Does the body exploding into bits happen with every kill or only when the last hit the enemy takes before dying triggers the damage bonus? I think bloody mess would a be cool every once in awhile but i wouldnt want my enemies to blow up every single time. Itd be kind of dumb looking.

This is why I never get that perk.

It is a permanent damage increase to all attacks and it randomly does the explosion thing.

It adds 5% to your damage output, and it only randomly blows up the enemy, usually like every 4th or 5th thing you kill by the time you get more than two points into it.

The advantage of Bloody Mess is that you get a 5% damage increase. The bodies exploding is just funny.

Honestly it's also really handy if a dude is far away because if it's anything like FO3/NV, you can loot his gibs to get his stuff, so you can shoot a guy who's crazy high above you or w/e and then just check his eyeball when it splats down to get his gear

Bloody Mess is kind of irrelevant these days, as opposed to the stat bonus. The game is so gory and violent on it's own that the explosion with Bloody Mess is LESS gory than the normal version.

@thebadyetiman: One of the drawbacks though, at least in F3, is that enemies exploding will send items in the world flying as well, so if you kill someone next a pile of stimpaks they'll go flying all over the place as well.

@bananasfoster said:

This is kinda how I feel about it - the core game with heads and limbs blowing off is more visceral to me than just a full-body explosion.

I want enemies exploding in slow motion every time they die

I like the perk more than ever, as the max investment yields an effect very similar to the corpse-explosion spell from Diablo 2.

You skip out on a 15% across the board damage bonus and a chance to splash instagib surrounding enemies? That seems like crazy talk.

When I can get tons of other great perks that help me in other ways? Yes. Not like these games are hard anyways that you really need to min max them.

I want it to look cool/accurate when I cut some dudes head off!

cutting people's heads off is the most hysterical animation in the game. Sometimes their head just hovers in place for a few seconds while their body goes flying off in some random direction.

A case for Bloody Mess:

I was fighting a nest of Deathclaws in a very spoilery location, and I was almost dead. I proc'd Nerd Rage and managed to VATS head shot a Deathclaw to death. He insta-gibbed. He also insta-gibbed right next to the Alpha Deathclaw that was giving me such a hard time, and guess what?

He too gibbed. At near full health.

If this sounds like it'd be useful, grab all four levels of Bloody Mess. If not, go about your business. To me, Bloody Mess is kind of a tradition at this point, so I'd grab it even if it sucked.

Blood mess is a permament damage increase. The gibbed effect is random however, though the chances of that happening are also increased and when it does happen its far gorier than it would be otherwise.