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Street kicked things off by taking a close look at the Death Knight, the new expansion's signature class. The design goal for the Death Knight was to give players another tanking option, one that could share plate gear with other classes and be effective either as a tank or DPS character. They wanted the new class to have a unique feel, so they introduced the idea of "runic power," where the Death Knight charges up and uses runes to deliver big effects. A system of "presences" was developed, allowing Death Knights to determine what kind of damage they did and whether or not they'd generate a lot of hate from mobs.
Most interesting is how the Death Knight talent tree was balanced, which gives us a good indication of the direction the team will take with the rest of the game's classes in the future. Typically, players can choose from three talent trees, which often break down into specific roles (for example: "The tanking tree," "The DPS tree," and the "PvP Tree"). That really limited options. With the Death Knight, the idea is that talent trees determine your style of play, not your role. The "Blood" tree focuses on melee combat and healing. The "Frost" tree features a lot of bursting damage. And the "Unholy" tree emphasizes disease abilities and the use of minions. In either case you can be an effective tank or DPS character, so players are free to choose talent trees that fit their personal styles.

The Death Knight went through several revisions. Originally runes were customizable, so you could load up on six of one type of rune or spread them out. The team ditched this idea after some playtesting, because it caused players to ignore a lot of the cool abilities of the class and made it less flexible. ("It sucked," Street admitted.) In the final build of the game, players will have some customizability in that they can choose to convert runes into "Death Runes" to unleash really powerful effects.

Diseases are also a key part of the Death Knight lore, and in the original design, dozens of different diseases would pop off almost randomly. Ultimately the team wanted to give the player more control over how diseases worked, and in the retail version of the game diseases work like combos, allowing you to hit a creature with a disease that'll set up a big attack for you.

Street admits that the new class has a little bit of a learning curve to it, but it should carve out a new niche in the WoW spectrum and will reward players for figuring it out.