I am a bit torn between the mystic and the inquisitor for my healer and was hoping to get a little input. I have done some research and know they can both heal groups equally as well but am wondering if one was stronger as far as soloing (with a merc) and doing quests. I have read that the inquisitor is one of the better soloers out of all the classes but am not sure why that is so over the mystic.
I have never played a Mystic. I can tell you from an Inquisitor's perspective that if you stack all of your damage reactives on a mob and concentrate on MA and Flurry you can really tear apart enemies with ease.
All three of the melee healers (inquisitor, mystic and warden) can solo very well even without a merc. None of them, in my experience, is stronger solo, they just play differently.
My own personal opinion would be that Inquis is the better one for soloing... steadfast just rocks like that. Plus I'm a huge fan of the punishment line... making a mob take damage just for doing what it does naturally is pretty win. After inquis I think I would give it to warden. dps is decent, and their heals are fast enough that you can stay alive even with a few mobs beating on you. i have the least experience with mystic, but that was fun as well... even with the weak dog sneezing itself to death.
Of course i'm biased but I've got a 95 Inquisitor and a 95 Mystic and a 95 Warden...... and the Inquis wins the soloability award for me. Not only Steadfast but nice reactive heals, a ton of damage abilities and procs; I do danged good dps even while healing a group. Leeroy's plate armor-wearing self is less squishy by far than a warden and I can break control effects on the Inquisitor unlike a mystic. Being able to take a hit or two in a heroic dungeon group is a big plus! Watching one of my druids or shamans drop dead from heal agro is just as frustrating as all heck.......and they don't get the Heroic Tree ability Immaculate Revival: not only rezzes the Inquisitor but their whole group. And don't forget VERDICT! Being able to kill outright the mob at a certain percentage of its health is one of the coolest abilities. Once you have your epic weapon (and convert it via the quest Epic Repercussions) you get a Group Cure that is castable while moving and has a fast refresh, and heals for every detriment cured. What's not to like?
Problem with the mystic is the ultra squishy spirit pet. It gives important buffs for the mystic, yet it dies easy and the mystic has to waste valuable combat moves healing it a lot. The inquisitor is a great soloer, but the closer you get to highest level, the more damage you seem to take, and the less damage you seem to give. I found the need to group with my husband or son once I got to the Fens in Kunark. This was pre merc though. She does OK when she had a paladin merc now. A nice thing about the warden is the druid circle port you can cast with almost no cool down. Also all the fun shape changes, and more cures. Plus a movement speed buff. Since inquisitors are a free class, I recommend buying the warden class and also bring up an inquisitor. Don't waster SC buying the mystic class. (Though for grouping, mystics do fill needs for specific types of boss battles and do have those group short term wards.)
I prefer my warden over my inquissitor.. for the same reason leeroy likes his inquissitor. Great dps even while healing a group. HoTs cast super fast but, for soloing, all the wards, heals and damage reduction the proc for dps are what takes the cake for me.
Both are good. Play the one you like most. All helaers have a different gameplay. For example: I like the melee warden and inquisitor but not the mystic. Shaman is more fun when casting. Druids cast fast, the others a bit slower. Shaman and clerics heal pro-active, druids not. In the end the class gameplay has to be fun or the whole game is boring. Overland soloing is no problem for all classes. And once you need a merc any healer is able to keep up a tank or dps class.
As other's have said, any of the three melee healers (don't count the Warden out!) will be very effective solo. My main is a Mystic so I can give some additional insight since the other contributors seem to have the least experience with Mystic. I have always found the Mystic a great solo toon. Wards are king, and the dog is actually a huge asset if you spec AA correctly (you'll find that you have a stoneskin running all the time, and the dog only dies if you don't manage agro properly or don't position him out of frontal range - both of which take practice). Although the Mystic only wears chain, they have access to a lot of defensive boosts through AA and gear choices. This lets you get block chance, avoidance, and mitigation up to where you can take several licks from a big mob without going down and that gives you time to heal/ward and recover. The mystic also gets what are arguably the two best beneficial spells in the game: Bolster and Spirit Tap. Power management will be your biggest issue early on, but after 80 and ER you'll have Spirit Tap for restoring your power when needed, and there's a lot you can do to increase your power-pool as you go. Mystics also get a heal boost from Wis from their myth buff so putting a lot into Wis is a good idea anyway and that will further increase your power-pool. Also, if you take your toon as far as you can, and start getting into the upper-end gear, there may actually be content that you can solo that an Inq might not be able to do, strictly because: wards > reactives > hots. But when I say that I'm talking about "make your own fun" solo, so not anything that was intended to be solo. As far as intended solo content goes, either class should be effectively the same. The deciding factor should be which class you find the most fun. You should try all three for a while and then decide.
Unless the mystic pet is totally awful and the Defiler pet is tough and awesome, I don't find this to be a problem - at all. You just have to make sure to joust the pet out with you if you move - and don't send it in when it's not going to be positioned correctly to avoid whatever damage the mob is doing (frontal, tail swipe..w/e). My pet hardly ever dies unless I'm totally not paying attention, I don't find it squishy at all.
In my experience there are two key things needed to make the dog survive. He needs his AE blocker and his Stoneskin. So you have to have gone down the Shaman Strength tree to "Spiritual Foresight", and need to have taken the Heroic AA "Enhance: Spirit Companion". Without these two enhancements you may very well find the dog dying all the time. But as previously stated, even with these enhancements you still have to make sure he's positioned so as not to get hit with frontals. As far as jousts go you'll find he survives most of them with the AE blocker so you only have to pull him back on hits that blockers can't stop. I find it helpful to turn off all auto-protect on the pet until after the tank has pulled and positioned the encounter. Then I turn protect back on if it is a large group encounter, or just manage the dog manually if its a small or single mob encounter.
