How do druids fare in Lordareon?

[Krellian]

Hey guys, Krellian here.
Well, as the tittle suggests, im looking to return to Lordareon after a some good time away. But the thing is: ive decided to start fresh and a character ive never done before. In the end, ive chosen to roll a druid, for its multiple options. But, before that, i want to know about the comunity's opinion about druids, so i want to ask:

1 - Which spec are druids most desired to perfom? Personally i want to make a combo between heal/cast dps, tank/melee dps or tank/heal;

2 - Is there a faction more PVE active and more friendly than the other? If so, which side you guys suggest?

3 - If Druids are NOT a good idea, please give me another suggestion
PS: please no more paladins. Ive played them so much i got bored.
PSS: Also no Death Knights, at least for now, because i dont have a lv 55 character anymore.

Thank you for everyone so replies.

[Shiruba]

1) All of those combos are potentially good, though in my experience it's nice to have DPS/offrole because it's weird to swap between a tank and a healer in a raid setting as far as raid composition is concerned, and you won't be able to share gear between them at all. Balance/resto and feral/feral are both reasonable combos (especially the first one, as you don't gem bear and cat the same, but the actual pieces will be similar). I recommend trying them out a little bit and see which playstyle you prefer, if you're not sure yet.

2) Have played mostly Horde for the past five years, so can't give an objective answer. Horde seems clearly more active in general at primetime in the Americas, but in European primetime it seems about equal. In general, I would say Horde is more PVE-oriented, and Alliance is more PVP-oriented, but you can find plenty activity for both on both.

3) Druids are strong in every spec in PVE, you're free to play what you like (Resto Druid is not usually part of a traditional 4-heal setup for 25-mans, but is usually part of a 5 or 6-heal setup [6 is only used on certain bosses, like Sindragosa] because of their excellent raid coverage and utility from Revitalize + general druid utility)