I've been playing a lightning sorcerer, and I've been enjoying it. I was wondering about the sorcerer's abilities when in content like solo flashpoints or Heroic 2+. In other classes I've played, I was more or less able to just set companion to healer, and I clear harder solo content without ever having to touch a defense-related ability.

When I play Sorcerer, I'm constantly having to self-heal or use defensive cooldowns just to survive. Is this normal? I guess I thought since lightning is a DPS spec, It would have survival similar to other DPS classes. Or is Sorcerer just a healer pretending to be a damage-dealer?

Thanks for any advice

A Lightning Sorcerer can solo Heroic Star Fortresses, can complete Eternal Championship in 15 minutes (there's an achievement), can complete MM KOTFE and KOTET chapters with a companion.

Familiarity with the Discipline and its abilities, rotation, gear, and Influence level with companion make a difference.

I appreciate the reply. I can certainly learn the class, I was just wondering about squishyness (not a word, I know...), specifically for solo content.

So, it kind of boiled down to, is it normal for sorcerer to have to self-heal in, say, a Heroic 2? Self-heals and defense CD's are a normal part of the rotation in solo content?

I got so used to steamrolling heroics as a warrior, I wanted to make sure this was the normal for sorcerers.

If you have a healer companion with you, self-heals and DCDs should not be required in Heroics. Looking up some guides might help. The discipline can output 12k dps with ease in scaled level 70 content. Corresponding DPS output in lower levels means fights don’t get out of control and exceed your companion’s healing bandwidth.

Having said that, using Static Barrier whenever you’re taking damage is a good practice; with the right Combat Proficiencies it becomes a good offensive and defensive cooldown.

May be you can specify a particularly challenging Heroic and how long a fight in it is lasting? Use Starparse to check your #s and companion’s healing #s.

I tend to use crowd control rather than DCD's for heroics. I use offensive cooldowns for champion enemies. DCD's I don't usually need unless I smack a yellow guy in that bar fight mission on Mek-sha. If I do, I need to use ALL of them to stay alive.

But I will say, when you pop static barrier + cloud mind (with suppression utility) + unnatural preservation (with unnatural vigor utility), you are nearly invincible for some time. Add to that the enduring bastion and a medpac and you are pretty close to the most difficult to kill class there is. I wouldn't call sorc/sage squishy at all, from that perspective.