I was looking through a list of classes and their abilities and I noticed something disturbing. The only mage class in the game is the sorcerer, and the only spells they have access to are daedra summoning, dark magic and storm magic (lightning). Why this concerns me is because, unlike the normal Elder Scrolls games, it means you can't play a fire mage or frost/ice mage.

Having a choice in what element you use to deal damage as a mage has always being one of the great things when it comes to Elder Scrolls (especially since so many games tend to restrict damage dealing to fire while ice is shackled as the defence or healing choice), and it's disappointing they're taking it away and applying so many restrictions to our characters.

So can someone please tell me I'm wrong and let me know that it's possible to play as an ice/frost based character in the game (because it looks like the other classes don't have ice skill trees either). My future Nord would much appreciate it.

those skills will be based on the destruction staff not the sorc class

So it's like Guild Wars 2? How to mages gain access to ice magic then? Because presumably using a melee weapon will let you run up and hit stuff, and I can't think of other ranged/magic based weapons in the Elder Scrolls (the series doesn't have wands, does it?).

Also, will we be able to cast from our hands? I hate when games restrict magic to staff use (like dragon age).

Magic system is more as it was in Oblivion. You can use a 2h sword and still cast magic abilities from your hands, though you don't equip magic on your hand as in Skyrim. For each element there is a staff which offers abilities and a normal/power attack by simply clicking short or long. Then there is the many different skill trees (class and non class) that give different sorrs of abilities. There is a skill tree for the mages guild for example that will probably give you some spells as well. I'm not quite sure where most of the frost spells will come from if not from the staff, but there probably is a skill tree that offers it.

Besides, you can have 2 weapon sets in place at one time. For example, you have your frost staff equiped and are firing on the enemy from range. As it closes in you can swifch to your melee weapon of w/e and use skilla according to that weapon. Or you can choosr to use other skills from othr trees. But there are two set of hotbars you can fill with 6 skills (inclusimg 1 ultimate).

Thanks for the answers. I just really like playing frost based characters in MMOs (I mained a Death Knight and Frost Mage in WoW).

i see no reason why you wont be able to here

You can play as a frost Mage if you wish, there are three types of destruction staffs, fire, frost and shock, so use the frost destruction staff.

Ugh, the elements question again. Yes, there's no frost-based skill line in any of the classes (probably gonna be added later), but every class has some form of magical ranged DPS. Sorcs are lightning, DKs are fire, Temps are holy, and NBs are vampiric-drainy. And, as said, you can choose the element for your destruction staff. Since your weapon attacks are the only freebie you get in this game, you will be using that a lot, but no, you don't need that staff to cast your magic from any other sources. Short version: mages don't *have* to roll Sorcerer.

and necromancer staff !!! (in my dreams)