I’m going to stick to just addressing patterns because music can get complicated. 

Knowing the different positions does two things that I can see: 1st it allows you to add more interest to your playing by moving between the positions. 

2nd, if you get into transcribing music, knowing what “B” is being played will put you into the right box by the artist. 

But in terms of what to know about scales, I am finding I can improve my playing by studying the phrasing used by an artist. It doesn’t come natural to me. I worked on some BB King stuff tonight and there is nothing out of ordinary in terms of the notes he played. It was his phrasing that told the story and provided the interest.