Kung Fu Sticks help

[Outlaw]

So, please just tell me if I'm being an idiot and misunderstanding how this item works. Allegedly, it adds damage equal to "your current burn". Thought I'd hit a good synergy with sweaty towel, imposing a bunch of burn on myself, expecting to do my number of burn's worth of damage with the weapon. However, despite having 15 burn, it's still only doing 3 damage (-1 for spiked scale's placement currently). Is it working as intended and worded unclearly? Or is it a bug?

[LHGreen]

I think I heard they were bugged, but I can't remember. There's another topic about it, tho.