Class Takes Center Stage and System Unchanged in Battle for Azeroth

To accomplish these design goals, the team has broken Class Design into several categories:

Class Uniqueness & Utility
 - more emphasis on what makes a class unique
 - greater distinction among its capabilities, "especially when it comes to utility".  - Developers want to provide more differentiation in this area and want to create situations where classes can do something that others cannot. This creates team dependence on one another.
 - adding new abilities or re-adding previously removed abilities will help provide "a more unique signature". Others that are widely shared may be removed or reduced. An example given was AoE stuns
 - devs are looking at different specs' strengths & weaknesses with regard to each one's main role and ensuring that "everyone has something to get excited about and an opportunity to shine".
 - teams will collaborate to ensure that all content types "create opportunities for different types of class strengths to shine"

Talent System Refinements
 - the system will remain largely unchanged, though refinements will be made. "Choices within a row should be meaningfully varied, but also should not feel like they are simply a test of which is best in a particular setting".
 - talents should be "generally consistent" with your role.
 
Artifacts Here & Gone
 - since Artifacts will be gone in BfA, the process of "parting with ARtifacts produces a complex set of decisions about how to adjust the base classes to play well in their absence".
 - the team feels that the pacing of a spec's rotation was too dependent on Artifacts so their removal could have an adverse effect on players' rotations
 - resource regeneration or reduction of cooldowns may help mitigate the removal of Artifacts
 - some traits may be turned into "permanent parts of a class"