Pawn assesses the value of items for you to make it easy to decide which items are better than others. It's similar in purpose to mods such as Tank Points, but completely customizable, and applicable to any class and situation. You can use it to help create multiple gear sets, or decide whether to take that weapon with higher DPS or the one with more crit rating, or decide between a necklace with MP5 and one with bonus healing.
Pawn is a mod for hardcore World of Warcraft players—you may not like it if you're not the sort of person who agonizes over stats and itemization. You can use premade Pawn "scale tags" that other people make and post on forums to set up Pawn for your spec without any extra effort. And, if you're the kind of person who goes through Wowhead and Lootzor looking for exactly the items you want for your gear sets, builds Excel spreadsheets, installs TheoryCraft, reads Elitist Jerks... well, Pawn might just be right up your alley.
See the Pawn readme file included with the mod for more information on getting the most out of Pawn.
For Pawn plugins for FuBar and Titan Panel, visit VgerMods.com.
For fastest assistance with Pawn, check the official thread at IncGamers, Curse, or comment here.
Thanks. I still find myself using my spreadsheet to plan gear acquisitions, but I hope to make my spreadsheet less and less necessary with each version of Pawn.
I just wanted to comment on how glad I was to find your mod! I had spent hours putting together a spreadsheet that assigned a value to all the gear that could be an upgrade based on the stats. While helpful I had begun to think maybe I should make a mod to do it for me. Then I found yours. I spend maybe 2 minutes setting it up and now the tooltips show the exact same values that I get in my spreadsheet. Exactly what I wanted!
If you always socket your items so that the total value is maximized (or even get pretty close), and assign appropriate values to the four socket "stats," then you can also ignore gems, always compare unenchanted values, and turn off the enchanted values entirely.
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Originally posted by obuw Things would be sooo much better if there was an option to just ignore enchants alltogether, but not ignore gems.
I see, that makes sense. I never use the enchanted value, since, well, it is the enchanted value, and it makes little sense to compare your item in its enchanted state to a new item with no enchant on it.
So if I wanted to use pawn to compare two items I already own, I should use the enchanted values. If I want to use it to compare a drop to what I have, I should use the unenchanted values.
Things would be sooo much better if there was an option to just ignore enchants alltogether, but not ignore gems.
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Originally posted by VgerAN This should only be the case for the unenchanted value. The enchanted value should always show the current state of the item, including the actual gems that you have socketed. Empty sockets will be valued at the value you gave to that empty socket as a "stat," but filled sockets will be valued based on the stats of the gems in them. Socket bonuses will be counted if you qualify OR if there's at least one open socket still. Only the unenchanted value will ignore the gems currently in the item.
This should only be the case for the unenchanted value. The enchanted value should always show the current state of the item, including the actual gems that you have socketed. Empty sockets will be valued at the value you gave to that empty socket as a "stat," but filled sockets will be valued based on the stats of the gems in them. Socket bonuses will be counted if you qualify OR if there's at least one open socket still. Only the unenchanted value will ignore the gems currently in the item.
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Originally posted by obuw
One other issue keeps coming up - I believe Pawn ignores what you have socketed on the item, and tries to socket it with the ideal gem, right?
Originally posted by VgerAN 1.0.1 has been released.
Wonderful, much better now.
One other issue keeps coming up - I believe Pawn ignores what you have socketed on the item, and tries to socket it with the ideal gem, right?
I can see how that might be the better way of evaluating items for some situations (like knowing how your item would compare to that new thing that dropped, if it was socketed properly).
However, say, when I am comparing my pvp necklace with a resilience/stamina gem to my dps necklace (to see how much offense I'm giving up for how much defense), it calculates the value of the pvp necklace assuming a better dps gem.
Well in any situation where your items are socketed with less than ideal gems (money constraints, pvp gear, socketing for meta requirements etc) pawn will show "incorrect" values. Not exactly incorrect of course; it will just show the potential value of the item rather than its current value.
A "use currently socketed gems" option would solve this issue, although I am not sure the number of situations where it would be useful is enough to justify the time that would be spent on coding it in.
Pawn 1.0.1 will give you the ability to go back to the old gem socketing behavior, where it just used the correct colors instead of maximizing the item value. I'll probably release it this weekend.
By the way, another handy feature of ratingbuster is, when comparing two items it can show you the difference between them. Would allow lazy brains like mine to do one less basic subtraction, if that wouldn't be too much of a hassle to add.
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Originally posted by VgerAN Okay, maybe in the next version, then. I'll make it per-scale unless it looks like it's going to be a bunch of extra work to do it that way (probably not).
Okay, maybe in the next version, then. I'll make it per-scale unless it looks like it's going to be a bunch of extra work to do it that way (probably not).
Yes, that's pretty much it. I have an offense scale, and a stamina scale. I think adding an "always use the correct gem colors for each socket" option would solve the issue for most cases. Even better if it is a per-scale option.
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Originally posted by VgerAN I see, so in addition to any scales you use to determine item value, you've also got a scale that just sums up all of the stamina on an item, even though you're not maximizing stamina. You don't actually use that scale to select gear, but rather just to know at a glance how much stamina you're going to get from an item. So, you'd want Pawn to be smart with your other scales (or maybe you don't have any other scales?), but not that special stamina scale.
Does that sound accurate? I'm just trying to understand what you want a little better, so I can plan for future versions. If the above is all true, then if I added a "always use the correct gem colors for each socket" option, a scenario such as yours would need that option to be set individually per-scale, not for the whole character, which is something I hadn't considered.
I see, so in addition to any scales you use to determine item value, you've also got a scale that just sums up all of the stamina on an item, even though you're not maximizing stamina. You don't actually use that scale to select gear, but rather just to know at a glance how much stamina you're going to get from an item. So, you'd want Pawn to be smart with your other scales (or maybe you don't have any other scales?), but not that special stamina scale.
Does that sound accurate? I'm just trying to understand what you want a little better, so I can plan for future versions. If the above is all true, then if I added a "always use the correct gem colors for each socket" option, a scenario such as yours would need that option to be set individually per-scale, not for the whole character, which is something I hadn't considered.
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Originally posted by obuw Ah yes, now it makes sense.
Well, wonderful. Problem is I would never socket a blue gem in a yellow slot since I'm dps. So it's being too clever for my taste.
I guess I'll just stick with ratingbuster for stamina values.
Originally posted by VgerAN Hmm, I'm playing around with Pawn and I haven't been able to reproduce any bug. I believe that the behavior you're seeing below is the new expected behavior for Pawn 0.9 and 1.0. Pawn is determining that the socket bonus on that item isn't worthwhile enough to justify putting a yellow gem in the yellow socket, so it's "using" blue gems instead. (In this case, 2x blue > blue + yellow + 3 agility.) Previous versions of Pawn weren't smart enough to notice situations where it's better to socket gems "incorrectly."
Does that make sense?
Ah yes, now it makes sense.
Well, wonderful. Problem is I would never socket a blue gem in a yellow slot since I'm dps. So it's being too clever for my taste.
I guess I'll just stick with ratingbuster for stamina values.
Hmm, I'm playing around with Pawn and I haven't been able to reproduce any bug. I believe that the behavior you're seeing below is the new expected behavior for Pawn 0.9 and 1.0. Pawn is determining that the socket bonus on that item isn't worthwhile enough to justify putting a yellow gem in the yellow socket, so it's "using" blue gems instead. (In this case, 2x blue > blue + yellow + 3 agility.) Previous versions of Pawn weren't smart enough to notice situations where it's better to socket gems "incorrectly."
Does that make sense?
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Originally posted by obuw When calculating unenchanted values, pawn counts the gem sockets twice if there are gems socketed.
Ex:
[Belt of the Black Eagle] gives 20 Stamina, I have socketed it with a [Brutal Tanzanite] for another 6 Stamina. My STA scale also has 6 points for blue sockets.