A brief history of Pawn

I got tired of the version history section of the readme being longer than the rest of it, so I moved parts here.

FAQ

Why doesn't Pawn let me set a cap for a stat (hit, expertise, haste, ...) and then a value above the cap and a value below the cap?

The core problem is that Pawn needs a way for you to, for each character, associate a scale with a particular equipment set—something that doesn't change often.  Once Pawn has that, I could conceivably set up Pawn to allow caps, sliding values, and all manner of crazy things.

Until that time, allowing the value of a stat to change based on how much of it you have would have to be based on your current stat values, which can be buffed with spells, elixirs, and food, and which might be for an entirely different gear set.  For example, imagine a balance druid who is already way over the hit cap, wants to get rid of some, and values hit at 0 when he's above the cap.  But, he's currently healing the raid, so he's in resto gear and has 0 hit.  When a necklace for his balance set drops with hit on it, Pawn would see he has 0 hit (way below the cap) so it would give a high value to that necklace's hit rating even though he really, really doesn't want more hit.  Instead, to give useful information, Pawn would need to know the amount of hit the druid has in his balance gear.

So that's the main thing blocking the feature.  I've been working toward making caps possible, but I'm still not quite there. Once a scale can be associated with a single gear set, then I should be able to start work on a way to allow caps and other types of self-adjusting stat values.

Future versions

There are many features that I'd like to add in future versions of Pawn, besides fixing issues listed in the "known issues" below.

• Pawn will suggest that you fill engineering helms with the same type of cogwheel, but the cogwheels are unique-equipped, so Pawn should really suggest a best two or three. (Engineers always gotta make things more complicated...)
• Pawn has compatibility problems with the mod BagSync. I'll look into it.
• The item upgrade features work just on item IDs, but that means they don't work well with random stat items since most of those have no stats.  (I should probably store unenchanted item links, which would still have the random stat component.)
• Another possible source for up-to-date example scales is Ask Mr. Robot.
• I could add the upgrade arrow icon to the inventory icon that appears next to item link windows.
• I should add a feature so that warriors with Titan's Grip can have their two best two-handed weapons tracked for upgrades instead of just one.
• For specs that have different DPS values for main hand weapons and off-hand weapons, one-handed weapons should have two separate values, and should use those different values when determining upgrades.  (This is a pretty big change though, and it might only really affect rogues.)
• Someday I'd still like to use some new WoW features that were added in patch 3.2 (the GetItemStats API) to drastically speed up Pawn's calculations, reduce the complexity of the code, and allow the English version of Pawn to work in other language versions of WoW.  Unfortunately there are several limitations:
  • GetItemStats can't return stats for the "current" version of an item, so I wouldn't have a way to see what gems, enchantments, and reforgings are on an item.
    • I might be able to very tediously work around this by maintaining a database of the spell IDs for every enchantment and what stats it gave, but that would be a pretty massive undertaking, even greater than what I had to do to add a gem database.
  • There's no way to get a socket bonus from GetItemStats, nor is there a way to tell if the item scales with your level, whether or not it grants XP, and some other stuff.
• I need to add a way for scales to choose a specific meta gem [effect], and the Wowhead scales should always have the best meta gem for each class/spec chosen, since that's not always the one with the best primary stats.
• To make Pawn more approachable for new users, I think that by default I'll remove Pawn values from trinkets (since trinkets have secondary effects and thus their Pawn values are very rarely accurate).  (Of course I'd add an option to turn those values back on.)
• It might be interesting to have Pawn give a second-best suggested stat if one of the stats to reforge to or from on an item is hit rating or expertise, to aid people who are hit capped but don't reduce the value of hit in their scales.
• Pawn could show little icons next to scores for items that still need to be properly gemmed or reforged to reach their base values.
• You should be able to see the gem and reforging suggestions for an item without actually opening up those UIs—probably in the Compare tab with just one item visible.
• The Compare tab should be updated to allow comparisons between two one-handed items and a two-handed item.
• It would be nice if the socketing advisor could suggest Nightmare Tear and jeweler's gems and things like that if you don't already have one equipped.  Unique gems wouldn't be used in value calculations, but they could still be suggested in the socketing window.
• Right now, the Compare tab only shows stats that have nonzero values in your currently-selected scale.  I could add an option to show all stats, though that would make it a lot harder to use at a glance—weapons have a lot of stats, including 8-12 stats just for tracking damage and speed, plus any real stats on the item.
• I could improve the Compare tab to support comparing multiple sets of items at once.  For example, an entire gear set versus another person's entire gear set.  Or, at the very least, a dagger and an off-hand versus a staff.
• I could make it so that Pawn could generate Wowhead/LootRank item search URLs from your scales.
• It would be convenient if Pawn could automatically select an appropriate gem quality level for an item based on its item level and rarity.  (Right now this is problematic because Pawn doesn't have a way for stat values to vary based on which item you're looking at; this would be more work than it probably seems like...)
• There could be a way to automatically share Pawn scale tags with another player through an in-game whisper.  Something like /pawn share Vger <scale name>.  Or, there could just be a window where you could type another player's name to see their Pawn scales if they use Pawn... sort of like a Scalesteal spell.
• I'd love to integrate with AtlasLoot's Wish List feature, helping you find and manage upgrades to your items.
• I may do something with enchantments in the future, but I haven't decided. Usually your choice of enchantment is either simple enough that Pawn isn't very necessary (is the +30 spell power enchantment or the +51 spell power enchantment better?), or complex enough that Pawn can't tell you which one is better for your playstyle (periodically do 500 extra nature damage, +1000 attack power on a proc, or a flat +130 agility?).

Known issues and bugs

Check here first if you think you've found a new bug; maybe I already know about it.

• QuestGuru breaks parts of the Quest Upgrade Advisor.
• I've noticed that sometimes the Loot Upgrade Advisor doesn't appear when it should.  (Pawn isn't getting the notification that a loot window has appeared, so it doesn't know to show it.)
• Unverified: Pawn adds the (?) icon to the line that EPGP adds to tooltips as if it were a stat.
• Unverified: wands may only be getting the regular damage stats, and not the ranged damage stats.
• Unverified: Fiery and other weapon damage enchantments are only counting for the basic DPS stat, and not for the specialized DPS stats like melee DPS.
• Weapon damage is actually stored in the game with more precision than is displayed.  For example, Gavel of Naaru Blessings says in-game that it does 16-117 damage, but according to the game files, it does 16.12-116.12 damage.  This causes Pawn to report its DPS as being slightly different than the in-game tooltip says.
• Item links that you click that aren't already in your game cache show the message "Retrieving item information" and then when the item appears, there are no Pawn values until the next time you show that item.  (I've found a potential solution to this issue that I'll try out sometime: waiting for GameTooltip:OnSetItem to occur, if you're curious.)

Release history

For recent version history, see the Pawn readme.

Version 1.4.1

• Pawn will no longer put a (?) next to "Reforged" on reforged items.
• Spell penetration is once again properly recognized on items.

Version 1.4

• Pawn will now suggest gems based on the colors and cuts available in patch 4.0.
• The new Cataclysm gem cuts (as well as the old Burning Crusade cuts) are available in Pawn's Gems tab.  You can select them using the dropdown lists at the top.  (As before, you can choose a different quality of gems for each of your scales.)  The Cataclysm cuts are not visible unless on the Cataclysm beta.
• The built-in Wowhead scales have been adjusted somewhat for patch 4.0.  Hopefully they should better reflect updated class mechanics in 4.0, but they do not currently match the stat weights on Wowhead exactly.  If you have suggestions, please see this thread on the Wowhead theorycrafting forums.
• Many stats have been removed from items and are thus also removed from Pawn.  Your existing scales will be automatically converted to take this into account:
  • The following stats will be removed from scales entirely since they were removed from items: armor penetration, defense rating, block value, block rating, ranged attack power, and all forms of single-school spell damage.
  • If the scale contains a value for MP5 and its value for Spirit is less than half of the scale's value for MP5, Spirit will be raised to that amount.  MP5 is removed from scales.  MP5 still appears on socket bonuses for a few healer items; those socket bonuses will be considered to have 2 Spirit per 1 MP5 for purposes of calculations.
  • The druid concept of "feral attack power" no longer exists, so the fake Feral AP stat has been removed from Pawn as well.  Be sure to add weapon DPS to scales to compensate.
  • The following stats have been removed from scales because they are very rare: Health per 5, raw mana, and raw health.  Items or enchantments with these rare stats will be instead considered to have points in base stats (Stamina, Intellect) for purposes of calculations.

Version 1.3.12

• A bunch of new fixes to make Pawn work on the Cataclysm beta and the 4.0 PTRs.  This version also works fine on live realms.
  • Mastery rating now works again.
  • The problem where Pawn would hang after scanning approximately 50 items has been resolved.

Version 1.3.11

• Fixed an embarrassing typo that caused staves and polearms to not get Pawn values for classes that cannot also use two-handed swords, axes, and maces (everyone but warriors, I guess?).

Version 1.3.10

• Stats with negative values will no longer be taken into account when normalizing item values.  (For example, if a scale is Stamina = 10, Intellect = 5, Spirit = -10, then all values for that scale will be divided by 15, not 5.)
• You can now mark stats as "unusable."  Items that have that stat on them will get no value for that scale.  For example, a scale for shamans can mark plate as unusable, and then all plate armor will get no value for that scale since shamans can't wear it.
• The built-in scales now take advantage of the unusable stats feature, so unequippable items will not receive values.  (Your character's current level is not taken into account for this, so for example low-level shamans and hunters will still get values on mail items even though they can't wear mail until level 40.)
• There are now separate stats for the one-handed and two-handed versions of axes, maces, and swords.  Existing scales that had a value for those weapon types will now only have a value for the one-handed version of those weapon types and will need to be updated manually.
• Hopefully fixed the bug that a few people were seeing where they sometimes could not select scales.  I finally ran into it myself and tried an on-the-spot fix that worked for me.

Version 1.3.9

• Improved the appearance of the Pawn UI.  It's now no longer translucent, so it should be easier to read the text in certain circumstances.

Version 1.3.8

• Implemented additional performance enhancements so that Pawn uses even less memory and CPU time.  Having the Wowhead scales loaded now increases Pawn's memory and CPU usage by only a negligible amount, so I don't recommend disabling them anymore.
• Added an arrow icon to the best item shown on the Compare tab to make it clearer at a glance and for colorblind people.

Version 1.3.7

• Fixed a bug where Pawn wouldn't recalculate which gems were best for a scale after chanigng stat values until the next time you logged in.
• Fixed a separate bug where sometimes the display of socket values that were calculated automatically (as opposed to manually set) would not display correctly, even if they were properly calculated.

Version 1.3.6

• Thanks to some gnomish performance engineering, Pawn now uses about 95% less CPU time during login, which should reduce your login times by a second or two.
• Added a new scale from Wowhead for arms warriors.
• Changed the (*) warning message to be a little clearer, and now it has a new (?) icon.  Pawn now calls item properties that it doesn't recognize "special effects."
• Fixed a bug where the item special effect warning message wasn't showing up even when enabled.
• Fixed a bug that might occur after the Wowhead scales (or any scales from a "plugin" of any sort) were disabled by deleting Wowhead.lua.

Version 1.3.5

• Changed a bunch of text to make it even easier for new users to get started with Pawn.
• The default for new users of Pawn is now to only show the base values of items.  If you're already using Pawn and have current item values shown, your settings won't be changed and you'll still see both numbers.
• Rearranged the list of stats on the Values tab so that more common stats are easier to find, and really rare stats like raw health aren't wasting prime screen real estate.
• Added support for items with mastery rating for those of you in the Cataclysm beta.  (Untested.)

Version 1.3.4

• Fixed an issue for patch 3.3.5 that prevented you from linking gems from the Gems tab.

Version 1.3.3

• Added a very small value for Stamina for Wowhead scales that did not already include Stamina.  This will help prevent certain very odd gems from appearing as suggestions in the Gems tab.  (For example, some DPS scales did not include values for any blue stat, so the ret pally Gems tab included a gem with Spirit!)
• Fixed a bug where Pawn disabled the Blizzard UI's item comparison tooltip that appears when you hold down the shift key while your mouse is over an item link window.

Version 1.3.2

• Fixed a bug where the Export button would generate an invalid scale tag for the Wowhead scales.  Now you can properly export the Wowhead scales just like your own.

Version 1.3.1

• Fixed a bug where the Pawn socketing suggestions window would not show the proper name of Wowhead scales.

Version 1.3

Important!  After upgrading to Pawn 1.3, your Pawn settings and scales will be upgraded and will no longer be visible in older versions of Pawn.  If you need to revert to an older version of Pawn, use the new /pawn backup command to make a backup copy of your scales that you can save in a file on your computer.

• You can now see and edit all of your scales in the Pawn UI, regardless of which character you're currently on.  (You'll need to log into each of your characters once first.)  Each of your scales can be shown in tooltips for just one or none of your characters (like in previous versions), or you can have a scale show up in the tooltips for multiple different characters.
• All of the stat weight presets from Wowhead are now included with Pawn, so you can immediately start using it without needing to import or create any scales if you don't feel like customizing.  The Wowhead scales can't be changed, but if you want to use them as a starting point for your own scales you can copy them and modify the copy.
  • If you have feedback for the Wowhead scales, please see the Wowhead Theorycrafting forum.
• The new Scale tab now contains most of the per-scale options (such as whether it shows up on your character's tooltips), as well as the options for importing, exporting, and creating scales.  The Values tab (previously the Scales tab) is now a bit simpler.
• The list of scales now appears in a pane to the left of the Pawn UI instead of in a dropdown.  The scales that are visible on the current character's tooltips will appear at the top of the list.
• The "Normalize values (like Wowhead)" option can now be set individually for each of your scales for finer control.
• Added a new command /pawn backup that you can use to back up all of your custom scales at once as a big mass of scale tags.
• Item levels will now only appear on items in the Compare tab if you also have them enabled for item tooltips in Interface Options.
• If you hold down the Shift key when clicking the Delete button to delete a scale, the scale will now be deleted immediately without requiring confirmation.
• Many bugs were fixed, including several bugs that only existed in pre-release versions of Pawn 1.3 and are not listed here:
  • Fixed a potential error when setting up default Pawn keybindings when using Pawn for the first time for a character, and added a diagnostic message to help determine why the problem is occurring.
  • Fixed a bug where often the first item comparison you performed in the Compare tab wouldn't show item values until you clicked the Swap button or the list of scales.
  • Fixed the error that would occur when trying to put an heirloom item in the Compare tab.
  • Fixed a display issue where scales with colons (':') in their names would appear incorrectly on tooltips if the "align values to right edge of tooltip" option were enabled.
  • Fixed a bug where the scale total values listed when hovering over a Pawn button on someone's character sheet weren't listed in alphabetical order.

Version 1.2.5

• What used to be called the enchanted value of an item is now the current value, and what used to be called the unenchanted value is now the base value.  The word "base" now also appears on tooltips.  (No functionality has changed; this is just a terminology change.)
• Fixed the error that occurred when hovering over Brewfest steins.

Version 1.2.4

• Fixed an error that occurred when hovering over profession recipes.

Version 1.2.3

• You can now select what quality of gems to use for each of your scales on the Gems tab: uncommon, rare, or epic.  Each scale can have a different quality level, so your main spec scale can use epic gems, and your offspec scale can use rare gems.
• By popular request, enchanted values of items now no longer include any points for sockets on the item, since the enchanted value is meant to reflect the current state of the item.  This means that before you put gems in an item, the enchanted value of an item will be lower than the unenchanted value.
• Fixed a bug where occasionally items that weren't enchanted would show two equal values, such as "123.4 (123.4)".  (This was only a display issue; the values were being calculated properly.)

Version 1.2.2

• Pawn will now calculate correct socket values if you have the "normalize values (like Wowhead)" option enabled.

Version 1.2.1

• Fixed the "attempt to perform arithmetic on field '?' (a nil value)" error that some users were experiencing in Pawn 1.2.

Version 1.2

• Note: Upon installation, this version of Pawn will automatically make adjustments to each of your scales' socket values.  To avoid this, you can turn off the option for each scale to always correctly match gem colors.
• By default, Pawn will automatically choose the best rare-quality level 80 gem of each color and use the value of that gem when calculating item values.  Most people will no longer ever need to manually set values for red, yellow, or blue sockets.
• There's now a new Gems tab in the Pawn UI.  This tab shows you the best rare-quality level 80 gems that are available for any of your scales.  Never again will you wonder which gems to have cut for that new boss drop.
  • The Gems tab also displays suggested meta gems, but take these with a grain of salt; Pawn ignores the special effects on the gem.
  • The Gems tab only considers rare-quality level 80 gems.  I'll add support for epic gems very soon in an upcoming Pawn update.
• Pawn will now add a tooltip to the item socketing window displaying the suggested gems to use when socketing that item for each of your scales.  In addition, the window now has a Pawn button that takes you directly to the Gems tab for more details.
• Meta sockets are now covered by two values instead of one: the old "Meta socket" value is now "Meta: stats" and covers the normal stat bonuses from meta gems. The new value is "Meta: effect" and covers the bonus effects from meta gems. Helms with an empty meta socket will get the values from both added to their totals. Helms with a filled meta socket will get the values of Meta: effect and the actual stats on the gem added to their totals. This reflects the fact that stat-for-stat, helms with meta sockets are clearly better than helms without them because of the added effects that meta gems bring.
• Adjusted the value of MP5 in the default scale to correspond with current itemization.
• Removed the Pawn feature to show item levels, as it is now built into the game.
• Fixed the "Could not parse the item link" error that appeared when clicking the links that items such as the Titanium Seal of Dalaran and Worn Troll Dice add to chat.
• Corrected the display of socket bonuses on weapons in the Compare tab.
• (English) Enchant Boots: Greater Vitality now works again.

Version 1.1.13

• Fixed the "attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'Dps' (a nil value)" issue introduced by 1.1.12 relating to feral attack power calculations.

Version 1.1.12

• Though it doesn't actually exist as a real weapon stat anymore, druids can once again assign a value to feral attack power instead of weapon DPS if they don't like multiplying by 14.
• Updated Outfitter support to handle newer versions of Outfitter.  (If alternate outfit tooltips stop working for you, be sure to download the latest version of Outfitter too.)

Version 1.1.11

• When "show item levels" is enabled, you can now hover over the Pawn button on your character sheet or an inspected player's character sheet to get an estimate of that player's average item level in epic gear.  For example, an epic gear level of 200 means that the player is in full 10-man Naxxramas gear; 213 means that the player is in full 25-man Naxxramas gear.

Version 1.1.10

• Added support for Pawn values on Outfitter alternate-outfit tooltips.

Version 1.1.9

• Fixed a bug where scales that used to have a value for colorless sockets back when Pawn included them as a possible stat would show inaccurate values if you had normalization turned on.
• Fixed a bug where armor penetration gems (like Fractured Scarlet Ruby) didn't work in the English version.
• Added support for Titanium Plating and Enchant Weapon: Accuracy.
• Minor updates for colorblind mode in patch 3.1.

Version 1.1.8

• Removed the feral attack power stat entirely since it no longer exists directly on weapons.  (Feral druids should increase their value for weapon DPS accordingly.)
• Added compatibility with the mod tdItemTip.

Version 1.1.7

• One more potential fix for the error that I worked on in the last version.

Version 1.1.6

• Fixed an issue where Pawn would in rare situations cause an error when it was loaded for the first time for a character (either a new character, or a character new to Pawn).  Whether or not a given person would actually experience this bug is essentially random.  This is also reported to have worked around game crashes that a few people were seeing.
• Added support for Enchant Boots: Greater Vitality, and the hit rating effect of Titanium Weapon Chain.

Version 1.1.5

• Feral druids and death knights rejoice!  You can now assign separate values to base armor (on cloth, cloaks, leather, mail, and plate) and bonus armor (on weapons, trinkets, necklaces, rings, and enchantments).
  • Please note that pre-Wrath items that had bonus armor (in green text) will have the full armor value reported as base armor even though some is bonus armor.  There is currently no way for mods to tell the difference.
• Updated the default values for the socket stats to more appropriate values, assuming that you would use level 80 blue gems in them.  Existing scales will not be changed.
• Support for colorless / prismatic sockets added by blacksmithing has been removed.  Since these sockets never appear on items normally, and they are simply an interim stage (you'd never socket an item and then decide not to put a gem in it), I decided it didn't make sense to assign values to them.
• The red text that appears after socketed jewelcrafter-only BoP gems that says that they require jewelcrafting will no longer appear with an asterisk (*).
• Added support for Enchant Boots: Icewalker.
• Worked around a bug that could cause the Compare tab to stop working in certain situations.

Version 1.1.4

• Fixed a bug where, on the Compare tab, meta sockets would appear under the "socket bonus" heading instead of the "sockets" heading.
• Enchantments that are on enchanters' rings when you are not an enchanter (the ones that appear in red) will no longer appear with asterisks (*).
• Armor penetration rating on new Wrath of the Lich King items will now be interpreted correctly.

Version 1.1.3

• This is the patch 3.0 version of Pawn, and will not work properly on WoW 2.4.x.  The stats Spell damage, Healing, Spell hit rating, Spell crit rating, and Spell haste rating have all been removed.  Spell damage and Healing have been replaced with Spell power, and the three Spell combat ratings have been combined into hybrid ratings that work for both casters and non-casters.  Pawn will update your scales automatically, but you might want to check the values of those stats to make sure that they are in line with what you'd expect.
• Added stats that allow you to assign different values to different armor types (such as plate, cloth, etc.).

Version 1.1.2

• Added support for account-bound (gold-quality) items and more new things that appear in WoW 3.0.
• Fixed an error message that could appear when using some item links from sites like Wowhead.
• Armor penetration works once more on WoW 3.0.

Version 1.1.1

• Fixed Link Wrangler compatibility, which was broken in Pawn 1.1.
• Items that have at least one recognized stat (normally marked with an asterisk) will be marked as such in the Compare tab.  (This feature existed in 1.1 betas but did not appear in the final version.)
• Added support for Lake Wintergrasp items and the Scourgestone.

Version 1.1

• This version of Pawn has been tested on both the live realms and on the Wrath of the Lich King beta, and includes tons of fixes to make Pawn work correctly on Wrath servers, and to support new stats and types of items that appear in the expansion content, including new stats, new gems, encrypted items, colorless sockets, and more.
• Pawn now sports a new tab, Compare, which lets you see two items side-by-side to compare their stats in more detail.  Check it out!
  • You can compare any two items in your inventory or a merchant's inventory by dropping them in the slots.
  • If the left slot is empty and you drop an item in the right slot, your currently equipped item will automatically be put in the left slot.
  • In addition to dragging and dropping items, all of the following shortcuts also work:
    • Clicking either of the "currently equipped" shortcut buttons that appear in the lower-left corner once there is an item in the right slot.
    • Hovering over an item in your inventory, another player's inventory, a vendor's inventory, an item link window, AtlasLoot, or other locations, and pressing the "[" or "]" key.  (This key binding is customizable in the regular key bindings interface.)
    • You can also right-click item link windows and item icons in loot roll windows to immediately compare the item with your currently equipped item.
• The first time you run Pawn after upgrading to 1.1, Pawn will automatically bind keys to its commands if you aren't using those keys for other things.  By default, "P" will open and close the Pawn UI, and "[" and "]" are used for item comparisons.  If you later unbind those keys or bind them to other actions, Pawn won't try to rebind them.
• Fixed a bug where Pawn values didn't show up on item link windows if you only had unenchanted numbers visible, not enchanted numbers.
• Fixed a problem where error text would appear in the chat window when hovering over recipes in Ackis Recipe List and possibly other similar mods.
• German users rejoice!  When entering stat values you can now use a comma instead of a period as a decimal separator—for example, "0,5" now works in addition to "0.5".
• In this version of Pawn, I've significantly reorganized a lot of the code that reads and annotates item tooltips.  This, coupled with other changes in Wrath of the Lich King, is likely to cause some conflicts with other mods.  If you run into problems with Pawn, please remember to try to reproduce the same problem with no other item-related mods installed.  I still may be able to fix the bug if it turns out that the bug is related to another mod, but I need to know which mod to download and try.

Version 1.0.4

• Fixed a bug that would prevent Pawn from working properly if one or more of your scales didn't assign a value to the spell damage stat.
• Updated the value of the armor penetration and spell penetration stats in the default Pawn scale to match current itemization.  Existing scales are not changed.
• Pawn will no longer try to assign a default value to spell damage (WoW 2.4) if you use a scale that contains only spell power (WoW 3.0).

Version 1.0.3

• Added an entry in the Interface Options dialog to launch the Pawn UI, in case you hide the Pawn button and forget how to get it back.
• You can now assign a value to the Wrath of the Lich King "spell power" stat to your scales.  It uses the same values by default as the "spell power" stat in Pawn 0.7.4, and your existing scales will be assigned a value for the stat automatically.  Your scales will still have spell damage and healing stats in them, but they won't be used for anything.
• In Wrath of the Lich King, the stats that currently appear as melee hit rating, melee crit rating, and melee haste will also apply to spells, and the spell hit, crit, and haste rating stats are not used.  Existing scales will not be modified at this time.

Version 1.0.2

• When Armory is installed, added support for showing unenchanted values on the item comparison tooltips that appear when holding down the Alt key.
• Added support for the stat-only components of Surefooted, Cat's Swiftness, and Boar's Speed.  (The run speed and snare resistance effects are ignored since there are no Pawn stats for those.)
• Fixed a bug where if you clicked a link for an item that had an icon and then a link for a spell that did not have an icon, the item's icon would not properly disappear.
• Fixed a bug with reading certain items with multiple stats on the same line that was causing problems with the French translation in progress.
• Removed a bunch more asterisks from various items.

Version 1.0.1

• It's now possible to force Pawn to always calculate an item's value based on the correct color of gems (Pawn 0.8 and older behavior) instead of maximizing the item's value by potentially using the wrong colors and ignoring the socket bonus (Pawn 0.9 and later behavior).  To change the option for one of your scales, choose that scale in the UI and then choose one of the colored sockets from the stat list.
• Added support for socket bonuses (and possible future gems) that give melee haste rating.
• Added shaman healing scales based on the popular Elitist Jerks thread to the sample scales document that comes with Pawn.

Version 1.0

• Restored compatibility with Link Wrangler, which stopped working in Pawn 0.9.
• Added support for showing Pawn values on Link Wrangler's "compare equipped items" tooltips.
• Added support for showing inventory icons next to Link Wrangler tooltips.
• There's now a "getting started" tab to gently remind new users to read the Readme file.
• Takes advantage of new WoW 2.4 functionality to show inventory icons next to item link windows in a few situations where it couldn't before.
• Various other UI and text tweaks.

Version 0.9

• Pawn is now smarter about the way that it values sockets and socket bonuses, which in some cases will slightly change the values of certain items, both with and without gems.
  • If you've already filled all of the sockets on an item and you don't qualify for the socket bonus, Pawn no longer counts the socket bonus stats, since they're not actually there.
  • If you can get a better value by socketing the wrong colors of gems and ignoring the socket bonus, Pawn will now do that when calculating item values.  (When the "Show debug info" option is enabled, Pawn will tell you which color gems it used.)
• Pawn now remembers all of the stats from several of the last items you've viewed so it doesn't have to always recalculate them.  This should help your framerate when rapidly hovering over many items in succession, especially when an equip compare mod is also installed.
• You now have to type the word "delete" to confirm that you really want to delete a scale.
• You can now make a copy of an existing scale by clicking the new Copy button.
• There is now an option to hide a specific scale from tooltips without having to delete it (and, most likely, export it and paste it somewhere for safekeeping).
• Pawn will no longer look for stats on quest, spell, and ability links in WoW 2.4.
• Fixed a bunch of UI bugs that occurred when deleting your last scale.
• Pawn no longer adds unnecessary asterisks to Black Temple instance-bound items, such as Naj'entus Spine.
• Added support for Reckless Noble Topaz and other gems with spell haste rating.

Version 0.8.2

• The Pawn UI now displays the current Pawn version number on the last tab.
• Pawn now supports addons that modify the Inspect window when it is first shown instead of immediately upon login, such as Spyglass.

Version 0.8.1

• You can now hover over the Pawn button on the inventory window to get a grand total of the enchanted values on all of your equipped items.
• There is now a disabled Pawn button on the inspect window that you can hover over to get totals for all of another player's equipped items.
• Fixed a bug where all on/off options that defaulted to being on (show enchanted values, show unenchanted values, and show tooltip icons) would automatically turn back on after logging out and back in.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes disabling enchanted values would cause unenchanted values to also not be displayed.
• Fixed a bug where the word "Projectile" on stacks of arrows would get an asterisk, and their DPS would not count as ranged DPS.
• Fixed a bug where negative values would not be exported in scale tags.  (Negative stat values are most common with weapon speed.)

Version 0.8

• The Pawn UI now has an Options tab that you can use to set all Pawn options.
• Almost all of the Pawn slash commands are now unnecessary, and have been removed.  You can still use /pawn to open the Pawn UI, and /pawn debug is still available as well.
• Tooltips have been added to pretty much everything in the Pawn UI.
• You can use the new calculation option "Normalize values" to divide all of your scale values by the sum of all of the numbers in the scale.  This causes Pawn to generate the same sorts of numbers that Lootzor does.  (See the appropriate section in the readme file for more details.)
• You can now change the text color for your scales individually from the Pawn UI.  You could, for example, make your healing scale show up in white and your DPS scale show up in red.
• You can now bind a key to the Pawn UI.  Look under "Pawn" in the standard key bindings list.
• Added support for the Fiery Weapon enchantment; Pawn counts it as 4 dps.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes tooltip icons would not appear for items that had never been in your inventory.  (This includes most links in trade chat.)
• Fixed a bug where if you clicked on an item link for an item, and then a tradeskill recipe (such as [Alchemy: Super Mana Potion]), the icon for the previous item would stay since the recipe did not have one.
• Fixed a bug where if you had set custom colors for your scales, scales would no longer always be sorted alphabetically by name on item tooltips.

Version 0.7.5

• Pawn now shows inventory icons next to item link and item comparison tooltips, so when someone links an item, you can also see its inventory icon.  You can turn this feature off with /pawn icons off.
  • This feature works with the built-in WoW functionality, as well as a variety of other tooltip mods: EquipCompare, EQCompare, and MultiTips.
• When /pawn ids on is active, Pawn now displays the item IDs of all applicable enchantments and gems in the tooltip as well.  For example, if looking at item 123 with no enchantment and gems 45 and 67 socketed, you would see "Item ID: 123:0:45:67".
• You can now have Pawn align item values (and IDs and levels, if those options are on) along the right side of the tooltip with /pawn align numbers right.  Some people may find this easier to read; others may find it more difficult.
• A new category of stats has been added, "weapon types," which is primarily useful for racial abilities and talents.
  • For example, orcs get a passive 5 expertise bonus when using axes.  So, you might give a weapon a few bonus points just for being an axe.  At level 70, 5 expertise costs 78.8 expertise rating, so you might value "being an axe" as high as 78.8.

Version 0.7.4

• Pawn plugins for FuBar and Titan Panel are now available as separate downloads.  You can get them at Curse.
• The old "spell power" stat made sense before patch 2.3, but it was particularly confusing to healers after that patch, so I've removed it, and replaced it with easier-to-understand "spell damage".  Now, the healing stat only includes healing, and the spell damage stat only includes spell damage.
  • Now, Light's Justice, which says that it increases healing by 382 and damage by 128, has 382 healing and 128 spell damage, exactly as you'd expect.
  • Pawn will automatically upgrade your existing scales and any scale tags that you import.  Please double-check the value of the spell damage stat after importing to make sure that it's what you intended, as in this version Pawn does not read your mind.  The upgrade process will give correct results for typical cases (DPS casters who don't care about healing; healers who valued spell power at least as high as healing, as they should have), but may not give the results you expect if you had a strange scale (healing but no spell power).
  • As always, the default Pawn scale has been adjusted to accommodate these changes.
• A new slash command /pawn enchanted has been added to let you turn off the enchanted item values, showing only the unenchanted, unsocketed values for items.  (You can also use /pawn enchanted off along with /pawn unenchanted off to temporarily hide all Pawn values.)  This option may not be compatible with all of your favorite tooltip mods, but it should work in all cases where you currently get unenchanted item values today, which is most everywhere.
• The Pawn button has a new, unique look, instead of being a regular red WoW button.
• The Pawn button now appears in a more reasonable spot when the character inventory window has been skinned using a mod such as Skinner.
• A new slash command /pawn button has been added to let you move the Pawn button on the inventory window, or hide it completely.  (If you hide the button, you'll need to type /pawn to open the Pawn UI, or use the Pawn plugin for FuBar or Titan Panel.)
• Added a new option to the /pawn asterisks slash command, /pawn asterisks no text.  Using this option is the same as /pawn asterisks auto, except the "* Pawn gave no value to some stats" warning text is not added to tooltips of items with at least one (*) unrecognized stat.

Version 0.7.3

• Added a button to the inventory window to show and hide the Pawn configuration UI.
• Pawn now supports Armory and EquipCompare working together with the "/eqc alt" option to show comparisons with your alt's gear instead of your current character's.
• Added support for the unusual items with negative stats, such as Kreeg's Mug, which gives -10 Intellect.
• Added support for Braided Eternium Chain and other non-weapon items with weapon damage as an equip bonus.  It shows up as minimum damage and maximum damage, but not DPS—it's not a weapon, so there's no speed, and therefore no DPS.
• Fixed a problem that would frequently show up when using Pawn with CowTip, causing an error message to appear in chat when hovering over an item and then an empty inventory slot.
• Fixed a problem where sometimes an open item link window would not be immediately updated upon making scale changes.
• Minor changes to fix some issues when running a German version of Pawn on the German WoW client.
• Updated the samples scales document with newer versions of Emmerald's feral combat models and ShadowPanther's AEP model, and added scales for Malan's Elitist Jerks EP for shamans.

Version 0.7.2

• The special weapon DPS stats now work.  I had broken them in either 0.7 or 0.7.1.  Existing scales will automatically be corrected; you should not need to re-enter values for those stats.

Version 0.7.1

• If the item link window is open when you make changes to your Pawn scales, it will now be updated immediately, so you can see how your changes will affect the value of the item.
• Added spell hit rating and spell crit rating to the configuration UI.  (Oops!)
• Corrected a typo in the description of the melee and ranged crit rating stat.

Version 0.7

• Pawn now has a configuration UI!  To access it, simply type /pawn in the chat box.  (To see the help information that used to be available when you typed /pawn, type /pawn help, or click the /pawn commands button in the configuration UI.)  You should no longer need to manually edit your SavedVariables files to configure Pawn.
• The configuration UI is now the official way to make all changes to your Pawn scales.  Some of the slash commands that existed in earlier versions of Pawn are gone, since they're no longer needed: /pawn list, export, import, delete, rename.
• Eliminated that bug where sometimes unenchanted values would disappear from items after a while.  The problem seemed to be most commonly linked to use of the world map, but also could occur after zoning or showing the interface options window.
• Scales now appear in alphabetical order on item tooltips.
• Pawn now works with tekKompare and LootLink.
• Fixed a bug where the value of resilience rating in the default Pawn value scale was 0 instead of 1 as was intended.  Scale tags that call resilience rating "Resilience" instead of "ResilienceRating" will now be imported properly.
• The value of ArmorPenetration in the default Pawn value scale is now 0.1, based on the latest information on WoWWiki.
• Includes VgerCore 1.0.1.

Version 0.6.3

• Added support for items in the guild bank vault.
• In some cases, you can use mods that create fake item tooltips like AtlasLoot and ItemSync along with mods that mangle item tooltips like Rating Buster, and Pawn will now still work.  No guarantees that your favorite combination of mods won't break Pawn, but this should help a lot of people out.
• Finally fixed that bug where items with both durability and an Equip: or Use: line that Pawn didn't understand would get asterisks on the wrong lines.  (For example, Stalker's Helm of Second Sight has this problem.)
• Added the /pawn space command, which adds a blank space before the item values it adds to tooltips.
• Added a special "stat" called SpeedBaseline.  SpeedBaseline isn't an actual item property, but rather a number to be subtracted from weapon speeds before they're multiplied by your scale values.  For example, if you're an enhancement shaman who wants to give weapons 1 point for every 0.1 second of speed slower than 2.9, use Speed = 10 (1 / 0.1) and SpeedBaseline = 2.9.  Weapons slower than 2.9 would instead lose points at the same rate.
• Adjusted the value of the FeralAp stat in the Pawn default scale from 0.5 to 0.4 so that feral items in 2.3 will have roughly the same values as they did in 2.2 with the old Pawn default scale and so that the Pawn default scale still roughly mimics item budget formulas.  I do not necessarily recommend that you change values in your own scales; your items have been buffed, so it makes sense for their values to go up.
• Weapon skill rating stats have been removed from Pawn and the default Pawn scale, as they've been removed from the game in the patch.  Existing scales will not be automatically updated to use ExpertiseRating.
• Added Pawn values to gems in the socketing UI.
• Fixed the amount of healing and spell damage received from Teardrop Tourmaline and possibly other gems that previously only gave healing.
• Added support for the new Chaotic Skyfire Diamond.
• Now displays a more readable error message when the embedded mod VgerCore is missing or failed to load.
• Fixed several problems introduced in 2.3:
  • Fixed a problem that appeared in 2.3 due to the new way that set item tooltips look where Pawn was putting asterisks all over the name of the set, the items in the set, and the set bonuses.
  • Fixed a problem that appeared in 2.3 where stats on meta gems weren't always being counted due to requirements now being displayed on gems even when socketed.
  • Fixed a bug that appeared in 2.3 only where certain gems and random item properties would appear very strange, such as "+45 Stamina|cfff1a1a1a", and Pawn would not understand them.

Version 0.6.2

• Fixed a script error that appeared the first time a recipe was clicked since logging in or resetting your UI.
• Pawn now includes VgerCore 1.0 embedded within the mod; you don't need a separate VgerCore folder in your AddOns folder.

Version 0.6.1

• Supports the 2.2.x live realms and the 2.3 PTRs.  (Healing-to-spell-damage and expertise require 2.3, of course.)
• Support for the healing to spell damage conversion.  Items that say that they increase healing by 300 and spell damage by 100 will be reported as Healing = 200, SpellPower = 100.  Recall that SpellPower includes healing, thus your scale's value for SpellPower should always be equal to or greater than the value for Healing.
• A new value of .255 was picked for the value of Healing in the default scale, down from .455.  With this value, items that had 1/3 of their Healing converted to SpellPower (default value .855) in 2.3 will have the exact same values in 2.3 that they did with the old scale in 2.2 (ignoring rounding errors).  Of course, you can and should customize your Pawn scales to fit your needs; generally, healers should not adjust their scales to deal with this change.
• Support for the new ExpertiseRating stat, valued at 1 in the default "Pawn value" scale, same as the existing weapon skill stats.  Existing scales will not be adjusted to include this stat.  If you haven't customized your scales and want to reset them, use /pawn resetscales.
  • Weapon skill ratings are currently still supported so you can use Pawn 0.6.1 on the live realms too.  They'll be removed in a later version.
• Support for many more healing enchantments, inscriptions, spellthread, and so forth.
• Craftable items for which you can learn recipes from trainers will now get Pawn values.

Version 0.6

• Fixed a problem introduced in beta 1 where Pawn would display an error message in the chat window whenever hovering over a ring with Enchant Ring - Weapon Might.
• Added the ability to customize the colors that your scales will use when printed.  For example, you could have your DPS value show up in orange, and your healing value show up in green.  This is an advanced feature that probably will never get its own UI or slash command.  See the section titled "Changing the color of a scale" for more information.
• Importing a scale tag that has the exact same name as a scale you already have will update the old scale to match the values in the scale tag.  All of the values in the old scale will be deleted.  (In previous versions, Pawn would just fail and warn you that you can't overwrite an existing scale.  There is no longer a warning.)
• Weapon stats have been overhauled!  Old scales will work, but now advanced users have a variety of new options for assigning values to weapons.
• New stats: MeleeMinDamage, MeleeMaxDamage, MeleeSpeed, MeleeDps, MainHandMinDamage, MainHandMaxDamage, MainHandSpeed, MainHandDps, OffHandMinDamage, OffHandMaxDamage, OffHandSpeed, OffHandDps, OneHandMinDamage, OneHandMaxDamage, OneHandSpeed, OneHandDps, TwoHandMinDamage, TwoHandMaxDamage, TwoHandSpeed, TwoHandDps, RangedMinDamage, RangedMaxDamage, RangedSpeed, RangedDps.  Generally, you'll only use a few of these, and not give values to all of them.
• New stats: MinDamage, MaxDamage, Speed.  If you don't care about which slot or weapon type it is, just use MinDamage, MaxDamage, Speed, and/or Dps.  Dps is now calculated to full precision (say, 41.333 instead of 41.3) instead of rounded to one decimal place.
• Added support for weapon damage enchantments (Striking and Impact).
• Added support for ranged weapon scopes.
• Fixed a problem where certain items with suffixes would show unusually low unenchanted values (their stats would be read as 0). For example, Chimaerascale Legguards of the Bandit exhibited this problem.
• Added support for Black Morass instance-bound items (beacons).

Version 0.5.4

• Added support for haste rating and spell haste rating, which were added as passive item bonuses on Black Temple equipment. (Iron Counterweight is also supported.) These two stats (HasteRating, SpellHasteRating) are valued at 1 each on the default Pawn scale; existing Pawn scales won't be affected. Use /pawn resetscales to delete all of your scales and replace them with the default one.
• Added support for armor penetration ("Your attacks ignore X of your opponent's armor"). This stat (ArmorPenetration) is not valued in the default Pawn scale.
• Added support for Karazhan, Stratholme, and Tempest Keep instance-bound items.

Version 0.5.3

• Added support for the new gold profession recipe links in WoW 2.1.  (Pawn won't try to read them or put asterisks all over them.)

Version 0.5.2

• Added working support for the Savagery weapon enchantment, and untested support for Potency, Soulfrost, and Sunfire.
• Added support for EquipCompare 2.10.  (This may break compatibility with older versions of EquipCompare; please use the latest version.)

Version 0.5.1

• Updated for WoW patch 2.1.
• Added support for Blizzard's new Currently Equipped functionality (shift-hover an item).
• LinkWrangler support.
• Fixed a bug where stats in certain situations (gems with multiple stats on one gem, socket bonuses, etc.) wouldn't get shown in the /pawn debug on output.  This did not affect calculation; it was just a debug display error.
• Expanded the amount of information Pawn returns in the debug output.
• Added support for Enchant Boots: Vitality.
• Slightly updated a few of the default "Pawn value" scale's numbers.  This will not affect existing scales, even if you haven't changed any of the defaults.  If you want to get the new scale, you can wipe out your existing scale(s) with /pawn resetscales.

Version 0.5

• Requires VgerCore 0.4. (This is included with the mod. Pawn will warn you if you are using an older version of VgerCore.)
• Pawn can now show unenchanted values for items in addition to the regular enchanted values, and this is enabled by default.  You can turn it off with /pawn unenchanted off.  This feature only works for real tooltips, and not fake tooltips from an item database mod.
• Added an option to control the number of digits of precision Pawn uses to display item values in tooltips.  By default this is 1 ("3.1"), but you can set it to any number between 0 ("3") and 4 ("3.1416") with /pawn digits #.
• Corrected the value of frost resistance in the default Pawn scale to 1 (was 4).
• Pawn scale tags now have spaces inside of the parentheses by default.  This is to prevent certain scale tags from turning into emoticons when posted to certain forums.  (For example, if your scale tag ended in "RedSocket=8)", the 8) would turn into an emoticon on certain forums.)  Old and current versions of Pawn will accept the scale with or without the extra spaces.
• Lots of work was done to prepare for Pawn translations into other languages.  I may have made a mistake in this conversion and introduced cases where (*) shows up where they didn't before; hopefully not.

Version 0.4.1

• Added support for gun, bow, and crossbow skill ratings.
• Added support for MultiTips.
• Added support for items that list stats as "Stat +X" instead of "+X Stat", namely the epic gems.  Gems that only provided primary stats, such as Seer's Chrysoprase, already worked, but others such as Rune Covered Chrysoprase didn't work until this change.

Version 0.4

• Added scale tags!  Scale tags are chunks of text that you can use to share Pawn scales with friends, guildmates, and others on forums, similar to how you can share talent specs today by passing around a link to the WoW talent calculator.  You can copy a scale tag and then post it on your guild forums, and then another player can copy that tag and paste it into their game to automatically add your scale to their copy of Pawn, without logging out of the game or changing files in Notepad.  To export a scale tag so you can share it with others, use the /pawn export command.  To import someone else's scale tag and add it to your own scales, use the /pawn import command.
• Added new slash commands: /pawn list, export, import, delete, and rename.  See "Slash commands" in Readme.htm for more details.
• Added support for weapon skill ratings (including unarmed and feral combat).  (They have been added to the default Pawn scale, but if you care about weapon skill ratings you must add them to your custom scales manually.)
• Fixed the /pawn resetscales command so that it would delete all of your scales before recreating the default one named Pawn value, as was intended.

Version 0.3.1

• Hovering over an enchanted Item X immediately after hovering over an unenchanted Item X will now recalculate the values for the second item instead of just displaying the ones for the first item.  This should work for all pairs of items that differ only by enchantments and gems.

Version 0.3

• To read statistics, Pawn now makes a copy of the tooltip and reads from that whenever possible, which allows it to read tooltips that have been mangled by other mods.  Examples of mods that do this are Mendeleev and Rating Buster.  (Certain mods that use custom tooltips, such as ItemSync, don't support this; Pawn may still conflict with mods that modify those custom tooltips.)

Version 0.2.2

• ItemSync support, including using ItemSync with AtlasLoot.  Pawn will calculate and display values for ItemSync's tooltips.
• EQCompare support.  Pawn will calculate and display values for EQCompare's tooltips.
• Item level display should work just about everywhere now, instead of just in certain places.  (In previous versions, it worked for inventory items, but not chat item links.  Now it works on both.)
• A new option has been added to display the item ID for items you come across, /pawn ids on.
• The default is now to hide the asterisks (*) from items that don't have any values for any of your scales.  So, for example, Hearthstone and potions won't display the asterisk.  You can change this behavior using /pawn asterisks [ on | auto | off ].

Version 0.2.1

• Fixed a problem in 0.2 where Pawn wouldn't work if you'd never used version 0.1 before.

Version 0.2

• EquipCompare support.  Pawn will calculate and display values for EquipCompare's tooltips.
• AtlasLoot support.  Pawn will calculate and display values for instance drops when Atlas and AtlasLoot are installed.
• Outfitter support.  Pawn will no longer conflict with the lines that Outfitter adds to tooltips of items used in one or more gear sets.
• MonkeyQuest support.  I haven't actually observed it happening in the past, but this change should prevent MonkeyQuest's item tooltip annotations from affecting Pawn.
• MobInfo-2 support.  Pawn will no longer conflict with the drop rate information that MobInfo-2 adds to items.  (This problem manifested itself both as unnecessary asterisks added to tooltips, and also as an "attempted to concatenate a nil value" error.)
• Added APIs to create and change Pawn scales while you're still logged in.  These will eventually be used to build a configuration UI.  If you really want to, you can use them from the chat box to change Pawn scales while logged into the game.
• Included a new file "Sample scales.htm" containing (you guessed it) some sample scales that you can use to get started creating your own. I'll add to this over time.

Version 0.1

• The first released beta version of Pawn.  The code is stable and the remaining bugs are mostly just to-do items.  I'll get around to them eventually.
• Not heavily optimized for performance.
• No configuration UI.  (Hope you like Notepad!)