Unlike the Sword and Mace/Hammer weapon perks, the Axe's Hack & Slash and Limbsplitter perks check for weapon material (Iron, Dwarven, etc.) in addition to Weapon Type (Mace, Greatsword, etc).

This was done so that higher material tier axes would inflict greater bleed damage, which is cool.

What is *not* cool, is it has also resulted in an oversight that has been going on since Dragonbone weapons were added to the game in Dawnguard: The Hack & Slash and Limbsplitter perks were never updated to account for new materials, and so Axes using those new materials deal no Bleed damage- leaving as many as 6 of your perk points dead in the water. I have corrected this using the Smithing Perk requirements as a guide:

Nordic  ->Elven Bleed

Amber  ->Glass Bleed

Madness      ->Ebony Bleed

Stalhrim       ->Ebony Bleed

Gold/Dark    ->Daedric bleed

Dragonbone->Daedric Bleed


Amber, Stalhrim and Madness weapons are technically Daedric or higher in Damage tier, but I see their lower-level Smithing perk requirements as a sensible trade-off.

Following this logic, Dragonbone should be in a tier of its own, but I don't care to put non-vanilla thought in to balance for a mod that I mostly made because my Axe-wielding Knight was greatly disappointed upon unlocking Amber weapons. Nordic Weapons also technically require the higher level 'A d v a n c e d ' Smithing perk, but as they are Elven quality in all other respects, Elven Bleed it is.

Also, as I'm writing this description, I noticed that Tier 1 of the Hack & Slash perk is bugged for Elven and Honed Draugr War Axes, as it is checking if the Axe is BOTH Elven and DraugrHoned. I'll go ahead and fix that bug too, because I want you to know that I care. (Only this once.)

I have not played through all Anniversary content, so if there are any more materials I should be aware of, let me know.