There is little evidence that druids have a rightful place in the arena. There are only 59 druids that have over 2200 rating, compared to priests that have more than 100 people over 2300 rating. That is a huge difference and a sad fact for druids. But does this mean that druids are useless? No, but it's generally considered to be a disadvantage to use a druid in your team. There is also only 4 EU balance druids over 2200 rating, still I chose to play one. I will explain why later.
Millenium is one of the few teams that has succeeded to reach the top using a druid. That druid is also a balance druid. Quite an exciting fact for the few balance druids out there. Unfortunally, Millenium chose to respecc their druid to feral after a while. I suspect it was because they found feral more useful in longer games, which tend to be more common for the high level teams. From what I've heard their druid is excellent at cycloning, even after speccing feral. That is impressive, it's very hard to do cyclone good while feral specced. Because you don't wanna waste mana and combopoints shapeshifting much. Millenium is using a little different variant of the "FOTM"-setup, which is priest, paladin, shaman, warrior and mage. They have replaced the mage with a druid. My theory is that the druid is their weak spot, regardless of how good he may be. This is why they won't become the best.
Medley (my team) took notice of Milleniums success and decided to make a team with the same setup. If they could do it, we should be able to reach the top as well. At the moment, we are a bit undergeared and unexperienced. But I believe we have great potential. We have already reached top50 in the Cyclone battleground, even with little practise. There are certain teams however we have problems against. Casterteams with alot of CC can outmanouver us if we don't pick the right targets. Teams with rogue and warrior is also very dangerous. Partly because of alliance racials. If I had warstomp I would have a much easier time getting away from rogues. It's ridiculously unfair. Rogues are quite a hassle for me at the moment, need to learn how to avoid them better. If their rogue attacks me and the warrior attacks our priest, we are in trouble because I can't CC that much. Sometimes the rogue can even switch to the priest after having stunned me, it usually ends up with our priest dying (doesn't help that he is undergeared too). Our only chance then is that our shaman and warrior has killed the opposite teams healer meanwhile, then we can make use of our good survivability and win. Balance druids are very good against 2 x warrior-setups, but sometimes they are just too good geared for my team. We have only lost against 2-warrior-setups three times though. Another problem for us is my low dps, if I stop CC'ing for a while and go for burst we can get into alot of trouble. I do more good preventing damage than causing it. If I don't CC the other teams warrior for a while, then our priest is doomed. I can however help causing a bit of damage, but sometimes it is just not enough. Then we have to rely on our survivability, which is not always possible. If I was playing a mage I would have alot more burst-damage and more versatile CC, while still having alot of survivability.
Mages versus balance druids. FOTM-setups are better in vanilla form, it's a sad fact for balance druids. Even with reduced silence because of itemization, introduction of arena-water and lowered survivability of mages, they still shouldn't be replaced by balance druids. FOTM-setups are very agressive and balance druids simply can't keep up with that. Silence, polymorph and the high burst is priceless with the warrior and the shaman. Does this mean that I will probably keep my team down? Unfortunally yes.
Where does balance druids fit in. Balance druids should fit into teams that doesn't aim to burst the enemy down, but outlast them with manadrain etc. The healing, CC'ing and survivability should be better suited for teams with such a motive. Medleys shaman is going AFK for two months, this could be a great opportunity for me to shine. If the shaman is replaced with a warlock (making it: priest, paladin, warlock, warrior and druid), we are able to manadrain the other teams healers and probably outlast them. It's a bit harder now with the arena water, but we simply have to learn to keep everyone in combat. Going feral is not really a good option. It's not as strong as other dps-classes and you won't get those super cyclones in every game (especially with feral specc). That is why ferals will lose alot of games against vanilla FOTM-setups. My reason for picking balance is because it brings something unique to the table, the best spell in the game (cyclone) available to be thrown all the time. Restoration druids are too easily thrown into bearform and feral druids can't throw cyclone in feral forms.
My advice for druids is to go restoration if you want to play in the arena. This is your safest bet. You won't be as good as a priest, but you will definitely be good enough to get a high rating with your team. And if you pick restoration, get feral charge. It's excellent when you have to go into defensive mode while attacked. It's also good for a bit of extra CC'ing when that is needed. Leave the balance tree for us 5 who are nuts enough to try it out vs top teams. Because I truly believe Medley will be a team over 2200 rating very soon, if we manage to replace our shaman during this period.
//Elora, Warders of the 7th sigil.
(btw, this is the second time I had to rewrite this, so apprechiate it please)