edited ESM values but changes not reflected in game

[gtcard]

I made some edits to SPERG's empowered storm thralls in tesvedit (ID 02cb2e) adding 16000 health to the Health Offset value and changing max level from 0 to 100. when I summon them in my game, mfgconsole info shows that the thralls are not taking any of my changes, and in fact they are using the unedited stats, with less than 1k health and a level cap of 0. however if I coc qasmoke in the main menu before loading my save, to go into a fresh new game with the exact same mod list, the storm thralls there do take the changes (16k health and level cap at 100 instead of 0). is this a script causing my save to remember the default ESM stats? if it's an esp causing it, it should cause it in a new file as well right?