I support the Panther. It has medium speed, maneuverability, shields, and armor, and its 6 IR/6 FF missiles and Tachyon/Ion guns can take on anything the Nephilim throw at you. When flying the Panther, fighting is still a challenge, whereas in the Vampire, by comparison, fighter-size enemies are weak individually and strategy consists mainly of thinning out the swarm before they have time to damage whatever you're protecting--fragging the enemies is now far less important than fragging them as fast as you can.