Restoration is one skill I have never invested many perks into. I am playing a Dunmer arcane swordsman right now, and I was wondering how many perks is worth putting into restoration. I always get the novice and regeneration perks. If I was using destruction, I would get recovery and necromage, but I don't think I will be aside from cloak spells.

How good are the healing spells? Should I perk up to expert?

How about the sun spells from DG? Are they powerful?

Respite is freakin' awesome if you're liberal with power attacks and shield bashes. If you have more than Restoration in magic, Recovery helps with magicka replenishment. Regeneration amps the healing factor (AND the respite factor) by quite a large margin.

Sun spells... are great if you don't also have Destruction spec. There are no augmentation spells for it like there are for Destruction. And vampires? They have additional fire weakness which further amplify fire damage. The AoE adept spell has a bug in which it is set to the wrong cast type allowing you to instantly charge up and cast (allowing you to spam it like mad and empty your magic bar very quickly). Other than that... the only advantage light damage offers over fire damage is that friendly fire isn't a problem (well... except for Serana).

Yeah, I forgot to mention that one. As a dual wielder, I will be eating up a ton of stamina.

Don't forget Wards too. They allow you to approach to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SquishyWizard range when facing mages, and are invaluable when facing one packin' the dreaded frost spells.

+1 on Wards for a Paladin type character.

Restoration is extremely useful, especially for a arcane swordsman.