Eric Bloodaxe

Eric Bloodaxe, the Bloodaxe King, is a pinnacle of manliness and wielder of a living axe that thirsts for the blood of his enemies. Blessed by his wife, the witch Gunnhild, Eric slew his kin and ruled over Norway for a short period. These days however, this charismatic and beloved Servant carves out a niche by farming quickly and powerfully. At maximum strength, Eric trades Spartacus’s NP gauge boost for simply doing more damage.  Notably, through Supporting Curse, Eric’s single target damage performance can overshadow Darius amongst the Berserker farmers.

But, the henpecked husband is made of fragile Berserker paper with low base HP. If left unprotected, Eric can fall to a stray critical hit from powerful enemies. The HP demerit on his NP doesn't do him any favors, either. Fortunately, Eric has access to both a battle continuation and a personal MAX HP up buff that also cleanses his debuffs. His targetable attack down and defense debuff is generally reserved for use as a steroid, but can also help prevent freak accidents for the Viking against tougher targets.

At his core, Eric is a beast of a (budget) farming Servant for Masters looking to cut down their time spent grinding straightforward quests. As a Berserker, Eric can be used in almost all farming situations in combination with Starting NP gauge Craft Essences.

Multiple Damage Steroids

Eric boasts not only a very high base attack for his rarity, but also Rank B Mad Enhancement, a targetable powerful defense down, and a high value attack steroid on his NP that scales with overcharge. Crucially, he activates this attack buff before his NP fires. With all these buffs active, a full NP Buster Brave chain will therefore deal some terrifying single target damage despite Eric's status as a bronze Servant with an AoE NP.

Powerful and very fast NP

Building on the aforementioned steroids, Eric’s NP does excellent damage for such a low cost to deploy. Most importantly, Eric’s NP animation only takes about 3-4 seconds to clear the field. During long and repeated farming sessions, this swiftness can help reduce any associated tedium.

Weak Long-term Performance

Offensively, Eric sets himself up for one powerful turn. With a single Arts card, preparing another NP will take a long amount of time without help. Furthermore, the steroid from his NP only lasts for 1 turn and his single target Supporting Curse neither lasts very long nor carries over into the next wave. Besides, in sheer single target damage performance both Caligula (with the right set up) and Lu Bu vastly outperform Eric. Meanwhile, competitor Spartacus can display an impressive amount of staying power and comes with an additional NP gauge boost.

Fragile

Despite two skills aimed at alleviating this problem, his highness remains vulnerable to powerful enemies. Half-Dead Bloodaxe can be used proactively to try and soak some damage, but Eric’s Berserker typing effectively halves the MAX HP bonus. That his NP further eats into his already low HP further underlines his offensive and burst damage nature.

Eric is straightforward to level. Skills that can be used in a proactive way tend to be more valuable and Supporting Curse especially helps Eric in his noble and stately purpose of murdering his enemies.

• Supporting Curse is the most important skill to level, and perhaps the only skill that demands investment. After its Rank Up, the defense down scales well and has a noticeable impact on Eric’s single-target performance. Partly because of this skill, Eric excels at clearing enemy waves with one powerful boss enemy and two minor flunkies. Therefore, level this skill first.
• Battle Continuation is Eric’s least important skill to level. The cooldown is far too impractical and Eric is far too fragile to be able to see multiple uses of this skill. The HP values are also so low (for a Berserker) that even at max rank it is unlikely that Eric lives for more than 1-2 hits without massive help.
• Half-Dead Bloodaxe is a decent skill that can be obtained after his second Rank Up Quest. MAX HP Up is a nice effect that functions as a proactive heal. By activating it before any damage lands the skill will be available again sooner as well. The debuff cleanse can also be situationally useful, but the biggest advantage is that at higher ranks the skill can potentially be used twice per quest, especially in longer fights. That said, extended combat is not something Eric truly excels at.

Eric Bloodaxe excels at farming, yet lacks the means to charge his own NP bar. Thus, Starting NP Gauge is bloody essential. If more damage is all that is needed, then both Buster Performance and NP Damage Up stack multiplicatively with Eric’s various attack buffs. Keep an eye on the sheer amount of attack damage a CE can give as low rarity Servants disproportionally profit from additional attack or HP. 

• Kaleidoscope/The Imaginary Element/Dragon’s Meridian

Eric’s bread and butter along with additional NP gauge boosts from allies or the Mage’s Association Suit. These options are indispensable.

• Partake with the King/Golden Sumo/Halloween Princess

If however, some more damage is needed to hit the right damage benchmarks to clear a node in 1 NP, then field one of these hybrid options.

• Hero Elly's Adventure/ Limited/Zero Over /Black Grail

While Eric’s main forte lies elsewhere, straight boosts to Buster damage for his basic command cards are best at providing a consistent improvement in performance. A MLB Hero Elly’s Adventure also outperforms Heaven’s Feel while Black Grail provides the most damage possible to his NP at a heavy price.