As a Druid, the core abilities involve three single-target and one multiple-target mage-like damage spells; four single-target and one multiple-target priest-like healing spells; a Cat Form containing basic damaging special moves similar to a rogue; a Bear Form yielding armor and health similar to a Warrior; poison- and curse-cleansing spells; and a range of utility spells like various travel forms, crowd control, and a nice group buff. Spending Talent points in the Talent trees allows Druids to specialize their play style as they see fit.
   The first core ability is Balance. Druids excel at their assortment of damage spells and special abilities including an additional Moonkin Form, turning them into an efficient ranged spellcaster that is somewhere between a mage and a shadow priest in play style in the equivalent of plate armor. They lack true AoE capabilities but excel at nuking single targets as well as providing effective off-healing and crowd control support for their group or raid. The Burning Crusade brought the Balance tree enough power to make a properly geared balance Druid decent competition with the pure caster classes for top DPS position.
   The second one is Ferel. The Ferel tree enhances both of the Druid's melee forms, allowing them to tank and melee DPS more efficiently. The Talents in this tree usually enhance both forms equally and specialization into one of the two roles depends mostly upon gear. Feral Druids are effectively a Warrior and a Rogue with the ability to heal themselves to boot. Lack of downtime between fights and flexibility in their armor and DPS are their strong points.
The last one is Restoration. Restoration Druids take points in improving their assortment of healing spells and also in special abilities including an additional Tree of Life Form. Their resurrection spell Rebirth is the only resurrection spell that can be cast in combat, offset by its 20-minute cool down. With Patch 3.0.2, Druids get the "regular" resurrection spell Revive, now making them viable main healers for 5-man instances. Restoration Druids have by far the best heal-over-time spells of all healing classes, effectively allowing them to continue healing while incapacitated. In addition, the mobility offered by their heal-over-time spells makes them especially effective in PvP. This together with their excellent mana efficiency and in-combat resurrection ability makes them an effective, albeit unique healing class.
All in all, Druids are quite an uncommon class. In the game, some find them difficult to level, but others proclaim them the best soloing class. What's more, the Druid population is extremely low, there have been fewer examples of a well-played Druid for other players to have experience of and emulate. In order to truly fulfill a hybrid role, Druids require several complete sets of gear above and beyond any resist sets that most classes will possess. This is always expensive in time, bag space, and gold. Unlike most other hybrid classes, a Druid does not begin as a true hybrid with some abilities in each of their domains; instead they acquire utterly new branches of ability when they advance to certain specific levels. Thus a Druid is only complete at comparatively high levels. This can make the very early game for the Druid more difficult than for other classes. However, once mastered, the Druid is one of the most formidable classes in the game with much to contribute to any group, and can be extremely rewarding and enjoyable to play.