You only need to have the staff equiped and active to get XP in that line.
I'd recommend you use damaging skills while going solo because restoration/healing alone will make killing things needlessly hard. Spamming the cliffracer skill should be enough. Don't know how well the ice works for dps though as I play stam warden, but I'm sure it'll work too.

Once you've hit 160CP with that character I'd recommend getting Olorime and Jorvuld together with the Earthgore healer set. If you don't have access to all of those (Summerset, Dragonbones, Horns of the Reach) may Stendarr have mercy upon your soul.

Trials start on any level if you find a group but from 160CP onwards the drops will matter.
Battlegrounds are pvp 4vs4vs4 arena battles.

- You don't need a separate 'dps build' for leveling, as you have dps skills in your skill lines even as a healer. If you queue for dungeons while leveling, it doesn't take long to swap some skills around to switch your outdoor dps skills for your group heals.

- As a warden, Dive, Scorch, Swarm, Impaling Shards, and Sleet Storm or Feral Guardian are all pure dps skills and ultimates which you can use while leveling with no impact on your healing skills (you'll have to keep one/some of those on your bar anyway, so you can level up your Animal Companion skill line high enough to learn Betty Netch).

- Killing an enemy with a weapon will unlock the skill line and the ability to learn its weapon skills, but you can just gain experience with it equipped, no need to put any of the skills on your bar. Since you only get xp for your active bar, it could be useful to slot a variety of skills on a bar that you use for quest-turnins (e.g. equip a destro staff, put a resto staff skill on the bar, along with 1 skill from each class skill line, that way you'll level up each of the associated skill lines).

- You could indeed use a Destruction staff, or better yet destro on one bar and a Restoration staff on the other bar, as destro staves indeed have useful dps abilities. You could experiment with any weapon as you asked, but since you'll be putting your points into magicka, that kinda leaves staves as the most reasonable option (their abilities scale off magicka and their HA restores magicka).

- Trials and other end-game group content start at cp160 as any gear obtained before that would be obsolete, but pugs will ask for way higher than cp160, so join a friendly PvE guild if you want to get started ASAP (a good and helpful guild is a great place for beginners/returning players anyway )

- Battlegrounds were a non-Alliance-based small-group 4v4v4 PvP feature added in Morrowind, but they are part of the base game now, and as you noticed they have separate queues from Alliance War Campaigns. Those queues are for Cyrodill ofc, which is a large-scale Alliance-based open PvP map with various rules and limitations depending on which campaign you pick (they vary in length, cp usage and population).

Healer has enough damage to play solo in open World so no need to level up your character as dd. The big difference between healer and dd comes from CP allocation and gear they use. However, even a healer should have destro staff in back bar. I recommend you to pick lightning staff as it increases AoE damage and applies useful debuffs for your group. Pick atleast Elemental Blockade, Elemental Drain and Crushing Shock.
When you play in Group, the mag DDs want you to use drain on enemies for them, Blockade is awesome tool to apply your enchantment effect and concussion on enemies and Crushing shock can interrupt some bosses (not always required but you might want to use it in some harder content or if your tank sucks at interrupting), while also Works as your spammable skill when you run solo.

dreamer05 wrote: »

So any answers in regards to my question on leveling weapons? Does using Resto staff level it up,or do I just need to have it equipped when I turn in a quest?

Every time you gain XP, all skills on your active bar will get points towards a level, and every skill line that has a skill slotted will get points towards a level.

So to level resto staff, have a resto skill slotted while getting XP. If you have the bar space, you can even use a destro staff and have one resto ability on it - you won't be able to use it but it'll get XP while killing monsters and count towards general Resto XP. Or only do it while getting big chunks of XP like right before turning in quests.

Overland questing is easy enough compared to dungeons but I'd also recommend using a damage bar for that and swapping skills out to have a more support+healing oriented bar in dungeons and trials. Doing quests with a full support char - healer or tank - with very little damage is needlessly frustrating.

I very much dislike warden healers, both playing one myself and when I get one as support in a dungeon. Most of the time, they are gimped compared to Templar or even Sorc healers. In trials other than AS, it’s not as big a difference because dps stacks so reliance on healing springs alone is not too much of a problem. But in other content where mechanics don’t always allow everyone to be in tight, warden has no big, reliable smart heal to throw out, and your squishy Stam dps will definitely notice and be constantly worrying about dying and therefore do less dps.

One of my PVE guilds calls them “hippie healers,” as in, not serious healers but maybe kind of fun for roleplay you’re into that.

Pevey wrote: »

I very much dislike warden healers, both playing one myself and when I get one as support in a dungeon. Most of the time, they are gimped compared to Templar or even Sorc healers. In trials other than AS, it’s not as big a difference because dps stacks so reliance on healing springs alone is not too much of a problem. But in other content where mechanics don’t always allow everyone to be in tight, warden has no big, reliable smart heal to throw out, and your squishy Stam dps will definitely notice and be constantly worrying about dying and therefore do less dps.

One of my PVE guilds calls them “hippie healers,” as in, not serious healers but maybe kind of fun for roleplay you’re into that.

Any class can be a viable healer with skill. Warden healers are certainly capable and effective enough for all content. Templars are overkill imo.