In general Bloodied is, I think, the most fun idea for a build I've seen in a long time in a game - when you're between 10% and 20% hp, you actually for once in Bethesda games, can die, and have to pay attention to things such as incoming radiation during SBQ.
Kinda sorta. It definitly has a lot of synergy across the perks to make it really powerful. Unless the server lags and you die from 5 seconds worth of tiny radiation. Most people back then slotted
Alpha Emergency Protocol in their PA, which turned those 10-20% pretty much effectivly back into full health. Unless you forgot about the HP bonus from being fully fed. Which, when running out is immideatly substracted from your tiny health. Leaving you with 1 HP. A friend of a friend's friend that was totally not me died at least 7 times before realizing that.
And now that PA parts can be rolled for legendary as well, it's a LOT easier to run bloodied at least.
Not that you really need it tho, the recent addition "Aristocrat's" gives the same as "Junkie's". Add "Oveneater" armor to it and you have a full health 50% extra dmg with absolutly no drawbacks at all.
That is actually something I like about their "balancing": roll those above as 1* items and you can easily pull your weight.
What exactly is the meta in this game anyway? Is everyone just running around with Power Armor killing everything and everyone with Fat Mans? Or is there actually some build variety (lol!)?
That's actually a fantastic question.
For all this obsession over rolling a good legendary item that gives +50% this and -20% that... Meta is just circlejerking that you can kill, iono, Scorchbeast Queen or Super Mutant Behemoth in 20 seconds instead of 30.
That's all I got.
But I would still recommend this game; whereas Bethesda's F3 and 4 are sorta like F:Brotherhood of Steel, this one is a decent spinoff a la Tactics. The worldbuilding, lore, reasoning, quality of writing etc. is leagues above what you've seen from those blockbusters, it's not even funny.
I really can't believe I'm saying that this game is good, but, well, it's a much better "Bethesda Fallout" than 3, 4 and DLCs ever were. All of the factors mentioned above are better, shooting and weapon selection is better, enemy variety is better (and actually creative, based on West Virginia folklore), quests are better, settlement/CAMP building is better (tho it's a huge money bait). Just, yeah, there's no "endgame raiding".
It's just, well, those B or C-teamers put out a helluva thing. Probably because they still got shit to prove, and they're not so much caught in the "big leagues" ratrace.
Right now I'm playing mostly Elder Scrolls Online and, yeah, definitely the 2nd best game in the franchise after Morrowind. The quality and amount of content post-2016/2017, ideas that are better than WoW etc. attention to lore is just staggering. Those people know that Elder Scrolls universe is easily on par with Planescape, and they own it.