Vamporcini

When he sees zombies, he goes SPLAT!

This item is only obtainable during certain events. However, it can still be used if you have already obtained it. It is currently available.

Vamporcini
Vamporcinis are defensive plants that drain HP from surrounding zombies for a few seconds.
Short description
Vamporcini can boost its health by draining zombies around itself
Statistics
Sun Cost	100
Recharge	20 seconds
Toughness	2700 damage
Damage	20 damage
Initial Drain Duration	6 seconds
Plant Food Power	14.29%
Time Between Health Drain	2 seconds
Max Health Cap	4000 damage
Range	3x3
Family	Ail-mint
Plant Food effect	Grants permanent health drain, that both heals and increases max health, without a cooldown.
Statistics (China)
Sun Cost	100
Recharge	10 seconds
Toughness	2000 damage
Damage	30 damage
Attack Rate	0 seconds
Range	3×3 Nearby
Area	AoE within Range
Class	Tough
Quality	Legendary
Range	3x3
Special	Vamporcini can halt zombies from advancing, and siphons their health to itself
Tags	Damage, defensive, area of effect
Plant features	Mushroom family
In-game statistics
Unlocked	250 seed packets
Code name	vamporcini
Rarity	Uncommon
"Zombie blood Is Like Pizza, in that even when It's Bad, It's Good!" - Vamporcini.. probably

Vamporcini is a mushroom in Plants vs. Zombies 2 introduced in the 10.0.1 update for the Vampin' Vamporcini! Arena season. It is a Wall plant similar to Infi-nut and Endurian, having high enough health to block off zombies from advancing on the lawn.

However, Vamporcini is able to absorb HP from surrounding zombies in a 3x3 area for 6 seconds and add it to its own health, with the max amount of health Vamporcini can have being 4000 HP (the same amount of health as Wall-nut). After absorbing health, Vamporcini will momentarily sleep, acting as a barrier and waking up after a certain amount of time.

In the Chinese version of Plants vs. Zombies 2, when Vamporcini returns to being at half health, it will revert to its tiny form as a visual degrade. Vamporcini will also explode into a swarm of bats when defeated, these bats deal damage to all zombies within a 3x3 area of where Vamporcini was defeated.

Origins

Vamporcini is based on bleeding tooth fungus (Hydnellum peckii), a species of mushroom reputed for its juveniles secreting dark red droplets from their caps which resemble blood. The usage of a bleeding tooth fungus for a vampire character is based on the common portrayal of vampires feeding on living organisms' blood.

Despite being based on a bleeding tooth fungus, Vamporcini is named after the porcini mushroom (Boletus edulis), also known as the cep, penny bun, or porcino, a mushroom species famed for its culinary versatility and a staple ingredient in European and Russian cuisine.

Almanac entry

Note: The stats shown below only apply to Level 1.

Vamporcini
	SUN COST 100 RECHARGE 20 TOUGHNESS 2700 DAMAGE 20 Initial Drain Duration 6 PLANT FOOD POWER 14.29% Time Between Health Drain 2 Max Health Cap 4000 RANGE 3x3 Ail-mint Plant Food: Grants permanent health drain, that both heals and increases max health, without a cooldown. Vamporcinis are defensive plants that drain HP from surrounding zombies for a few seconds. "Zombie blood Is Like Pizza, in that even when It's Bad It's Good!" - Vamporcini... probably

Vamporcini

SUN COST 100 RECHARGE 20 TOUGHNESS 2700 DAMAGE 20 Initial Drain Duration 6 PLANT FOOD POWER 14.29% Time Between Health Drain 2 Max Health Cap 4000 RANGE 3x3 Ail-mint Plant Food: Grants permanent health drain, that both heals and increases max health, without a cooldown. Vamporcinis are defensive plants that drain HP from surrounding zombies for a few seconds. "Zombie blood Is Like Pizza, in that even when It's Bad It's Good!" - Vamporcini... probably

Chinese version  (China only)

可以阻挡僵尸并释放蝙蝠攻击僵尸并回复自身血量 范围：自身周围3×3范围 特点：吸血牛肝菌可以阻挡僵尸前进并吸收僵尸血量回复自身 植物特征：蘑菇家族 虽然植物们不知道僵尸身上的血是从哪里来的，但是每次看到吸血牛肝菌都能成功吸血的时候，它们也渐渐接受了这个设定 In English: Blocks off zombies and releases bats to attack them for self-healing. Range: 3x3 Special: Vamporcini can halt zombies from advancing, and siphons their health to itself. Plant features: mushroom family Plants had no idea in regards to blood for zombies, though they eventually rolled with it when Vamporcini makes it work every time.

Upgrades

Plant Food effect

Plant Food animation

When given Plant Food, Vamporcini will be able to perform its attack indefinitely, with no need to rest afterwards.

In the Chinese version, Vamporcini will instead restore all of its health and gain armor in the form of a wing-shaped cloak surrounding it.

Costumed (China only)

When Vamporcini is wearing its costume, its cloak will be larger and have more health.

Ail-mint effect

When boosted by Ail-mint, Vamporcini will drain an additional 10 (Level 1), 15 (Level 2), 20 (Level 3-4), 25 (Level 5), 30 (Level 6-7), 35 (Level 8-9) or 40 (Level 10) damage with its normal attack, an additional 6 (Level 1-2), 9 (Level 3-4), 12 (Level 5), 15 (Level 6-9) or 18 (Level 10) damage with its Plant Food attack.

Level upgrades

Level	Seed Packets	Coins	Upgrades
			Sun Cost	Recharge	Starting Recharge	Toughness		Damage		Time Between Health Drain*
						Initial	Max	Normal	Plant Food
1	0	0	100	20 seconds	12 seconds	2700 damage	4000 damage	20 damage	10 damage	2 seconds
2	50					3150 damage	5000 damage	25 damage	12 damage
3	100					3450 damage	5500 damage	35 damage	18 damage
4	200					3900 damage	6000 damage			1.5 seconds
5	300					4200 damage	6500 damage	45 damage	22 damage
6	400					4650 damage	7500 damage	55 damage	28 damage
7	500					5100 damage	8000 damage			1.2 seconds
8	600					5550 damage	9000 damage	65 damage	32 damage
9	800					6000 damage	9500 damage			1 second
10	1,000					6750 damage	11000 damage	75 damage	38 damage	0.75 seconds

*Applies to both normal and Plant Food states.

Mastery upgrades

• Damage Pierce
• Toughness Bonus

Level upgrades (China only)

Level	Upgrades	Description
	Venomous Bats 带毒蝙蝠	Releases bats and toxic mist to damage zombies in a 3x3 area every 30 seconds. 每隔30秒会释放蝙蝠和毒雾，对周围3×3的僵尸造成伤害。
	Combat Training 战斗训练	Vamporcini gains 50% more attack power and health (150% of initial).
	Super Blood Sucking 超强吸血	Releases bats and toxic mist to damage zombies in a 3x3 area every 20 seconds. 每隔20秒会释放蝙蝠和毒雾，对周围3×3的僵尸造成伤害。
	Cell Activation 细胞活化	Vamporcini gains another 50% more attack power and health (200% of initial).
	Ability Awaken 能力觉醒	Vamporcini may be boosted when planted.
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Vamporcini gains another 50% more attack power and health (250% of initial).
	Vampire Count 吸血伯爵	Revives with full health after taking lethal damage once all nearby bats are gone. 受到致命伤害后不会死亡，而是埋入地下等待周围蝙蝠持续时间结束后重新复活，复活后恢复所有生命值。
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Vamporcini gains another 50% more attack power and health (300% of initial).

Strategies

Vamporcini is, generally, not a very well equipped plant in the player's arsenal. Even if it were to reach its health cap every time when planted, it would still have the same hp and recharge as a Wall-nut. However, it costs twice as much, cannot block zombies for a short while after being initially planted, and has a hurtbox too thin to hold zombies in range of a Spikeweed. Because of this, it is strongly advised to not run this plant if given the option.

However, there is a couple redeeming qualities. One of the biggest reasons to use Vamporcini is its unique thin hurtbox for a wall plant. This puts a bit more space zombies have to cover between the entrance of the lawn to Vamporcini itself, which results in Vamporcini's health getting drained less over time, the added distance is especially noticeable the farther up front it's positioned.

A very interesting interaction with its thin hurtbox is when paired with Sweet Potato (and by extension, Hot Date). The range on Sweet Potato's lane diversion is able to reach a fair bit into the tiles ahead of it, though this isn't enough for it to divert zombies before they eat a plant positioned there. However, due to Vamporcini's aforementioned thin hurtbox, it's able to be positioned in these tiles ahead of your Sweet Potato whilst still having the zombies get diverted before they can eat your Vamporcini. This allows Vamporcini to be used as a buffer wall in the event your Sweet Potato is fully eaten, as the absence of its lane diversion would usually leave the nextdoor lanes exposed without a Vamporcini positioned in front of them. This is generally not a very necessary niche to fill though, as you could alternatively focus on properly mainting your Sweet Potato to prevent it from being destroyed to begin with.

Even within this niche however, Vamporcini still faces legitimate competition, as it's not the only plant with a thin hurtbox. For instance: Chili Bean, Magnet-shroom, Spring Bean, and Levitater are some other plants that also have a hurtbox thin enough to positioned in these spaces, with the latter 3 offering utility while your Sweet Potato is still alive.

Additionally, wall vines (Pumpkin, Explode-o-Vine, and Shine Vine), being vines, will conform to the hurtbox of the plant inside of them, allowing them to provide the same utility of a buffer wall that Vamporcini would add if you were to place one of the aforementioned thin hurtbox plants inside of them. Though Vamporcini can provide this utility for just 1 seed slot, while a wall vine would require a 2nd seed slot on a thin hurtbox plant if you do not already have one in your loadout.

Additionally, a wall vine does not even have to be positioned in these forward tiles to act as a buffer wall, as they can be planted on the same column as the Sweet Potatoes and still provide the utility (including being able to double up their walling potential on the Sweet Potato itself). But if you're already using these vine spaces for a different vine, this isn't relevant.

It should also be mentioned that Gloom Vine, while not being a wall, still appreciates the ability to be positioned forward with a thin hurtbox plant inside of it for the additional range.

Another of Vamporcini's most important features is the plant food effect, permanently draining hp from the zombies around it to heal itself. It's able to heal a total of 5hp per zombie per second. When compared to zombies eating it dealing a total of 100 damage per zombie per second, this is a very poor stat to bolster. However, even as simple of a staller as Sap-fling can reduce this to 50 per zombie per second, reducing your neat hp loss per second from -95 per zombie per second to -45 per zombie per second. This can also be applied to Shrinking Violet's halving of zombie damage, totaling a net -20 health per zombie per second.

However, an important aspect of the health drain is that its range covers multiple lanes, reaching nextdoor zombies that aren't eating it rather than just the zombies in its lane that are. With 1 zombie in its lane and 1 zombie in each nextdoor lane, it will heal +15hp per second. When paired with our Sap-fling and Shrinking Violet, this means its net health is -10 per second.

There's also the fact that, since the health drain is an area effect attack, it can be used to cover up the group weakness of single target plants, such as covering Citron's weakness to chickens. It should be noted this isn't a great use of plant food, especially for a plant that relies on it so heavily, but when using Vamporcini it is still something that should be utilized.

Gallery

Vamporcini has a gallery!

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Vamporcini	Portmanteau of "Vampire" and "Porcini".
Simplified Chinese	吸血牛肝菌	lit. "Blood-Sucking Porcini'.
French	Vampirolle	from "Vampire" and "Girolle"
German	Vampignon	Portmanteau of "Vampir" and "Champignon".
Italian	Vamporcino	Portmanteau of "Vampiro" and "Porcino".
Brazilian Portuguese	Vamporcini	Portmanteau of "Vampiro" and "Porcini".
Spanish	Vampoletus	Portmanteau of "Vampiro" and "Boletus". "Boletus" referring to "Boletus edulis", the taxonomical name for the porcini mushroom.

Trivia

• Vamporcini is the only Vampiric plant in a mainline tower-defense game.
• Vamporcini is able to attack octopi and leech them, though not other inanimate grid items like Tombstones.
• Vamporcini is one of the five plants to have costume in the Chinese version but not in the International version. The others being Imitater, Dazey Chain, Ultomato, and Meteor Flower.
• Vamporcini is one of the few plants to have a unique death animation.

References

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