Vampire - Bat out of Hell?

[Deckeru_Maiku]

Alright, I finished the missions today.

I spend a couple captain free exp to get the 6 pt captain up to 10 pt - 5.7 km visibility is so much more comfortable... - and took that little beauty into battle.

 

4 Battles - 4 wins - 35k damage done average and a total of 10 kills.

 

Yeah, small sample size etc. etc. but she feels really, really good. A bit like a Campbeltown on speed...

 

Of course, it's weekend and the battles where full with potatoes driving around in PADDs, trying to sink DDs with their torps, but nonetheless, the way the Vampire downed them was impressive.

 

+

- not too slow and quite maneuverable

- fast guns with nice arcs

- low visibility and with a 10 pt captain it gets really nice

 

-

- only 1x3 torps with 6 km range (nice damage though, and they can be launched as singles)

- considering the low amount of exp one usually gets at T3 it will take a very (very, very..) long time to get the captain to 19 pts (unless you have a Perth and switch him from around; skills are halfway compatible,,,)

 

Sealclubber rating: A+

 

[Procrastes]

 

Nice summary above, Deckeru Maiku! I would add the unusually long range - 10,1 km, or what? - on her main guns, to the list of her advantages.

[GhostRiderMax123]

must admit I've been seal clubbing with my Vamp :3

[HaachamaShipping]

Nice summary. I got Vampire today and took her out for a bit and amidst the mess that is the lower tiers, the ship isn't OP, but certainly has potential for sealclubbing. As mentioned, the firing arcs are incredible (though ballistic arcs are terrible like most low-tier ships and the turret traverse isn't good either).

 

Playing her with the 6 pt captain (didn't want to spend my valuable free exp on it and it already is likely more than most tier III ships have) and got PM, LS and DE (felt like fires deal more damage than a rate of fire boost on the peashooters, though SI would be a good one too), but now I was wondering whether to go for CE or just go for IFHE. I got the feeling like IFHE would allow her to do pretty good damage and given the smokes are pretty good and the firing arcs are splendid, it might be not unreasonable to forsake the stealth for actually having decent damage on those guns. What are other people's thoughts?

 

Overall though, definitely a good ship that certainly will be nice to take out every once in a while just for random low tier fun. Just like the Albany.

[Aragathor]

3 hours ago, Riselotte said:

felt like fires deal more damage than a rate of fire boost

 

With the DD fire duration nerf the RoF has become more important, because most of the time hunting DDs in the Vampire is what you are going to do.

Vampire has a really good RoF of 48 Shots per minute, compare this with the other tier 3 DDs:

-Wakatake - 36

-Wickes - 25,7 (Can't fire one gun per side due to positioning)

-G-101 - 60

-Derzki - 36

-Campbeltown - 17,7 (Can't fire one gun per side due to positioning)

-Phra Ruang - 36

 

Only the G-101 has a better RoF and that ship has popguns for armament. With BFT you have a RoF of 53,3, and most of your enemies won't have the skill to measure up.

Last, but not least, Vampire has a bad fire chance. It's better to improve the ships strengths first and leave DE for when the captain earns 13p.

 

PS: I really like the ship.

PPS: Edited the wrong Derzki values.

[HaachamaShipping]

7 minutes ago, Aragathor said:

-Derzki - 48

Did I miss anything, because to my knowledge Derzki has 3 guns and a 5 seconds reload, so it should be inferior?

 

As for going BFT over DE, I felt like it already has a good enough RoF and HE damage to gun down DDs and most cruisers, but BB typically just don't care much, because the 102 mm shells shatter. And the 11.1% increase in RoF helps little, while an increase in fire chance from 5% to 7% is almost 50% more fire chance, leading to an increase from 2.4 fires per minute to 3.34 fires per minute average.

[Aragathor]

2 minutes ago, Riselotte said:

Did I miss anything, because to my knowledge Derzki has 3 guns and a 5 seconds reload, so it should be inferior?

 

As for going BFT over DE, I felt like it already has a good enough RoF and HE damage to gun down DDs and most cruisers, but BB typically just don't care much, because the 102 mm shells shatter. And the 11.1% increase in RoF helps little, while an increase in fire chance from 5% to 7% is almost 50% more fire chance, leading to an increase from 2.4 fires per minute to 3.34 fires per minute average.

 

Yeah, my mistake, corrected it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Sure, against BBs DE + IFHE are going to make a world of difference. But I'm looking at Vampire as a DD hunter first and tailoring the first 10p around it.

 

[HaachamaShipping]

1 hour ago, Aragathor said:

 

Yeah, my mistake, corrected it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Sure, against BBs DE + IFHE are going to make a world of difference. But I'm looking at Vampire as a DD hunter first and tailoring the first 10p around it.

 

Fair enough. Might go for BFT when I get to 13 points then. Not like that will be anytime soon, as it'd be pretty much just a captain for ultimate sealclubbing, but over a long enough, we'll get there.

[Akula971]

I've had a few games in it. At first I found it rather underwhelming, until I figured out its play style. So I put my 19 point Perth Captain in it. Now I feel so dirty, so disgusting. Just one more custard cream, just one more drink, just one more chip, just one more game in the Vampire! Its the girl you saw with beer goggles, who you really shouldn't have, but it was so good, a guilty pleasure indeed. 

:)

[Aragathor]

21 hours ago, Riselotte said:

Fair enough. Might go for BFT when I get to 13 points then. Not like that will be anytime soon, as it'd be pretty much just a captain for ultimate sealclubbing, but over a long enough, we'll get there.

 

After some testing I think the combination of BFT, DE, and IFHE will be perfect for the Vampire. That's a 13p captain, but still.

I don't see the point of taking CE as the ship is just not a good torpedo slinger.

[ollonborre]

Got the Vampire in 2 days. Pretty fun mini campaign. And as for the Vampire, well I played one game in it, used PM-LS-BFT and it was a pretty good little gunboat. I was suprised with the torps, you either got the massive useless fan spread or single fire. And 62 sec for 3 torps is a fairly long time (considering the Wickes for example can launch 6 per side with ~60 sec relaod) but the gun power was suprisingly effective.

 

All in all a good little ship but for me it's going to be more of a collectible than a dedicated sealclubber.

[Ferry_25]

Wow! I'm getting really curious OP! I won it yesterday. Grinded the mission "digustingly" Used coops for the destroy and win missions. Which was actually surprisingly fun to do. For the XP I just took my regular grind ships from the lines in randoms and the damage I mostly harvested with Conqueror.

[Procrastes]

The idea of going for IFHE instead of CE never really occurred to me when I first got the Vampire. The lower detection radius gives so much greater mobility, and is almost as useful on a gunboat as on a torpedo assassin, in my experience. But this just goes to show, that we all have our different playstyles!

[creamgravy]

IFHE is a massive nerf to Vampire. 

Going from 17mm to 22mm pen is utterly worthless and you need every single fire percent agasint heavily armoured dreadnoughts.

[Aragathor]

40 minutes ago, creamgravy said:

IFHE is a massive nerf to Vampire.

 

Nope, with it you can reliably pen the following:

-Myogi - bow and stern sections.

-Wyoming - bow and stern.

-South Carolina - bow, stern, and superstructure.

-König - bow and stern.

-Orion - bow and stern.

 

These ships have 19mm of armor at those sections, so a 102mm without IFHE will shatter most of its shells. With IFHE you trade 1% fire chance for penetration of those sections, with DE you actually improve fire chance by 1%.

So you can have a 6% fire chance and guaranteed penetration on large sections of most BBs you'll meet. Which is better than 7% fire chance and guaranteed shatters.

[creamgravy]

DPM is too low agasint T4 BB bow/sterns and many shells plunge on armoured decks/turrets or 13mm superstructure when spamming from a safe(ish) range.

Fires are vital agasint heavily armoured low tier ships, loosing 1 percent for 4 captain points is too painful. BFT + PT is soooooo much better.

 

Having said that most of my Vamp games have been with a 19 point Commonwealth captain with IFHE and DE. 

[Aragathor]

32 minutes ago, creamgravy said:

Having said that most of my Vamp games have been with a 19 point Commonwealth captain with IFHE and DE. 

 

 

No comment...

[Favuz]

Any tips for 3pts and 4pts perks?

 

I doubt that i'll go beyond 10 points

[Midway67]

Love that little Vampire, fun to play and surprisingly agile.

Would be good to see RN & Commonwealth captains becoming interchangeable, like the IJN & ARP captains a while ago.

If you don't have your Vampire yet, make sure you get it (or you'll regret it) :o)

[Aragathor]

26 minutes ago, Favuz said:

Any tips for 3pts and 4pts perks?

 

I doubt that i'll go beyond 10 points

 

For third skill there are several options:

-Superintendent - +1 Smoke and Speed Boost is always good.

-Demolition Expert - Adds +2% Fire Chance almost doubling what you have (5% -> 7%).

-Basic Firing Training - Drops your reload from 5s to 4,5s, making you the second fastest firing DD at tier 3. Also adds to your AA rating, giving you a better rating than most t4 cruisers.

 

Fourth skill boils down to whether you want to go for torps or guns:

-Inertia Fuze High Explosive - As stated above this skill will let you penetrate bow and stern sections of most BBs.

-Concealment Expert - drops your concealment to 5,8km, giving you a 200m stealth torp window.

 

-Advanced Firing Training - this skill is not worth it as your shells have bad arcs due to low velocity.

 

If you just want a 10p funboat experience you should go with DE and CE, for 6% fire chance and lower detectability.

[creamgravy]

12 hours ago, Aragathor said:

No comment...

 

The also have skills like Direction Centre for Catapult Aircraft, Jack of all trades and Incoming Fire Alert 

 

This is the ultimate seal clubber Vampire build (in order)

 

Preventive Maintenance

Last Stand

Survivability Expert

Concealment Expert

Basic Firing Training

Adrenaline Rush

Demolition Expert

Priority Target

[HaachamaShipping]

10 hours ago, creamgravy said:

 

The also have skills like Direction Centre for Catapult Aircraft, Jack of all trades and Incoming Fire Alert 

 

This is the ultimate seal clubber Vampire build (in order)

 

Preventive Maintenance

Last Stand

Survivability Expert

Concealment Expert

Basic Firing Training

Adrenaline Rush

Demolition Expert

Priority Target

1050 hp or concealment over another smoke?

[creamgravy]

It's low tier, the game moves too quickly for smoke. 2 is enough.

 

Survivability Expert is always the first pick, even for a future tier 6-8 Commonwealth premium destroyer. Although a ship like Heida might want SI if she gets fancy consumables.

[Aragathor]

1 hour ago, creamgravy said:

Survivability Expert is always the first pick

 

While very useful, the skill should never be the first pick, at least not universally. It should always boil down to which line the captain will be commanding.

IJN DDs profit more from TAE, as they should never be spotted. Germans have hydro, and an extra charge from SI is worth more than HP at first. And gunboats profit immensely from DE.

I can imagine that USN DDs, as brawlers, would benefit the most from SE as first pick.

[creamgravy]

A destroyers main job is to survive, even when sniping at 14km. SE is a universal destroyer skill along with PM and LS.

 

Use the rest to tailor your build around playstyle.