Disciple has a lot going for him. You can generate your class resource on demand with a ritual, your group heal has a very short cast time and your gear allows you to have more armor than other healing classes. If, on top of that, you stack armor talismans, toughness jewelry and use the right aura you simply become a punching bag that doesn't have to rely on other mechanics to survive. The effect this loadout has on your healing output is negligible because willpower scales very poorly. Being able to generate your class resource at will is also very important because it's a reliable way to heal continuously with little effort.
A Zealot is remarkable in other ways. He has the most diverse arsenal of healing spells of all classes. This means many ways to convert AP in to health making him a versatile healing machine which, if used properly, will excel in any situation. Some of the additional healing spells are also independent of target being in the same party as you which is a huge **** deal for your score, especially if you are soloing.
And then there is the Shaman. It pains me to describe the Shaman because I love this class to death but the shortcomings are too obvious not to name. The reason Shamans are at the bottom in terms of healing is tragically simple: class mechanic doesn't help you heal. It sounds great on paper but in reality trying to cast dots to build up your class resource puts you monstrously behind in score since by the time you finish doing it not only is the damage already healed by someone else but you are also out of **** AP. Your survival depends a lot on your ability to make detaunts count as well as a careful choice of tactics. If I remember correctly on Live shamans were mostly used for their debuffs, and other creative methods of f
ckery and not so much for actual healing.
With all that out of the way let's talk about the scores.
The maximum limit of healing that can be done in a scenario equals total damage taken by your team. Think of it as a pie. The more healers there are on your team the more competition you have for the largest slice of it. (That's not taking in to account the ability to heal that damage i.e. being within range of the player who is taking the damage, having the AP to heal, etc.)
A simple conclusion follows: group composition decides what healing scores look like in scenarios more than anything else. Having stared at group frames for god knows how many hours I could write a dissertation on this subject. To be on top of the healer scoreboard you simply have to be near players who take a lot of damage and who are hopefully in the same party as you. It doesn't matter what class you are a long as you know what you're doing. It just doesn't. Most of the time if you queue up solo you roll the dice on these factors and as a result your score can vary massively regardless of your skill.
If you are the best dok on the server but you are stuck with two other healers in your party alone while party 1 is a premade with two shamans it doesn't matter how long your aoe takes to cast or how much of a pianist you are with the keyboard. You will lose in score and you will lose hard because you had to compete with 4 other assholes for a piece of the pie. That basically means that two other guys were left alone with the pie while you had to sit in timeout.
Generally having more than two healers per party in a scenario is cancer but a cancer that must be endured because people are perfectly within their right to play what ever class they want be it something useful or a DPS zealot.
On the flip side think of the benefits of being among the privileged few healers in a balanced group. A premade knows where it's going. A premade sticks together. A premade guards the weakest links. For a healer these things mean a massive boost in score regardless of what class that healer is. If you die more than once it's usually a death sentence for your healing score because by the time you get back in to action your competition is already 20k ahead. Being guarded helps a lot on that front but then again a dok is already guarded by his gear so there is that.
Then there's a matter of outhealing your competition within the premade/party. This is almost a task of its own and it's here class differences become very important. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses and forge a play style accordingly.
Disciples are resilient and self sufficient. They skip the hassle of setting up a scheme for AP regeneration and go straight for that sweet sweet aoe spam. They shine when your entire group takes a little damage all time. There is no way to keep up with the aoe in that situation. The best you can do is HoT as many friendlies as possible. Burst healing is where dok falls short so situations where there are a few heavily damaged friendlies usually give an opportunity to get ahead.
Zealots are versatile and brutally efficient. They can heal one target for A LOT or they can heal everyone a little. Most importantly they can cash in on the damage done to players outside of the party. Very difficult to go up against a zealot who knows what he's doing.
Shamans are like a middle class family. They either work hard with what they have and do really well or **** up one too many times and slip in to mediocrity. AP stalls is their greatest weakness. Sure, you can drain AP from enemies but the drain itself costs AP to cast so it becomes critical to figure out the interval with which to cast it so that you always have enough. Picking the right target is not easy either. Tanks almost always block it unless hit from behind and enemy healers will most likely disrupt it. Your best bet is to pick an enemy dps and hope he actually has some AP to drain.
