Never shoot the center or side targets except during a multi. This is especially a problem with "on the fly" players. Drop catches, bounce passes, live catches - get control of the ball anyway you can.

If it's kicking your ass, you might try regular sized flippers.

With the lightning flips, you really need to be able to bounce pass and drop catch or BSD is super-duper frustrating. Before I knew how to do those techniques I think my highest score was around 350M with lightning flips, and that was after well over 100 games.

The way a lot of pros play is 2 left ramps, then start coffin multi, then 3rd left ramp to start bats, then two more to light mist and stack. At that point you should random hit enough standups to get your castle locks. I just tie up castle balls with the ramps and go for castle jackpots at that point. Coffin or right orbit into bumpers is another way to tie up a ball but sometimes gets you unlucky drains.

A lot of players also ignore the skill shot. Don't. It advances your video mode and coffin ramps.

It could depend on what roms, but that's the way tj's plays at vitus. I didn't realize it until recently.

http://pinball.org/rules/dracula.html

"The Skill Shot is purely a matter of timing. The display will show a three-faced gargoyle, with each face flashing in turn. When the ball hits the Drop Target after being launched, the Skill Shot award depends on the face which is lit. The left face awards 100K, and the right face awards 500K. The center face awards 1M the first time, increasing by 1M each subsequent time to a maximum of 5M. The center face also spots a V-I-D-E-O letter (see Video Mode) and advances the Coffin Ramp if the Coffin is not already open. After a successful Skill Shot, subsequent Skill Shots are slightly faster. The game favours the center face slightly, awarding it if the face has just changed to 100K or was just about to change from 500K."

Yes, it advances progress, not the levels. It awards you the next shot toward getting video mode, doesn't bump you to level 2 or 3. It also advances coffin ramp toward opening the lock shot, but doesn't award locks if the lock is already open.

I played the one at PPM tonight (the one Neil donated to PPM). One thing I noticed is if the upper drop target is flaky (as it is there) it makes a HUGE difference. The Bats stack with coffin is much harder. Never would have noticed if I hadn't played the one at Vitus, which is very consistent on the skill shot.