Singapore’s Foreign Ministry says the Singaporean Chinese woman held hostage at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai has been killed.

Speaking at a news conference at the Ministry, Director of the Consular Directorate Jai Sohan Singh said they were told at 9:35pm Singapore time that she died tragically.

This was after her husband, who had flown up to Mumbai, made a final confirmation of her identity. She is 28-year-old Lo Hwei Yen, a lawyer at a Singapore-based offshore law firm, who was in Mumbai on a working trip.

Indian authorities had found her body on the 19th floor of the hotel. The Singapore Foreign Ministry is helping the family to make arrangements to bring back the body.

The Foreign Ministry confirms there are no more Singaporeans stranded in any of the hotels in the Indian financial capital which was hit by coordinated terror attacks on Wednesday night.

115 Singaporeans were known to be in Mumbai either for work or leisure during the attacks that have killed some 130 people.

Meanwhile, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has expressed his sadness over the death of Ms Lo. He knows the family and had attended her wedding last year.

Upon learning the tragic news, SM Goh went to visit the family who were in a state of shock.

“Unfortunately, what we feared came true,” Mr Goh told reporters.

Special forces stormed a Mumbai Jewish centre and battled to free guests at two hotels Friday, as India blamed Pakistan for an audacious Islamist militant attack that left at least 130 people dead.

Troops and security forces were still trying to bring the situation under control more than 36 hours later in India’s financial capital, where around a dozen sites were targeted in a brazen assault on Wednesday night.

It was not known how many hostages and attackers, if any, remained at large on Friday afternoon, and it was unclear if 24 bodies found inside the Oberoi/Trident hotel were in addition to the 130 already reported dead.

Officials said the Oberoi hotel was now under the control of authorities, while heavy gunfire was heard at the Taj Mahal, the other five-star hotel targeted in the attack which also hit a hospital and Mumbai’s train station.

Commandos stormed a Jewish centre which had also been hit, as security forces tried to flush out any remaining militants from the attack, which Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee blamed on neighbouring Pakistan.

“According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible,” the minister said. He said proof of that involvement “cannot be disclosed at this time,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

An Indian commando said the guerrillas had shot at almost anyone who crossed their paths during the shocking attack, apparently launched by a group of young militants who arrived in the port city by boat.

“They were the kind of people with no remorse — anybody and whomsoever came in front of them they fired,” said the soldier, a member of India’s marine commando force who would not reveal his identity to reporters.

He said he had seen “blood all over” and bodies “strewn here and there,” and that military response teams had tried to avoid harming the civilians who had been trapped in the hotels when the attack was launched.

“We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests,” he said.

As world leaders condemned the attack, Indian suspicion fell on Pakistan — whose feared intelligence services have been implicated in attacks inside India in the past. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars in the past.

Muhkerjee’s accusation was the first time that an Indian official had accused Pakistan by name of involvement.

India has also been grappling with homegrown unrest from Muslims and Maoists, and few details had been made public about the identity, motivations or even numbers of attackers.

One of the gunmen holed up inside the Oberoi on Thursday told India TV by phone that the Islamists had carried out the attacks, which included shooting up the Mumbai train station, because of alleged persecution of Indian Muslims.

PTI reported earlier that Indian officials were pointing the finger at the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba — notorious for a deadly assault on the Indian parliament in 2001 that almost pushed India and Pakistan to war.

Police officials said 130 people had been confirmed dead and that more than 300 were wounded. Eyewitnesses who survived the ordeal recounted scenes of terror and carnage.

Faisul Nagel, a South African security guard, said he helped people escape from the Taj Mahal by first leading them to the hotel kitchen, barricading themselves inside and arming themselves with knives and meat cleavers.

“We basically put the lights off in the restaurant just to create an element of surprise,” Nagel said.

An Australian man who survived the attack at the Taj Mahal hotel and was rescued by soldiers, Paul Guest, told Australian radio there were scenes of unimaginable carnage.

“There was blood all over the floor and bits of bodies,” he said.

Indian media reports said up to nine foreign nationals were among the dead. A Japanese businessman, two Australians, a Briton, a German, a Canadian and an Italian are believed to be dead.

The Israeli embassy said around 10-20 Israeli nationals were among those held hostage or trapped. Witnesses said the attackers had at first gone through the sites looking for people with US and British passports.

India’s relations with the United States have flourished in recent years as the country of 1.1 billion people moved away from its close ties to Russia and embraced a market economy that has dramatically raised growth.

Both the United States and Britain expressed condolences and offered to help investigate the incident in Mumbai, which has been hit by terror attacks before. Nearly 190 people were killed in train bombings in 2006.

“This is a horrific incident which has shocked and outraged people around the world,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. “We’ve got to do everything we can now to help the Indian authorities.”

India’s newspapers laid much of the blame at the door of the country’s intelligence agencies, which they said had failed spectacularly in allowing a handful of gunmen to wreak such havoc and devastation.

The Indian Express singled out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which said he had “special responsibility” because he had been “partly distracted” by modernising the country’s foreign policy and its economy.

“He has not been able to make the slightest difference to our internal security,” the paper said.

Before we get rolling with today’s column, I direct you to yesterday’s good news for elemental shamans. Soak it in, folks. Buffs for elemental with no huge nerfs attached? It’s like a holiday or something. You should go eat Turkey to celebrate. I’ll wait.

Okay, now we move on to yet more gear. Last time we covered Dragonblight and its related instances, this week we move over to Grizzly Hills and Drak’Tharon Keep, and from there Zul’Drak and Gundrak will be our focus as you level through the zones. By the time you’re done in Gundrak you should easily be level 77, have access to Lava Burst, and be ready to go exploring in Sholozar, Icecrown and Storm Peaks.

Being about half-way through Grizzly Hills on my shaman and already nearly level 75 (I did both starting zones) you could even skip one of these zones if you wanted to. If that’s the case, don’t skip Zul’Drak, as the zone has some weapon rewards that are simply extraordinary.

Grizzly Hills

As is always the case, we’re probably going to skip most green quest rewards unless they’re exceptional, as it’s not like you won’t get piles of the stuff questing.

First up, let us talk blue quest rewards. From the quest Ursoc, the Bear God which both Alliance and Horde get access to, there’s the Greaves of Sanctified Dissolution. That’s a lot of attack power. 169 AP between the Agility and the straight bonus. And the amount of crit you’ll get from the combined agi and crit rating is nothing to sneer at either. These are straight up physical DPS legs, although with no Int on them you’ll take a hit to your mana pool when Maelstrom procs.

Next up is the quest Hour of the Worg which brings back fond memories of running through Silverpine Forest with rare spawn elites just popping up and wrecking your face. Good times. As you relive many a Shadowfang Keep run, why not pick up the Keen Razorfang Spaulders for your enhancement set?

Finally, if you’re Horde, you can pick up the Handguards of Deluded Might by completing the Conquest Pit questline. They’re nice gloves.

Having covered the quest blues, let’s take a look at quests that lead you into Drak’Tharon Keep. The quest Cleansing Drak’Tharon gets you Shoulders of the Seducer for your primarily restoration needs. Playing some Head Games on a boss inside the Keep and some folks outside will net you Accursed Wristguards, also aimed at restoration. I don’t know why they’re cursed, or if they come with free Frogurt. Finally, if you go on a Search and Rescue mission inside the Keep, you will have a choice between a nice ring for restoration or a physical DPS ring. Choose wisely.

And now, for the instance itself: what awaits you inside its dark and stony corridors? Lots of trolls, living and dead, and some other weird stuff too.

Drak’Tharon Keep

There’s actually a good assortment of drops for the shaman inside Drak’Tharon. The end-boss drops Tharon’ja’s Aegis, a good elemental shield (and not terrible for a resto shaman looking for some more crit for proc-based effects) as well as the Helmet of Living Flesh, a very solid enhancement hat. Novos the Summoner, who you have to kill for a quest anyway, drops the Crystal Pendant of Warding and Summoner’s Stone Gavel. The Gavel is a little fast but could still prove serviceable, while the Pendant is a nice restoration neck. The Staff of the Great Beast would be awesome for elemental shamans if not for that massive whack of spirit on it, but while it’s certainly better for other classes than for shamans, if it happens to be better than what you have then it’s an upgrade. Elementals will have to console themselves with the Infection Resistant Legguards, I suppose.

Heroic drops are relatively good here for shamans. There’s the Limb Regeneration Bracers, the Incisor Fragment, King Dred’s Helm, the Necromantic Wristguards and the Temple Crystal Fragment for casters who don’t have a better shield.

This instance leads almost directly to Zul’Drak, lore and story-wise, but I won’t spoil how. However, once you get through with it, you’ll be aimed directly at the terraced city, so we’ll cover that zone next.

Zul’Drak

Zul’Drak is a spectactularly creepy zone. Crawling with undead, the real horror of Zul’Drak, to my mind, is the theological implication of their desperation and the depths they sink to in attempting to ward off the Lich King: I’m not going to spoil it for you, I’ll just say pay close attention to the quests you get. As a shaman this is some heavy stuff to digest.

However, if you’re just in it for the loot, you’ll get plenty of that as well.

From the quest The Storm King’s Vengeance which is crazy fun once you figure it out, we have the Bracers of Vengeful Flight. Pretty solid for enhancement, with over 108 AP. Caster shamans can get a nice set of pants by killing Malas the Corrupter, the Ceremonial Pike Leggings. They seem more designed for resto than elemental, admittedly.

Finally, the quest Convocation at Zol’Heb will net you the Chestguard of Rampaging Fury. Again we see a lot of attack power here.

The quest Betrayal which follows up, thematically, from your Drak’Tharon Keep run has two potential rewards for shamans. The Choker of Betrayal has a good array of options for a caster shaman and a socket allowing you to customize it for either elemental or restoration as you choose. Meanwhile, the Choker of the Betrayer is physical DPS.

The Ampitheatre of Anguish questline has a lot of interest to a shaman. The final quest, the Champion of Anguish, has three rewards for you to consider. Enhancement Shamans will most likely just get this and go home. Elemental may get this staff, but the ostensibly healing mace available has crit and MP5, making it attractive to both caster specs. At any rate it’s a heck of a fun questline with good rewards.

Once you’re done running around Zul’Drak, it’s time to go into Gundrak. There are several quests that send you in to consider before we move on to the drops inside.

For Posterity will have you collecting tablets, rewarding you with either a physical DPS ring or a caster DPS ring. Gal’darah must pay sends you in to whack the leader of Gundrak and gives you a nice enhancement belt for your trouble. Finally, One of a Kind gets you some caster boots. Better for elemental, but usable as restoration. Now, what about what drops inside?

Gundrak

The instance is full of levers that need to be thrown and trolls that need to be killed. Caster shamans will make sure that the Arcane Focal Signet finds a good home, of course. The Hauberk of Totemic Mastery will make restoration sit up and take notice. The Frozen Scepter of Necromancy is, sad to say, not as good as the healing mace from the Ampitheatre quests, but if you’re enhancement and need an off-spec healing weapon it’s better than nothing. Consider letting the enchanter have the shard, though. Enhancement will find the Cannibal’s Legguards to be a delicious item, I’m sure.

When you come back later on Heroic, the following drops are of interest: Fist of the Deity and Helmet of the Shine.

That should get you through those zones with an idea of what to aim for. Next week, we’ll be trying to get through at least Sholozar and Storm Peaks, possibly Icecrown as well. There’s two instances in Storm Peaks so that may be overly ambitious.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! You didn’t think Scattered Shots was taking the day off, did you? Hopefully, there’s enough of you who aren’t completely zonked out on turkey, ham, or beef to read this.

So by now, I figure most of you are well on your way to 80, and are probably starting to ask yourself: Which reputation should I grind first? There’s tons of ways to choose, be it roleplaying who your character would align themselves with or choosing the one that’s easiest to grind. One of the most popular and most effective though, is pretty simple: Asking yourself which one has the best loot. Today’s Scattered Shots will center around that last one.

If you’re still not sure how to grind reputation in Northrend, or forgot where the quartermasters are, be sure to check out our Wrath 101 post on reputations, as well as our post on the Wolvar and Oracles of Sholozar Basin. Once you’ve done that, or if you remember the basics, read on!

Alliance Vanguard and Horde Expedition

Much like in Burning Crusade, the first faction you encounter in Wrath will be based on your side, and the quartermaster for either side will carry items that are mostly the same stat-wise.

If you’re a fan of Phat Loot Phriday, chances are you may recall why this set of factions is a recommended grind for most Hunters. At revered and level 78, the Alliance will get access to the Sawed-Off Hand Cannon, while the Horde gets the Sin’dorei Recurve Bow. These weapons edge out the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes for DPS, so if you’ve been carrying it around since 70, here’s a nice quick and dirty upgrade.

If you’re a dual wielder, you might find that the level 78 Warsong Shanker, aka the Vanguard Soldier’s Dagger, has a nice outlay of Hunter stats. Finally, if you PvP, you’ll want to pick up the Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator. The arcanum is an exalted reward, while the daggers are revered.

The Kalu’ak

This will likely be the second reputation you encounter in large numbers in Northrend. The Tuskarr are well worth the grind, especially since said grind isn’t too difficult. A quick run through their quests in Howling Fjord alone is more than enough to gain honored.

At honored reputation, you’ll find the pattern for the Dragonscale Ammo Pouch, as well as a good level 76 mail chest piece, the Cuttlefish Scale Breastplate. At Revered and level 78, the Whale-Stick Harpoon should prove a pretty solid weapon of choice for anyone who didn’t get their hands on a badge or Arena weapon or better. Finally, even though it’s not directly Hunter related, I’m going to encourage you to keep grinding to exalted. Not only do you get the best fishing pole outside of the Booty Bay fishing competition, you get a penguin pet. I firmly believe that you can never have enough pets.

The Oracles and the Frenzyheart

Next, we come to the Scryers and the Aldor of Wrath of the Lich King. In this case, I have to say that I believe the Oracles win out, both because they’re not jerks and because they have the better rewards. Sorry Wolvar.

At revered, the level 78 Toothslice Helm not only looks pretty cool, it provides stats that make it pretty competitive with Gronnstalker, although it lacks the metagem slot. At exalted, the Oracle Talisman of Ablution provides not only a great amount of critical strike rating, but free mana on kill, perfect for chain pulling situations. Anything that keeps you out of Aspect of the Viper a little bit longer is probably a good thing, right? To top it all off, you can also buy the Mysterious Egg from the Oracles, which will eventually hatch into a variety of things, including one of three to four different vanity pets.

On the Wolvar side, there’s honestly not much. Their only ranged weapon is thrown, and while it looks cool, it isn’t a Hunter weapon. If you insist on grinding the Wolvar though, the Azure Scrappy Pants at honored aren’t the worst you can do for a leg slot if you don’t mind wearing leather, and at Exalted, you can grab a haste trinket that also gives a 10-second damage buff, which for my money isn’t as good as the Oracle exalted trinket. They have a Disgusting Jar, but so far it doesn’t seem to give out pets like the egg does, just Frenzyheart Brew, which is I suppose is okay if you like looking like a jerk.

Argent Crusade

The Argent Crusade is the reformed Argent Dawn, but there’s more reasons to grind it than just the nostalgia factor. There’s some pretty nice Hunter gear too.

At Honored and level 78, you’ll be able to pick up the Cloak of Holy Extermination, which is essentially a greatly upgraded Dory’s Embrace, shedding the critical strike rating and resilience for some nice juicy Agility. Chances are this cloak will be a good upgrade for you, at least for finishing the grind up to 80.

Revered gives you the opportunity for another ranged upgrade. The Zombie Sweeper Shotgun definitely blows all three of the ranged weapons we were discussing in the last section out of the water, with superior DPS, superior high end damage, and a good outlay of extra stats. You’ll have to wait until level 80 to use it, though.

If you finish the exalted grind for the Crusade, you have one more level 80 reward coming your way: The Polished Regimental Hauberk. It has over double the agility of the Gronnstalker’s Chestguard, and edges it out on most other stats too. Combine this with a very sizable portion of hit rating, and you’ll likely want to consider this upgrade. If you don’t mind the armor hit on yourself or your pet, the Boots of the Neverending Path are pretty solid for Hunter DPS too.

Kirin Tor

If you’re a Beastmastery Hunter, grinding Kirin Tor reputation might give you pause, since many of their Hunter-friendly rewards have haste, which is dangerously close to useless for you. But other specs that need haste will probably be pretty happy with these.

At Honored, the level 78 Spaulders of Grounded Lightning offer a nice outlay of Hunter stats that any Hunter will want to consider. If you’re a PvPer, there’s a bit of resilience on there as well, so it’s a good choice to fill out your gear until you can get a decent Arena rating. Dual wielders may want to take a look at the Lightblade Rivener, which provides agility, attack power, and haste. The other solid Hunter reward is at Exalted, where the Boots of the Twinkling Stars provide intellect, agility, attack power, and haste rating.

Knights of the Ebon Blade

Despite being mostly made up of plate-wearers, the Death Knight faction actually has some pretty useful rewards for other classes. If you’re a Leatherworker, the Nerubian Reinforced Quiver pattern is obtainable at honored.

You’ll definitely want to get at least revered with these guys, as the Arcanum of Torment is the PvE Hunter helm enchantment of choice. In addition, revered reputation also grants you access to the Spaulders of the Black Arrow, a solid set of DPS shoulders. For weapons, the Runeblade of Demonstrable Power is nice for Marksmanship and Survival Hunters, with a solid balance of agility, attack power, haste rating, and critical strike rating that blow old high-end favorites like The Blade of Harbingers out of the water. Dual wielders may also find that the Reaper of Dark Souls is a good upgrade for them. All of these rewards are, of course, level 80.

The Wyrmrest Accord

The Dragons may still be mad at us for that whole Dragonstalker armor deal, because their Hunter rewards are few and far between. Dual wielders may find the Fang of Truth to their liking at honored reputation. If you don’t mind wearing leather, you can also grind to exalted to get the Dragonfriend Bracers, which have a nice amount of attack power, critical strike rating, and agility. And face it, you’ll probably be grinding to exalted eventually for the dragon mount.

The Sons of Hodir

These are another faction you’ll definitely want to grind for, since they provide shoulder enchantments for your end-game. At Honored, you can get the Lesser Inscription of the Axe, and at exalted, the Greater Inscription of the Axe.

In other rewards, the Giant Ring Belt at Honored has some solid Hunter stats, while at revered, you can get some good solid dual-wielder Hunter weapons in the Broken Stalactite and the Stalactite Chopper. And before you ask, no, these mammoth mounts do not come with vendors, sorry.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, you can find an excuse to grind just about any reputation in Wrath you want. In the end, it’s probably up to you to decide what’s most important to you. Me, if I was pressed for time, I’d probably focus on the Argent Crusade, the Oracles, and the Kalu’ak. All three have rewards both useful and fun that I really want to get my hands on. But look over the rewards, take as much time as you need, and then choose. But choose quickly. After all, the next expansion may only be a couple of years away.

Ghostcrawler, in a post to the Damage Dealing forums, outlined upcoming changes to Elemental Shamans. It’s a pretty substantial talent overhaul for the tree, aimed at streamlining and improving scaling at higher levels of gear. (And boy, is that a good thing.) Unlike the recent post changing how totems work as AoE, this is a much more drastic set of changes all told. In case you can’t get it to load at work or what have you, the complete text of the post will be after the jump with commentary by me.

We are making some upcoming changes to the Elemental shaman tree. Our goal was to streamline a few of the utility-based talents while giving shamans a little more damage scaling in later tiers of gear.

1) Unrelenting Storm – reduced from 5 points to 3 points. Bonus is 4/8/12% of your Intellect returned as mana.

Can’t complain here: three points gets you more than five used to, up from 10%.

2) Elemental Warding – now reduces all damage (not just Nature, Fire and Frost) taken by 2/4/6%
3) Elemental Shields – this talent has been removed, since its effects were combined with Elemental Warding.

This is a buff. While 3 points used to get you 10% damage reduction from those three schools, it now gives you 6% against everything, be it holy, physical or what have you. While I expect some shamans will miss that 4% damage reduction from, say, fire AoE splash damage, not many will complain about getting some more reduction against daggers. Folding Elemental Shields into Elemental Warding means we save three points, even if you’re not thrilled with the reduction in how much damage it reduces.

4) Storm, Earth and Fire – reduced from 5 points to 3 points, but keeps around the same net benefit. In addition to current effects, also increases Wind Shock range. The damage bonus to Flame Shock has increased to 60% at 3 ranks. Storm, Earth and Fire has been moved up the tree as well.

Entirely positive. A buff and nothing but a buff.

5) Shamanism – this is a new 5 point talent in the old Storm, Earth and Fire position. Your Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst gain an additional percentage of your bonus damage. We have not finalized the numbers, but it will probably be something like 10% for Lightning Bolt and 20% for Lava Burst at max ranks.

Once they finalize the numbers we’ll know if this is a large buff or a small buff, but it’s definitely a buff.

These changes will be available in the next minor content patch, and are in addition to the AE changes mentioned previously.

I’m still not entirely thrilled with having to lose Totem of Wrath in order to do any significant AoE, but these changes are almost indisputably nothing but buffs to the spec. I’m a little surprised to be honest. Here’s looking forward to patch 3.0.4 and what it brings to elemental shamans.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Yesterday the topic of profession daily quests came up, and there was a little confusion around it. The way the question was phrased combined with how my response was phrased made it sound like most professions have daily quests in Wrath of the Lich King with a couple of exceptions. That is, unfortunately, not true. Of the primary professions, I believe only Jewelcrafting has daily quests. Of the secondary professions, only Cooking has daily quests. Skinners can sometimes skin an Arctic Fur off of beasties in Northrend, and those are used as tokens to purchase recipes. Enchanters do something similar with Dream Shards. They have no normal daily quests, though.

Now with that cleared up, the Q&A! We’ll start with Stormscape’s question…

Does Crusader Aura or On A Pale Horse affect vehicle speed?

I can confirm that Crusader Aura does. My raid’s Protection Paladin was one of the first people on my server with a motorcycle, which is technically a vehicle. He rocks out with his chopper out. I cannot promise that On a Pale Horse does, but I think it’s a pretty safe assumption.

Eisengel asked…

I was just wondering if anyone else found Unholy aura a little… out of place? Blood aura; extra damage and healing, yeah! Frost aura; extra armor and stam (and spell resistance on talenting), yeah! Unholy aura… here we go… the crazy, insane power of an Unholy ex-minion of the Arthas and one-time Knight of the Scourge is… you can run faster! …What?

Hey, don’t underestimate that run speed. It might be ho-hum in 5-mans, but extra movement speed is truly, legitimately useful in raids. Not only for getting out of AOEs and all of that jazz, but from getting from target to target, increasing contact time and thus increasing your DPS.

Plus, there’s no escaping death. Death is inevitable. Especially if it runs faster than you do.

Ness said…

Originally, Death Knights were gonna be available to make on every realm as long as you had a 55 character on one realm. When they changed it to only having a Death Knight on the realm your character was on, I heard it was only temporary and at some point it would change back. Is this true? And if so, when?

We don’t really have an answer for this except that it might change. From what I understand, there were some technical issues that prevented them from allowing this across realms and they may or may not find a fix/workaround for it. All that we know is they might do it, they might not. If you’re waiting to decide on whether you should roll your Death Knight now or wait until Blizzard can allow it crossrealm, I guess the question is how bad do you want to play a Death Knight? If you can wait, wait and see. If you really want to play one, you might want to just cave and powerlevel a throw-away character to 55 somewhere else.

Terethall said…

How much harder are WotLK heroic dungeons than their regular counterparts? When I hit 80 in my levelling greens and blues, will I be successful in heroics with a decent group, or is there a significant gear check on heroic dungeons?

Heroics are far more brutal than their Normal counterparts, but if you’re in mostly Northrend blues you should be alright to start them. I went into Wrath in Tier 6, so I started Heroics pretty much just as soon as I hit 80, which is the point where blues start to catch up to T6. The biggest difference I noticed is that encounters just required a lot more finesse in execution.

We still hardly use CC on trash pulls and AOE it all down, but bosses require a bit more coordination. Loken in Heroic Halls of Lightning will ruin you if you have people who don’t know how to run out of the huge freaking explosions, whereas on normal mode you can sort of blunder through it. If you’re in full level 80ish blues, the claims of people needing to CC in Heroics is completely false. If you’re a little undergeared (greens, sub-80 blues), yeah, play it safe and use a bit of crowd control.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Welcome back! Since yesterday’s picture of Malygos was so awful, I decided to give up on his righteous beard and take a picture of his lightning breath instead. Yeah, see that up there? It hurts. It hurts a lot. Just trust me on that. Let’s get into the Q&A now, eh?

Goorguy asked…

Why is it that tanks are always the group leaders? Why are we always expected to mark mobs? Every time I get in a group to tank for it I will always get thrown the leader. I don’t really mind, but at least once I want to get in a group where someone else was willing to mark for me, instead of the other way around.

It’s usually the tank’s job to set the pace of combat. Not always, but usually. The tank knows what they want to tank, the tank knows what they tend to have trouble with and want crowd controlled, and the tank is the first one into combat and should be ahead of the pack. The tank should know exactly where each mob needs to be when a pull starts. What will she/he be tanking, and what will be sapped/kittened/feared? It’s more important for the tank to know where each individual mob is. The Mage or Rogue or whatever doesn’t need to know all of that. It’s better for the tank to do it in most cases.

Zoidberg asked…

What’s with the cooking daily quest? It seems to give out cooking currency, but I can’t spend the currency in a useful way until I hit 400 cooking. Should I level my cooking to 400 on [Feast]?

Feasts or green recipes. Tradeskills overall take a little more effort now than they did in The Burning Crusade. Rather than your last 10-15 points in a tradeskill being back-breakingly expensive, the whole leveling process is a bit more difficult to make a better curve. So yes, you can either skill up on Feasts or the wide variety of green recipes you have at that level. If you’re a raider, Feasts are actually very useful and mass producing those will be nice to keep costs down on individual raiders. It’s more ‘efficient’ to mass produce feasts, if not the best food in the game for min-maxing If you like Fishing, you can skill fishing at the same time since a lot of your current green recipes are fish. Be warned, you’ll be fishing for a long time.

Terethall asked…

How much gnome could the Lich King punt if the Lich King could punt gnomes?

All of them, plus a Dwarf.

Darkwind asked…

Have any of the WoW Insiders come across any Tailoring dailies? I’ve seen JC, LW and Cooking dailies for tokens, but nothing evident for Tailoring.

Only certain professions have dailies like that right now, not all of them. Tailoring doesn’t have any, neither does Blacksmithing or Engineering or a few other ones. It wouldn’t surprise me if we saw more of those types of things in a future patch, because they add some nice flavor to otherwise boring profession work. I don’t really know that for sure, though.

Algathar asked…

I want to ask a question about Naxxramas concerning the final wing of the raid, the Frostwyrm Wing. I know that the first four wings must be cleared in order to access it, but will this be something you need to do each time the raid resets, or is it a one-off unlock and that’s it? Also, does everyone in the raid group have to have cleared the first four wings in order to access the final wing, or does just one person need to be able to access it in order for everyone to enter? Thanks.

It just opens up after the four wings have been cleared, like a gate… except it’s a teleportation device. You don’t attune to it or anything like that, so you need to clear the entirety of Naxx every reset. As long as you’re in a raid with a raid ID that has this area opened up, you can go to it, even if only one of the people in your raid originally cleared up to that point. Just make sure that one person isn’t stealing the Raid ID from its original group, eh?

Clasifyd asked…

What’s the deal with ‘The Sunreavers’ faction? I’m neutral with them now, and as far as I can see, there’s no way to gain rep with them, and they don’t have a quartermaster so far as I can see. Will these guys be ‘used’ with or after Uludar, or are they just hanging out to make a blood elf presence?

The other day we had a Wrath 101 post that goes into all of that stuff in some detail, so you might want to give that a look. It has a basic look at all of the factions and reputations in Wrath, including that one.

It really can’t be disputed at this point: Varian Wrynn is not fond of the Horde, at all. There will be no Jaina-style mash notes to Thrall coming from Varian any time soon.

If you saw the brief window of time before the launch of Wrath where Varian and his allies talked about the onslaught of Northrend and thought maybe Horde and Alliance could cooperate to take down Arthas, think again. As long as Varian is the King of Stormwind and de-facto leader of the Alliance (since neither Tyrande nor Magni seemed particularly interested in the gig, and nobody likes Frandal) then there’s not going to be anything even remotely resembling peace between the Alliance and the Horde.

Is that bad? Is how Varian is going about his leadership inherently wrong? As someone who plays Horde and Alliance fairly equally, and tries to at least keep my characters personalities distinct (I don’t actually RP much, but anyone who plays with me knows that I tend to play my tauren warrior very differently than my draenei shaman, for instance) I find the addition of the former Lo’Gosh to the mix of world leaders a very interestingly divisive one. Varian is not here to make friends, he’s here to kick ass.

The discussion that follows behind the jump is going to be hugely spoiler heavy. Please be warned.

Reading the most recent comic preview (the one that made Alex consider quitting the comic altogether) I suddenly found myself wondering how they intend to resolve this. Are they both Varian? Was that magical ritual both remember intended to split the King into two more easily manipulated halves? Whatever the case, the King as he appears in Wrath of the Lich King is much more like the aggressive, hot-tempered Varian who is seen in the preview going forth to try and find the person who killed his father rather than stay at home and rule the kingdom the man left him. He’s much more like the gladiator than the diplomat. What does this mean for Stormwind, the Alliance, and we as players?

Well, the list of atrocities personally witnessed by Varian Wrynn are at this point pretty long. This is a man who, as a child, walked in as Garona cut his father’s heart out. Llane Wrynn made the decision to welcome a half-orc into his castle, extended his friendship to her, and she turned and used that friendship to kill him on behalf of Orgrim Doomhammer, and Varian saw it happen. Then the orcs burned Stormwind to the ground, forcing the young king to flee for his life with Anduin Lothar as his only father figure, to grow up in Lordaeron as Lothar begged, cajoled and even demanded various forces join a new Alliance against the orc invaders. Then, as Varian grows up in Lordaeron, guest of King Terenas Menethil, his surrogate father dies at the hands of the same orcs that burned his city and killed his father.

Already we’ve got the roots for a pretty impressive hatred of orcs. Murder your father, destroy your city, then murder the person who is effectively your replacement father. Now, add to this the strain of replacing your father on the throne once Stormwind is rebuilt (and he’s clearly shown spending less time ruling and more time riding around in disguise fighting bandits and trying to find Garona) which led to his being less than on top of the whole Defias fiasco, and you’ve got a young man who clearly feels inferior to the great kings and leaders of his experience, his father, Lothar and King Terenas.

Just in time for Terenas to die horribly at the hands of his traitor son and Lordaeron, the city he spent his formative years in waiting to return to his kingdom, becomes a charnel pit of the walking dead. I can’t imagine Varian was particularly stable or happy before his attempt to broker a peace accord with the Horde (at Jaina’s request, no less) led to him being kidnapped, tortured and magically damaged, winding up on the shores of Durotar with no memory of who he was. Queue the gladiator music as an orc shaman sucker-blasts him with an Earth Shock and enslaves him. All told, Varian/Lo’Gosh is remarkably restrained up until the death of Bolvar in the Wrathgate tragedy.

I find it all very interesting and I even call it the “Jack London” scenario of WoW. If you’ve read Call of the Wild and White Fang then you can see in the Thrall/Varian dichotomy an effort to bring that kind of element to play here: Thrall was the son of a chieftain murdered by his own people, raised by humans and shown both brutality and love from humans, who turns on human ways to embrace his heritage and grows to find the support of various strong figures (Drek’Thar, Orgrim, Grom Hellscream) and who rises to bring civilization to his people, finding support and friendship to this day from figures like Eltrigg, Rexxar, and Saurfang the Elder. Varian, for his part, saw his father, his city and his mentors one by one killed off, grew to adulthood with no support from any elder figures, fell into captivity and only escaped when he embraced the savagery of his situation and exceeded it, and every time he tries to find a peaceful solution has something taken away from him, be it his memory and identity or his support (people like Bolvar, who ruled his kingdom for him while he was away).

Thrall has seen the best and the worst of humanity, while Varian has only seen the worst of orcs. Thrall has built his people a new home in the world they came to destroy, while Varian has lost his home and seen the kingdom that sheltered him destroyed, and now inhabited by Thrall’s allies the Forsaken. At the end of the events of the Wrathgate quests, Thrall is given the unquestioning support of Saurfang while Varian is left not only without Bolvar, but with outright dissent and rebellion from Jaina. The two really are almost perfect mirrors of each other, and it’s fascinating from a story perspective to watch it all play out.

Now, a lot of people don’t like Varian. There are charges that he’s racist (and he is, if you view his hatred for orcs and undead as being biased or not based on actual experience - I would only counter that he has no reason to think better of orcs or undead, and having seen Llane get his heart cut out by a close friend might have soured him on the idea of giving his enemies a chance to get close to him, much less Bolvar dying at the hands of an undead-derived plague made in the very heart of the Undercity itself) or that he’s irrational or emo. I’m not really sure how to respond to the emo idea - generally speaking, personally leading a direct attack on enemy ground is not quite what I think of as emo, but whatever - but in terms of his irrationality, I think it’s clear that everything he does is quite rational if you make the assumptions he has.

Obviously, as a Horde player I find Varian’s assumptions biased and unfair. He’s clinging to the traumas of his past too tightly and using them to justify his current decisions. Orcs are actively trying to change and leave the past in the past, which includes things like their genocidal rampages through Draenor and Azeroth. The elder members of the Horde have memories they can barely stand to deal with and while revenge might make you feel better, it doesn’t bring about a better world. Right now, from a Horde perspective, Varian is just making things worse and dividing everyone’s attention at a time when the Lich King is clearly the bigger threat to everyone.

From an Alliance perspective, though, Varian’s a breath of fresh air. Unlike Magni, Tyrande or Fandral, he’s actively leading, getting out there and doing instead of sitting back mired in various personal issues. He’s giving people a direction, marshalling the troops, and saying enough. To a people who experienced the past few years of Alliance stagnation due to the machinations of a big lizard, that’s awesome right there. To a faction that has seen the Horde blossom, grabbing land all over Kalimdor and squatting right in the ruins of the greatest human kingdom ever, a leader willing to tell the Horde where to get off doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. I can’t imagine the average citizen of Stormwind particularly cares if their King is being fair to the people that burned their city to the ground. They probably wish the orcs had been wiped out instead of held in camps.

If you assume that the new Horde is essentially the same as the old Horde at its heart, then Varian would seem the perfect leader for the Alliance. If instead you view the new Horde as a whole new entity trying to forge a new destiny for its members, then Varian would seem the worst possible leader for the opposing faction at such a time. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing where this new dynamic goes, even though I’ve never been much for worrying about there being enough War in Warcraft. If quests like Battle for the Undercity are the result, then bring on more factional hatred, I say.

A lot of hints and news on the upcoming patch 3.0.4 have been dropped on the forums recently, so like other WoW Insider writers have mentioned on and off, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw it on the PTR in the coming weeks. Before we get ahead of ourselves too much though, there was a lot of neat Paladin stuff announced by Ghostcrawler yesterday. A lot of it is simple stuff we’ve sort of expected would happen, but there’s still some interesting new stuff in there.

• Divine Shield: Penalty changed so that all damage done is reduced by 50% instead of an attack speed penalty.

Interesting change, and admittedly a needed one. I think Retribution Paladins being able to go immune and use the entire range of their special abilities at full damage was a bigger problem recently than their actual damage. Yes, even with the cooldown on Divine Shield. Their damage was way, way overpowered before, but it’s more in line now and I would rather see this change than another hit to their overall DPS.

• Sacred Duty: This talent no longer affects the attack penalty of Divine Shield and Divine Protection, but grants additional Stamina.

Again, good. While this means that Protection Paladins still suffer the the -50% damage ‘debuff’ or Divine Shield, that really shouldn’t matter at all. Divine Protection is our bread and butter in groups, and it hardly makes a difference soloing.

• Avenging Wrath, Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Hand of Protection have a shard, 30-second cooldown. The Forbearance effect is no longer triggered by Avenging Wrath.

This is good! This is what I believe was the plan originally, but they couldn’t hotfix this large of a change, if I understand correctly. I wish they had pushed this change a bit earlier, but we’ll live. My only concern is that Hand of Protection is on the same shared cooldown. I suppose it makes sense from a PvP perspective, I can understand why you’d want things that way in Battlegrounds or the Arena, but it seems… off in PvE. You get the option of defending yourself or defending your groupmates. Funky.

• Judgement of Wisdom now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.

Ouch, nerfbat. I suppose I can understand it, they actually want mana users to worry about their mana in Wrath of the Lich King, and Judgement of Wisdom contributed to DPS classes still not caring. Only Healers felt the strain. Also, the way it is right now benefits high mana classes like Mages moreso than low mana classes, like the very Retribution Paladins putting up this Judgement. This normalizes it a lot. It also has a negative impact on Holy Paladin soloing, but… hey, Dual Specs on the horizon. Just go Ret!

• All mana drain effects now drain a percentage of max enemy mana.

This is intended to help classes with smaller mana pools, like Retribution Paladins. This is good. Sapping half of a Paladin’s manapool in one cast is stupid, stupid, stupid. I don’t even PvP, and I know it was stupid.

• Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.

I’m going to assume this is in addition to its previous effect, because it’s an extremely silly change otherwise. Assuming common sense is correct, this is a nice boost for Holy Paladin soloing, running counter to the change to Judgement of Wisdom, but… hey, no big deal. If you solo as a Healer, more damage is always a good thing. You might have to drink a little more after this patch, but at least you’ll do more DPS, too.

• All Paladins receive a single-target taunt as a base ability.

Yes. Yes! Why did this take so long to happen!? Freaking Death Knights got one before Protection Paladins did. But who cares, we finally have it. No more silly games with our taunts, no more dealing with Righteous Defense cocking itself up when your mob decides to change targets last second, none of that crap. I can just… push Taunt, and Taunt my mob. Thank you. And we actually have two taunts now, just like everyone else! We’re not the murlocs of the Taunt world anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, head on over to Dalaran and buy yourselves a cake. It’s on me.*

President-elect Barack Obama will press his aggressive plans to deal with his nation’s woes Wednesday when he holds his third press conference in as many days focused on the stricken US economy.

Obama is also expected to round out his economic appointments at the 1545 GMT briefing, which comes after the Federal Reserve said it would pump a massive 800 billion dollars more into the economy to try to stabilize the US financial system.

Unusually for a president-elect, Obama is publicizing his economic agenda well in advance of taking office in a bid to reassure jittery investors around the world.

Obama, who will be inaugurated on January 20, said he was not trampling on President George W. Bush’s authority but insisted the economic emergency demanded that he present a clear sense of direction for the years ahead.

“I think it’s important, given the uncertainty in the markets and given the very legitimate anxiety that the American people are feeling, that they know that their new president has a plan and is going to act swiftly and boldly,” he said Tuesday.

“We don’t intend to stumble into the next administration. We are going to hit the ground running.”

Obama vowed to erase wasteful spending from the deficit-ridden US budget Tuesday after urging Congress Monday to get to work on a new stimulus package “right away” and warning there is not a “minute to waste” in dealing with an economy “trapped in a vicious cycle.”

Obama acknowledged Tuesday that his plans to inject billions of dollars in stimulus spending would drive the deficit still higher, but stressed the long-term benefits of investment in crumbling US infrastructure and health care systems.

“If we are going to make the investments we need, we also have to be willing to shed the spending that we don’t need,” the president-elect told his second news conference.

Obama said his immediate plans to create 2.5 million jobs through an infrastructure spending spree which will require a heavy outlay — reportedly as much as 700 billion dollars.

“But as soon as the recovery is well under way, then we’ve got to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure that we’re not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation,” he said.

“We can’t sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists, or interest groups.”

The US government closed its books on the 2008 fiscal year September 30 with a record deficit of 455 billion dollars, and many analysts say the current fiscal year will end with a whopping gap of one trillion dollars.

The economy is staring at recession after contracting by 0.5 percent in the last quarter, according to the latest government data.

Obama has pledged to honor Bush’s far-reaching market interventions but at the same time, is issuing veiled criticisms of the outgoing president’s piecemeal approach as he vows a coordinated plan of action for the economy.

On Tuesday, he said “I don’t think that there’s any question that we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction and not continue the same old practices that have gotten us into the fix that we’re in.”

Obama’s economic team has already begun work on developing recommendations to take to Congress, the White House and the Federal Reserve in the coming weeks.

While Bush has been at pains to keep Obama abreast of developments, most recently over a bailout for stricken banking giant Citigroup, the Democrat reaffirmed that “there is only one president at a time.”

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has said the country’s visitor arrivals and tourism receipts are expected to fall short of this year’s targets.

STB had targeted 10.8 million visitor arrivals and S$15.5 billion in tourism receipts for 2008. But the latest figures for October showed a further decline in the tourism industry.

Visitor arrivals to Singapore last month reached 843,000, a drop of 8.1 per cent compared to October last year.

Indonesia, China, Australia, India and Malaysia were Singapore’s top five visitor-generating markets, accounting for 51 per cent of total visitor arrivals for the month of October.

Singapore’s hotels also saw a 0.3 per cent drop in room revenue compared to October last year.

The average occupancy rate was estimated to reach 82 per cent in October, a decline of 6.8 percentage points from a year ago. But the average room rate last month was estimated at S$241, up 8.4 per cent over October 2007.

Meanwhile, STB said since June this year, Singapore has seen a drop in visitor arrivals, reflecting the impact of the current global economic slowdown on consumer sentiments and discretionary spending.

STB said it will continue its efforts to increase visitor spending during the year-end festive period.

Thai Prime Mi