Was looking at the perks, and Im confused on Purity
since Im new to these games.

"All negative effects are removed from created potions,
and all positive effects are removed from created potions."

How good is this? Im assuming this means some poisons
come with positive effects to the victims as a side effect? Im
going with a rogue build, and not real sure how far into Alchemy
I want to go.

when you start doing alchemy. your potions(what you would drink to benefit you) sometimes have negative effects. and the poisons(what you would use on enemies) sometimes have positive effects.

The perk basically makes all potions you make have 100% positive effects only. The negative ones are gone.

The perk basically makes all poisons you make have 100% negative effects only. The positive effects are gone.

Hope that helps clear things up.

I've read some potions has for example, Heals you for 5 points - But drains your intelligence with 1 point.
(Just an example)

With that perk, you would just get the healing for 5 points and not the negative effect; Intelligence -1.

At least in previous games, alchemy ingredients had a mixed list of properties, like "regenerate stamina", and "drains health" - usually 4 properties.

When you make a potion, all the properties in common with the ingredients you used would be present in the end potion.

Depending on what you used, you could end up with some good, some bad.

That skill would make it so your potions would only have 'positive' traits, and poisons only 'negative' traits, regardless of what was added - so long as there was SOME positive traits in common with the ingredients for potions (or negative for poisons).

Kind of handy for making the most of limited ingredients.

There's probably some positive properties that almost always are paired with some negative properties that will only be viable with this perk.

Ryan Fenton

Just like in the real world, while a drug/medicine/potion may have some handy bonuses, taking it could have some bad side effects. Let's take a look at a real life drug like, Morphine. Morphine is great at relieving pain but causes constipation, is highly addictive and too much of it can cause asphyxia and death.

Now, a TES drug is Skooma. Skooma is a lot like crack or cocaine in the real world. Users of Skooma are faster and stronger, but are stupider and less agile.

Taking those perks lets you mix up some super handy potions that you won't have to worry about any nasty side effects while chugging them. Also it lets you brew up some deadly poisons, without worrying that you may be buffing your target while killing them.

Thanks that clears it up. I didnt have any past experience
with TES games.

Still debating picking this up. Trying to decide what I want
to do most with my perks and this may or not be one of them.
Seems like there are so many other better options, but I guess
this "tree" is really good if you have no magic perks.

When mixing two ingredients they can sometimes share two or more properties. If you intend on making a potion Purity will insure that only the shared positive properties will mix. And vice-versa for poisons.

That way your health potion doesn't drain your magika, or your health draining poison doesn't turn your target into an unstoppable stamina machine. It's an excellent perk.

Alchemy is traditionally one of the most powerful skills in tes games, that will probably carry over to Skyrim. The purity perk would not have been very useful in previous games since the ingredients rarely gave you bad side effects, and when the side effects were there, they were minor. Strange that purity is now the highest alchemy perk... My guess is that side effects are much more severe in self made potions this time and also harder to avoid for some of the powerful and unique alchemy effects. Otherwise, the highest perk would be fairly useless... although the highest lockpick perk is also useless so I guess it is possible that purity is as disappointing as it sounds for a lvl 100 perk.

Alchemy can be the most powerful skill if you learn how to use it and pick lots of ingredients, but I've never enjoyed doing so no matter how much I try to force myself to try it.

Personally it ruins the game for me and makes it unfun having to find the ingredients to mix potions, I dont know why because I really wish I could enjoy it

I love enchanting though, and thats back as a skill

I love making potions so I hope having to spend a lot of perk points to get Purity is worth it otherwise I might not spend as many as I plan to right now on the skill. :-/

Lol, I have the same issue, and I have tried really hard to enjoy alchemy. Hopefully this time alchemy will be more interesting with the green thumb perk and since they had to come up with creative effects due to no attributes. Also having poisons last almost like enchantments will be interesting, plus the pickpocket poisons. We'll see soon anyway...

And yeah, enchanting is a (probably) less powerful, but much less tedious alternative to alchemy.

Alchemy... my favorite skill in the TES games, and they are the ONLY RPG series that I think does it right

Course, in Morrowind I wound up completely redoing the system with a mod that turned out to be rather popular We'll see if that needs doing in Skyrim.

Anyway, I have nothing to add to what the above posters have said regarding Purity, but I am looking forward to taking every perk in that tree

You win! Great anolysis.