Seeing how melee weapons are so diverse - 2H sword, axe , hammer, Dual wield knife, sword, axe, shield even... why do magic users have only 1 option - staves?

Why not add say wands, orbs, or something. Weapons that can be 2 handed and others which could be dual-wielded like 1H melee weapons.

Maybe allow a character to use 1 wand and a shield even? They could be a bit shorter range than staff attacks maybe and/or weaker. A lot of possibilities.

This would definitely be something I would like added sometime down the road. Dual wielding wands can make for some fun pew-pew.

Uhm, you can make any class and use magic from their skill trees and use those spells, combined with any weapon. The resto/destro staff is just 2 skill trees. Its not like every spell comes from those, quite the opposite actually.

The staves do come in several varieties, but I would certainly not be against having other options, especially if they are also woodworking options as (from the perspective of a keen crafter!) there are fewer woodworking options than the other weapon/armour crafts at present.

The more options the better, so no objection from me.

Wands would be awesome.

Oh , I know I can use any weapon, but just doesn't quite make sense to me why in the world of ESO there is only 1 type of magic weapon. Magic is all over the place, you'd think somebody would come up with options, like the fighting types came up with a variety of stabby/smashy weapons.

Well, as far as I know wands have never been in The Elder Scrolls, although I wouldn't mind too much. And there aren't really any other magic weapons that I know of. Maybe they could add a hand-to-hand melee + magic tree for people that love to shoot fireballs from their hand, while at the same time giving the fist combat fans something as well.

Yeah, wands aren't part of Elder Scrolls lore; in fact, TES:O is far more weapon-oriented when it comes to magic than the single-player games, where for the most part people cast magic with their hands and staves were usually either special in some way or a fall-back option.

I wouldn't mind being able to dual wield staves (destruction + restoration?) or staff + melee weapon though.

You actually have three different kind of mage staff. fire, cold, electric. They all have different side effects, which can be enhanced.

Overall, I love that you mix a starter class with any armor type and weapon. This is amazing for creating many different kind of playstyles.

Do the different kind of staves boost certain abilities or is it all the same regardless of what type of staff you have? Like do the fire staves boost fire based magic etc.?

That would be fun. Can give the ability for touch magic spells (which are in the series) and also open up an option for pure hand-to-hand monk style, which they've dabbled with but honestly never really gave if a full-out effort in their games.

Item slot could be a special pair of gloves. Would need some kind of item for it. MMO's keep their long-term appeal by a never-ending item chase, having a class do comparable damage with zero weapons and no item requirement wouldn't work well.

Now all I can think of are those gloves in Hellgate: London. I wish that game didn't svck

They could atleast have added access to Onehanded Weapons + spell book / Orb / any lore offhand.

OPs point is exactly why I choose not to make a sorcerer at launch and a templar instead.

It's actually a little more complex than that. Staves are what we use to cast elemental spells, the ones we're familiar with from the single player games. Destruction staves come in fire, ice and shock varieties (I swore I remember seeing poison staves too in an earlier beta but maybe it was just an enchantment on a regular staff) and your choice of staff changes what the destruction staff skills do - if you're using Wall of Elements a fire staff will make it a wall of fire, ice a wall of ice, shock a wall of shock, and it's icon will change accordingly.

It's a very cool system. It sort of reminds me of the LOTR movies where the magic of Gandalf and Saruman was derived from their staves (movies, not books). There's actually a lot of variety in the destruction staff tree since each skill is essentially three skills, plus morphs.

You then pair your choice of elemental spells with class skills which don't change according to what you have equipped.

I know all this. Not sure how that relates to my post? All I was saying is there is more magick abilities than those from the resto/destro staff alone. But OP already knew that and I misunderstood what his point was.

One reason why you won't be able to dual wield a destruction staff and a restoration staff: You would get access to both trees if that were possible. As it is now if you want to use destruction abilities you have to have a destruction staff equipped. If you try equipping a resto staff you won't be able to use those destruction spells. This is fine; this creates balance. Can you imagine how unbalanced it would be to allow access to both trees? There are more arguments to this topic but this one makes the most sense to me.

you can use ANY weapon while casting spells cmon man think outside the box

The three destructive staves play quite differently so I think it's fair to count them separately.

Plus I think one big reason they would have shied away from other magic weapon types is staves are the only mage type weapon we've seen in the single-player games.

No straight up boosts like that.

The basic and heavy attacks are different for each staff. There are effects associated with each type - eg. lightning has a bit of aoe, frost slows, fire... I can't remember. Swapping to an ice staff when you need a bit more control helps. They also flavour the destruction staff abilities with their element (eg. Wall of Elements creates a firewall if holding a fire staff and a lightning wall if wielding a lightning staff).

I've played Elder scroll games since Morrowind and ESO beta now. I KNOW I can cast while holding different weapons. I have done it in every game.

My question was why is there only 1 type of magical weapon in the world. I think more variety in magic weapons can make for some fun options, will give people who want to shoot fireballs in ESO more options (instead of staff only), will bring magic weapon categories closer to the variety of melee weapon categories, AND will make more sense game world-wise.

Daggers, swords, axes, hammers, etc are not magical weapons. They can have enchants, but they are melee weapons. I'm wishing for more magical, items that can be used as weapons like wands, orbs, books, totems, etc...

Implementing something like that shouldn't be any harder than making 1h and 2H melee weapons.

I love the idea of magical gloves somebody posted above. Haven't thought of that. Neat idea. Melee mage. Hehe.

The Destruction Staff skills (note I'm not referencing the effects of the staves themselves) sometimes have different effects depending on which type Fire/Frost/Shock staff you're using. I haven't played too much with them all, but as an example, the Destructive Touch skill deals damage, and an additional effect depending on which type of staff (Fire will Knockback, Frost will freeze, Shock will disorient).

They don't however impact your Sorcerer/Class skills (assuming there's no enchantment on it anyway).

Well you can't dual wield as in wield a staff in each hand simultaneously but with weapon swap you can wield both.

As for it being unfair to access both trees simultaneously (as in on the same hotbar) Templars effectively can. Their profession heals are as good / better than the restoration staff ones. A templar can wield a destruction staff and equip destruction staff abilities and Templar profession heal abilities on the same hotbar.

Because you said it's just 2 skill trees when the destruction staff tree is actually more than that when considering different staves will give you different skills.

I would have loved to have seen orbs or something like in NEverwinter, reminded me of David Bowie in The labyrinth...

Ah okay, gotcha.