GameSpy: Is the Death Knight's damage-dealing capability mostly magic-based, or physical? We know that they're the first class to inflict a disease effect.

Brack: There's a disease damage over time effect, there's physical abilities, a lot of summon-type creature abilities where you have creatures brought in to deal additional physical damage.
GameSpy: So if we were to try and find their niche if they want a DPS role in a party, as opposed to tanking, would they come in for a slot similar to where you'd put a Fury Warrior, or a caster class?
Brack: I'd think more in line with a Fury Warrior is a better way to think about it.
GameSpy: How will the Death knight noah affect other classes with similar roles, and what are you doing to make sure that those other classes are still viable and welcome?
Brack: The phrase that we're using for the Death Knight is "epic but equal." It's an epic class in terms of title, it's an epic class in terms of how you get one, but it's equal to all the other classes. They're not going to be the uber-class. I was asked, "what's going to happen when there's a raid with one healer and 24 Death Knights?" That's not going to happen, that raid will wipe on the very first boss. You're going to need all the various classes, just as you did before.

As a melee-damage dealer, a Death knight noah serves a role similar to a Fury Warrior, or an Enhancement Shaman, or I guess a damage-dealing Druid. But the idea isn't for the Death Knight to push out any of those other classes. In fact, quite the opposite.

GameSpy: But the idea is for them to be a viable main tank for your raiding guild.
Brack: Absolutely.
GameSpy: So they could supplant the Protection Warrior, the Protection Paladin or the Feral Druid?
Brack: Sure.
GameSpy: Will there be different specs, or will you be speccing primarily in Frost or something for tanking?
Brack: We think of Blood runes as being the more tanking-type runes. We'll have Frost as more of a crowd-control type rune. We haven't really gotten into what the ideal specs are going to be for the blade configuration, in terms of whether you're going to have Unholy, Frost, Blood and how many of each. You'll have six slots, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of theory-crafting as to what the best options will be.