I’m struggling to figure out what even is the intended use case for this item.
Neither the item skill modifier nor the global conversion are unique to this item. Decree of Malmouth does both and does the Word of Pain mod better. So, what does Blugrug have over Decree that could make it potentially more appealing? Well, it’s affixable, with an attack bias. What attack are we using though? On Apostate we have no attack. Not unless we’re taking Uroboruuk’s Reaping. If we’re not an Apostate, almost every other attack is already covered and does not need the elemental conversion: EoR already has a Vitality weapon Savagery is covered. Righteous Fervor is covered on both ends. Fire Strike is already fully converted by a Conduit, so Blugrug brings in nothing, plus Gargabol pistol exists.
About the only thing I could come up with for this weapon is combining it with the Vitality RoH Conduit (as the Conduit leaves the Cold on RoH unconverted) and then either using Uroboruuk’s Reaping or a component skill as a filler. In that context, Blugrug could have some appeal over Decree of Malmouth, as Decree lacks any attack or cast speed, plus Blugrug will sport more damage. Thing is, half-ish of Blugrug’s damage is physical, with no inherent phys-to-vitality conversion. Even with two Plagued Edges with a phys-to-vit prefix and two haunted steels the build only converts 50 % of the axe’s physical to Vitality. Other piecemeal conversion through amulet is not available if using the Conduit. And we need to dedicate a slot to dual-wielding this thing somehow, which will hurt this already quite experimental and niche build quite a bit.
Could the weapon maybe get a mod to Harbinger of Souls converting some physical to vitality to make the attacking/%WD dealing aspect of the axe a bit more appealing and distinguish it more from Decree of Malmouth?
