Charles-Henri Sanson

A famed executioner during the French Revolution, Charles Henri-Sanson’s Assassin class is fitting given his life’s story. To further emphasize this point, he comes with two separate anti-trait modifier skills, towards Evil and Human targets respectively. Sanson also possesses decent supportive value thanks to his NP’s DEF down and strengthened second skill, which heals a target ally and cleanses debuffs.

However, Sanson’s reliance on powerful anti-trait damage also ends up being his downfall. Hypothetically speaking, his damage output against targets with both Evil and Human traits would potentially rival that of higher-rarity characters. Yet, if the opponents miss even one of the traits, Sanson’s damage output will drastically decrease. In fact, against those who lack both, Sanson may even be more of a hindrance than help in terms of damage. Crucially, Servants are classified as Humanoids instead of Human, which means that Sanson’s Anti-Human targets are more or less limited to insignificant mob enemies.

Additionally, although Sanson possesses three Quick cards, their low hit counts coupled with his low-rank Presence Concealment make him a really bad star generator compared to other Assassins. Overall, Sanson can be used if one of his few niches (debuff removal in particular) is needed, but there are generally better alternatives.

Targetable Debuff Removal

Sanson’s debuff removal is a highly valuable tool for challenging quests. This factor in itself may be a reason to bring him into a fight, especially because he is easily available compared to other alternatives.

Anti-Trait Damage

Sanson is able to deal high amounts of damage to Human and Evil opponents, making him a viable choice to use against the correct targets. In theory, the damage he deals via NP to those with both attributes is actually rather impressive, but such a combination does not currently exist in-game. After his second Rank Up Quest, Sanson’s NP damage and defense down effect are improved even more, further empowering this capability.

Situational Niche

While Sanson is reasonably decent at his niches, they are situational, and there are other, easier-to-use alternatives for both niches. His Anti-Human niche in particular is limited to weaker mobs (such as Soldiers), making it very limited in usefulness. As a result of all this, he struggles to find a spot in most compositions.

Low Base Damage

Sanson’s damage is awfully low without anti-trait modifiers, due to his low rarity, Assassin class’ 0.9x damage modifier, and QQQAB deck with Buster NP. His only universal damage-boosting buff is also tied to his NP, which further solidifies this weakness.

Low Star Generation

Sanson’s star generation capability is abysmal when compared to his fellow Assassins. With only 2 hits on his Quick cards, and a measly 4% generation rate bonus from his low-level Presence Concealment passive skill, he is unable to provide anywhere near enough critical stars for the team.

Low Survivability

While Sanson has a healing skill, it is quite likely it will be used on allies rather than himself, and sadly he has no other defensive skill to speak of. With no defense buffs, Evasion or the like, he is counted among the squishier Servants.

A really situational Servant by nature, Sanson’s skill leveling priority depends heavily on the player’s intended usage of him. Still, there are general recommendations to be made about his skill leveling order.

Executioner A++: Although Evil mobs are relatively rare, a lot of potential Rider and Berserker bosses possess the trait. For this reason, it should be leveled over Sanson’s other skills in order to solidify his niche role.

Medicine A: While it is the least situational skill in Sanson’s kit, leveling this skill doesn’t improve its debuff removal capability aside from the cooldown reduction, and the extra healing granted is not particularly significant. Therefore, while it can definitely be leveled up first, Executioner is generally the better choice.

Human Study B: As Servants are not considered Human (but Humanoid), this skill’s damage bonus is more or less limited to enemies such as Amazonesses or Soldiers. While high-health mobs can be found every now and then, most of them have low enough HP that this skill’s bonus damage is not needed to kill them. Even more importantly, there are few Human mobs who are also Riders or Berserkers.

In picking the correct CE for Sanson, one could focus on either augmenting his NP (NP Damage Up, Starting NP), or settle for more neutral support CEs (passive Star Generation). It should be noted for the former that NP Damage buffs stack additively with Sanson’s own anti-trait buffs, meaning that other options (Buster Up, ATK Up) may outperform pure NP Damage CEs.

• The Black Grail / Hero Elly’s Adventure (LB) / Heaven’s Feel: Being a low-star Servant, Sanson’s NP is his biggest asset in terms of damage. As such, CEs which increase NP damage are one of his top picks, though less so than other NP-reliant Servants due to the dynamic mentioned above.

• Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Halloween Princess: While Sanson’s NP would rarely be needed very early on, he does experience some problems in gaining NP due to only having one Arts card. These CEs allow Sanson to reliably unleash his NP, while still giving him some long-term benefits. Golden Sumo in particular is a really powerful pick due to the sheer amount of ATK it provides.

• A Fragment of 2030: In situations where Sanson is picked up for his debuff removal and not his damage, 2030 helps him provide the critical stars needed for the team, somewhat making up for his really weak star generation capability.

• The Classic Three Great Heroes / GO WEST!! / Glory Is With Me: These CEs combine different benefits of the above CE types, making them good alternatives to consider.