For swords, Deep Wounds and Bladesman only deal an extra 10% of the weapon's base damage, regardless of the weapon's tempering, the user's skill, or any perks that increase damage dealt (according to testers at UESP).

For hammers and maces, Skull Crusher and Bone Breaker work exactly as intended. The problem is that what few NPCs there are that have armor ratings have pitiful ones, which is especially pronounced by the fact that leveled NPCs gain health upon getting stronger, not armor. An NPC in full Deadric armor (mind you, no such NPCs exist) would have a paltry 108 armor, which renders the perks rather useless.

Here's what UESP says about the axe-specific perks, Limbsplitter and Hack and Slash: "The bleeding effect of Hack and Slash depends on weapon material and skill level and lasts six seconds. However even a Daedric weapon used with level 3 of Hack and Slash will cause only 18 bleeding damage. While multiple bleeding effects stack, by the time you apply several of them the enemy will most likely already be dead."

While the axe perks perform the best of all weapon perks in terms of increasing damage, it is still a puny sum that's likely to go unnoticed at all levels. This is a point that has been brought up many a time before. The question is, when will it be addressed?

I had wondered about if I had wasted those perks or not. Aparently I have.

As for your question: likely never.

I'm not entirely sure that the perks are broken. This may be what they intended all along.

i dont see how they are broken. battleaxes are dead useful vs high health opponents, maces vs heavy armored, and swords are just bada**. swords being able to be used for everything=lowest damage, axes for everything fleshy, which really only excludes undead and atronachs (as far as i know)=medium damage. and maces max damage being the least useful(in my eyes) because of armor negation and not many armor bearing enemies. although i think all high leveled draugr wear the ancient nordic armor.

Doesn't change the fact that they svck balls.

Having said that, I wouldn't expect a change.

I agree about their lack of usefulness. It does help fill out some builds for people who want to RP that their character specializes in certain weapons, though.

Decapitations are fun.

Also, shield charge.
Mmmm shield charge.

Delicious, but off topic.

I think the blademan perks are perhaps worth it if you do not do smithing, and you use lots of sprinting power attacks. Perhaps.

Something like that yes.

Someone did the math in the spoiler forum a while back, and the axe spec is slightly better than the sword spec on stuff that bleeds. Mace would be through-the-roof best if stuff actually had armor.

Sounds familiar. *looks at magic*

Yes, these are all well known issues, since the game released and nothing has been done about them. Honestly though, the game is easy enough without these perks actually making an appreciable impact, so I don't see much of a point in them fixing these until they are actually willing to rebalance the entire mechanical aspect of combat and stat interaction to be something that is actually balanced and workable.

Not only does this have nothing to do with magic, but you are just invariably wrong. While these perks are mathematically and objectively bad in vanilla Skyrim, magic is perfectly fine on its own, and if you think otherwise, you're probably just not suited for the playstyle.

And no, don't get all "Destruction sux" on me, because my arch mage can go about successfully on master difficulty using exclusively Destruction magic without any of that exploit nonsense (90-100% cost reduction, "staggerlocking," etc.). Some people can't do this, and that's okay. I can't play the game without fast travelling or use exclusively Archery as a combat skill. But to claim it cannot be done is wrong, and what many people do--claiming that it needs to be changed because they're not capable of going through an entire dungeon using only Destruction spells or claiming it needs to be changed because they can exploit melee weapons to be ridiculously powerful--is downright stupid.

Anyway, please stay on topic.


Butbutbut...

Sure, I know I'm essentially saving three perks per weapon by not using these, but I want to be able to use them effectively. I want critical hits with swords to matter. I want armored enemies to be tougher so that maces and hammers have a big impact on them. I want axes to cause cripple bleeding damage so that enemies fall over after a sweep and die shortly after. I don't think that rebalancing these perks is too much to ask.

I actually made a similar post regarding such issues and more near the release of the game, bringing these issues to light. The response was overwhelming indifference from other players, and nothing changing in any of the patches.

Well, then I hope that changes. So far the response has been positive according to all the posts. I hope our voice gets heard.

Choosing between which one is easier knowing that i don't get any of them because of their little importance. Leaving 9 points in each tree rather useless in turn having less "customization"

That feeling of having less customization is exactly the problem. At the end of the day, it's not important if we have any of those perks, and that's no fun.