tips” is checked.  Easy eh?

Where to find scales?

Firstly you can try the unoffical Pawn forums .  There are some scales there for many of the talent specs you might use.  The quality of these scales is highly variable.

If you want to use my Discipline priest scale, as per my LootRank, import this:

( Pawn: v1: "Discipline31": Stamina=0.2, Intellect=0.7853, Spirit=0.3317, RedSocket=11.6824, CritRating=0.3564, MetaSocket=16.4913, HasteRating=0.2925, BlueSocket=9.2824, YellowSocket=12.5648, SpellPower=0.6, Mp5=1)

If you want to a Elemental shaman scale I am currently using Binkenstein’s.  His current scale for 3.1 (at time of writing) is:

( Pawn: v1: "ElementalHit": Intellect=0.162, RedSocket=24.719, CritRating=0.586, ColorlessSocket=24.719, MetaSocket=75, HasteRating=1.178, BlueSocket=11.709, YellowSocket=21.133, SpellPower=1.301, HitRating=1.884 )

If you are hit capped just delete the “HitRating=1.884” part.

Once you have your scale set up you just mouse over any item and if it has a higher value on your Pawn scale then it is generally an upgrade.

Enjoy!

PS While i’m discussing loot addons check out this post and the ClassLoot addon.  Especially useful if you are LootMaster in raids.