How to use "Darkness"? ... never used it.

[Don Cool]

There is this fog spell and other darkness spells, can anyone clarify how to use this efficiently when targeting your own party?

Or maybe point to a Youtube video, thank you in advance.

[Ruffio]

If you throw it on your own party, the enemy can't see you. But you can't see anything either...

I find it situational use, like throw it at enemies further away to have them move out of their positions.

[BigJ]

Forces enemy mages and range to come to you, great vision obstruction if you want to sneak (fog better) and it can be put over difficult terrain like spikes or electrified water to funnel.

[Don Cool]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

If you throw it on your own party, the enemy can't see you. But you can't see anything either...

I find it situational use, like throw it at enemies further away to have them move out of their positions.

So, if you have your cleric concentrating you can just toss a fog spell instead of f.ex. a sanctuary or does that break concentration?

[Torniquet]

Cast it on your archer, your archer walks out and shoots then walks back in and can't be targeted.

[Ephemerant]

Be a Pact of the Blade Warlock, get the Devil's Sight Invocation, run into the enemy, drop Darkness on top of yourself.

But for realsies, it's a fantastic early crowd control option. If you're worried about ranged attackers while their melee runs at you, drop Darkness on them so they can't attack you. You can also drop it in front of your party so the enemy has to run through Blinded to get to you.

[Lur Nen Rue]

warlock has class ability that lets you see in magical darkness

[victorvnv]

Originally posted by Don:

There is this fog spell and other darkness spells, can anyone clarify how to use this efficiently when targeting your own party?

Or maybe point to a Youtube video, thank you in advance.

Get the helm that makes you immune to blind and out it on, gst the ring that makes you immune to blind and out on another character, position you 2 best range attackers , like your Ranger or mage in the cloud and the enemies always miss when they try hit you and if they come closer you have advantage .

Warlocks can get evocation that makes them immune too so you actually can have a decent advantage of you build and gear your team well

[Lminith]

Darkness has uses defensively and offensively.
Darkness (which is a magical dark where dark vision doesn't work) is always useful to negate foes dark vision, giving advantage and penalties to rolls to everyone involved negating their advantage. This also works on the opposite, if you are facing foes that lack dark vision that placed magical light sources. This counters opposing Fearie Fire placed where you are removing them and their debuff.

If you found yourself surounded by ranged foes using it defensively allows you time to prepare for them since they can only shoot you from within they either wait outside or enter and lose their ranged advantage to be able to shoot you, either way you win. Inside Darkness can be used to remove attacks of opportunity and provide easy access to Hide.


For better utility it requires you plan ahead for it. A common and easy to pull tactic is casting Darkness covering your foes and the area in front of them and having your Martial classes with Blindsight (a passive feat) go in for the kill. This protects your martial classes from a lot of stuff while negating all debuffs. Devil’s Sight from Warlocks also works. Truesight also works.

[identity]

A lot of the shar items give you bonuses while in darkness, and you have the spell that lets you see through it, so there is some combo potential there, but it's mostly a gimmick.

[Sentient_Toaster]

A lot of spells require being able to see the target, so this is one way to shield your party if you're outmatched magically.

If for some reason the enemy has easy sources of advantage on their attacks and you don't, then casting Darkness can even things out provided that they don't have a means of seeing through it. Any amount of advantage and any amount of disadvantage negate each other, so if they're at a disadvantage because they can't see you it ends up not mattering that you can't seem them, either.

[Dragon Master]

It's a very useful spell that is more useful than it sounds when you read the description.

By casting it on your party and playing the waiting game you will force the enemies to come to you. It's also great to hide your squishy ranged casters who can hop out, blast the enemies then walk back in.

Warlocks with a proper invocation don't even need to leave it as they can just eldritch blast from inside the cloud and no one can touch them, and if you go pact of the blade then any enemy that comes in and gets close to you you can melee with advantage.

[Bloodwest]

Basically you hide yourself literally in a plain sight and using warlock's devil sight you can do stuff while remain untouched.

[Snaef]

I use it against the spectator beholder to great effect, just pop out to attack.
This makes it alot easier to manage the encounter and get more drows un-petrified

[Zef]

I find it almost completely useless offensively because enemies just jump or dash out of it to attack.

Defensively however you can use it as a zone where your units can't be easily targeted, mostly usefull for long distance spell casters and archers while they pop in and out of the darkness.

[Corbeau]

It's a spell that can make Shadowheart into an amazing melee cleric after act 2. I also used it extensively as a defensive spell while playing on Tactician, helps a lot during some ambushes where are many ranged enemies.