I've just been looking over the restoration staff skill line posted on Tamriel Foundry and it seems great for healing allies but how do you heal yourself? I was hoping this would be a good backup weapon for dps classes to heal themselves while soloing.

Skills that say "allies" also effect the caster. All of those spells hit you also.

Ahh that's awesome ty. I'll probably pick it up on all of my chars then as I solo more than I group

All of the classes have at least some form of self healing, depending on how you build or play you might not need a resto staff unless you want to be a group healer of some sort, but it wouldn't hurt at all.

On the beta I played around quite a bit with the nightblade and the siphon line but I still felt like I needed additional healing. Though that could just be because I svcked lol!

Well, I never said they were GREAT sources of healing, but from my experience they can handle most situations well. If you're in over your head, though, you're still in over your head.

Synergies don't though, right?

Nah, you can't activate your own synergies either.

Maybe I svcked aswell, but it didn't come off as a valid playstyle to me. It was only after adding a nuke that I stopped dying before the mobs. Siphon, at least at very low levels, is simply not strong enough.

Next beta session I was planning on a night blade bowmen specifically because of siphon...

First I tried templar.

Now I want to try DK bowmen and night blade bowman, although medium armor doesn't seem to do all that much, stamina regen and crit is all nice, but if caught, it offers nothing.

A nuke? Was skill line was that from?

What skill line was the nuke from?

Not sure if serious, so I'll answer seriously: "Nuke" is gamer slang for a heavy burst skill, particularly when referring to spells. He basically said he added a heavier damage skill to his bar and saw better results damage-wise.

I used flurry form dual wield to nuke... quite effective, but not excactly siphon-style gameplay.

EDIT: I guess I was hoping for siphon-effects to apply to all damage made. As in, I put Strife on a mob, and a small percentage of all damage I do is returned to me as healing. It seemed to me that is was only a part of the damage Strife did that was returned.

I'm an old EQ gamer and when I hear nuke, I just think fireball

Yeah, some older RPGs actually had "Nuclear Blast" spells for high level casters.

Restoration Staff as a primary weapon is actually a reasonable option. It does reasonable damage (laser cutter style if you're power attacking) and you can find damage spells in other skill lines (class and non-class alike). The self-healing is handy, and if you're playing a summon-using sorcerer, it keeps those things alive a lot longer.