Pitch Darkness (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Now that I've been relieved of any duties to go to work or make a living for myself, I have plenty of time to pretend to make myself useful by continuing to review the various sphere abilities in Spheres of Power, and rank them based on power and overall usefulness.

This time I'm working on the Dark sphere - one that I never wrote off as bad, just completely and utterly bland. It is my hope that by taking a more critical look at this sphere that I can try and find a glimmer of hope for it. [Post-pruduction note: Yeah. I'm pretty excited about trying this sphere out in a real game. Maybe one at level 3 and up. Sounds like a nighmare before that. Especially with how talent hungry this sphere is.]

Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.

Since there's quite a bit going on with the base sphere alone, it's best to look at it in isolation to start with.

Spoiler: Base Sphere

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Darkness (G): A somewhat small area of darkness (actually -2 to light level), which can be penetrated by dark vision. Which means if you have a party of dwarves, you can occasionally get some nice one-way concealment out of this. Note: Multiple areas of darkness can overlap, although individual darkness effects do not stack with themselves. So no placing down two darkness patches for true darkness in broad daylight.
Darkvision (<G>): A meld that lasts for hour/CL, this lets you spend spell points to have others ignore the penalties of your basic Darkness. That's not a fantastic value, and you prefer natural darkvision, but it means you're always able to choose to not actively hinder your party, even right off the bat. (Note: Clearsight meld doesn't obviate the need for Darkvision to see in your darkness. So it's always its baseline usefulness.)

There are also Blots, which can use several of the debuffing talents, but you don't cremate a sphere of darkness, clearly announcing that you have done so.

Spoiler: General Talents

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Clinging Darkness (S): Place darkness on your rogue, and for a minute/CL, they can freely attempt to hide after attacking, in addition to applying darkness. It's also great when you've otherwise a got a carrier for your cloud. It's also not a (Darkness) talent, letting you stack its benefits with other talents. This talent alone turns your darkness effects from a moderate area control effect to medium-term buffs. With area control tacked on! Arguably, this turns them into actual buffs as far as Dispel Magic is concerned, and thus harder to get them all in one hit.
Dual Darkness (S): For a spell point, you can apply a second (darkness) or (blot) talent to the respective abilities. If you assume you would have used the extended duration on using both of them individually, you are saving a spell point each time you do so. That can really add up for a dedicated Darkness caster.

Obfuscation (<S>): If the GM wants information, they will have it. But you can at least justify your evil character walking into a room of potentially hostile paladins, or good and anti-paladins. But beyond that, there are very occasionally going to be creatures that use things like True Sight, which is divination. True Sight explicitly states it cannot see through solid objects, and this treats you as having a veneer of lead - a solid object. What exactly that entails as far as your darkness's concealment is concerned is up to interpretation. But in the most optimistic interpretation, this is really quite nice, and removes most counters to your tactics. And even if it's ruled that they see an outline of you as though a solid lead object, a second talent in this lets you count as having a foot of lead, which is a lot of empty space they can swing a sword into.

Dappled Shadows (<G>): If your DM deems that each of the areas you create can use Clinging Darkness, then awesome. You get two darkness carriers for the price of one. And it's going to be harder for an enemy to avoid two creatures, who go on their own initiatives, than one. If your DM does not agree, then this is really bloody niche.
Dampen Light (<G>): Basically, for a talent, you gain the ability to just use a lower power base sphere Darkness. But it gets its extended duration without need for spell points nor concentration. And it's arguable that Clinging Darkness modifies the area, and thus is usable on this. It's also arguable that this count as a different darkness effect to your normal darkness, letting it stack to true darkness in even in broad daylight. If your GM agrees, then this goes from bad value to having good potential. If taken only once. Twice is just excessive.
Shadowing Darkness (G): Lets you have the effects of darkness last even if they get out of the darkness. Even at just 1 round, that gives you time to get your darkness back on them. This is only really necessary for effects that happen at the end of their turn / end when they leave, rather than really caring about the base darkness stuff. Unless you aren't at the level where you can freely just engulf the entire field in darkness.

Shadow Corterie (G): Get to apply (shadow) talents an additional time per target per 5 CL. No minimum extra, so you get no benefit before 5. But still. That's just pretty good.
Greater Meld (<G>): Depends on the meld, but having them function even when not in your darkness is neat. Potentially.

Shadow Stash (<G>): Very, incredibly niche. But if you find a need for its niche usage (such as hiding the fact that you are armed and armored to the teeth, or needing free access to a multitude of items) then it could have its use. Maybe enough to justify two bloody talents. You could potentially even bypass the polymorphing of your armor by casting off your shadow using a Shadow Double, transforming, and then recalling your double. Again, niche. But that's the point of the <symbols>.
Sinister Surprise (<G>?) Now your darkness is entirely dormant and undetectable by all but the best trap finders, until it is triggered. This can actually extend the duration of darkness, up until it is triggered. But it also adds an additional spell point cost, and doesn't extend the true effect's duration, so that's really minor, and Extend Spell...or just casting it again (unless you've got compounding costs)... is more efficient/effective for that purpose.

Lingering Darkness (B-G): If Clinging Darkness wasn't a thing, then this could allow you to more easily maneuver your darkness areas. As it stands, this basically just allows you to use multiple darkness areas while you're out of spell points for the day. Which is nice, I suppose.
Insinuate (B-G): You can now make your blots even more stealthy, and not obvious to see. A step above being obvious when looking at your feet. Or the ground around you. But harmful effects still reveal it once they are affected. Hard to come up with scenarios for its proper use. But the concept sounds like it has potential. Is it worth your talent though, even with said potential? Hard to say.

Greater Darkness (B): Eh... Sure, you can double the area of your darkness, but is that really necessary enough for a spending a talent and an extra spell point? If used in conjunction with Dappled Shadows, you can give two people your normal darkness. But you're only saving spell points if the (darkness) talent(s) also cost spell points to apply.

Flowing Darkness (B): In general, if you've got a wall between you and and an enemy, it kind of obviates the need for darkness. Maybe they have superman x-ray vision. Doesn't work vs Earth Glide any more than normal.
Greater Darkvision (B?): 30 ft of darkvision. I mean. I've literally never run into an issue with normal 30 foot darkvision. I never felt like I needed yet more. But I've also never been tossing around darkvision-penetratable darkness like candy. Would it really be worth a talent though?
Rolling Blackout (B): Yeah. No. Just...like...use Clinging Darkness, and you're good. If you're facing a particularly mobile enemy, who stays far away from your carriers with a good save... well, you guys ought to be in your own darkness, so they still suffer those penalties all the same.

Wall of Darkness (B): I don't see a use case over the normal darkness. But I might just not be creative enough. (The normal darkness can cut off sight of a room all on its own, and I don't see this doing that more effectively.)

Ranged Darkness (B): Medium range is basically all you need in the majority of situations. As for melds, they are hour/CL buffs, which means you probably have time to touch someone when you need to refresh it.
Quick Meld (<B>): I mean, it's going to depend on the meld in question, but in general they are hour/CL melds, so you probably don't need them to be castable as a swift action (and only on yourself).
Mass Meld (<B>): If you can flex into it this talent by some means, and expect to encounter dispellers, this has potential for extending your effective spell point pool. The combination of those two conditions makes it a terrible choice for a "real" talent.

Umbral Burst (N): I see literally no use case for this, when for the same cost of both talents and spell points, you can get a 10 minute darkness buff rather than a 1 round one. Sure, as a swift action, but that's required for such a short duration. The normal buff can be cast ahead of time.
Extinguish (N): If you like to troll the blacksmith by making sure he can't use his forge, congratulations, here's your magical license. Otherwise, there's no real point. It's purely for non-magical sources of light, which are literally never going to be relevant. Unless you manage to get your area and range to the point where you can extinguish the sun, I guess.
Gaze Into the Abyss (N): Obfuscation is just this but better, save for not overwhelming a diviner when they fail a contested check. Obfuscation doesn't even allow a check unless the diviner has a specific talent.
Shifting Shadows (N-----): If anyone tried taking this talent at my table, and refused to take the free respec out of it, I would kick them from my group. This would be so obnoxious to keep track of. And to have it happen every ****ing round, like a gods damned summoner with no damage. No. No. No. And screw you.

To distinguish what the following talents can be applied to, I added a parenthetical note (b) for Blots, and (d) for Darkness. (b/d) is for either or. Generally, for any of the negative effects here, it's really detrimental for your carriers, even with darkvision, and thus you kind of must take Clearsight meld to effectively use it.

Spoiler: Blot / Darkness talents

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Creeping Lethargy (b/d) (S?): So...yeah. Staggering on a failed save. Chance to sleep if they remain affected. They can't leave if you have Shadowing Darkness. Thus it is a save or lose. Even if they succeed on the save vs sleep, staggered is stupidly good. This will get instantly banned once you use it.

Black Lung (d) (<G-S>): Save every round or sickened until they leave, and suffer 50% spell failure when they have verbal casting. For a second talent (not recommended), you can add a poison to it. It's a minor debuff, but it's in addition to the effects of darkness, and it instantly shoots up in value if you frequently face spell casters.
Disorienting Darkness (d) (G-S): Obviously, this screws over melee so hard it's not even funny. At 3 talents in, you can make fighting in your darkness a fool's errand, especially in groups. But that's 3 talents. 3 talents well spent.
Snagging Darkness (b) (G-S): Spell point, but also grapple every affected creature each turn, and the area counts as difficult terrain, and deal damage on a successful grapple. Cannot pin, but gains a +5 against already-grappled creatures. That is incredible lock down on a large AoE. Screws over casters pretty hard. Downside is that it's a blot and thus doesn't have concealment on its own.

Looming Darkness (b/d) (<G>): A slight penalty to all saves in darkness. That's not the worst, if you've got other spell casters that like to use DCs. It's probably not worth the slot to simply grant an additional 5% chance to inflict your other darkness effects. Unless you are overlapping your darkness with a second or third carrier.
Shadow Slick (b) (G): Grease, but with darkness.

Fearful Darknesss (d) (G): Save every round or be shaken until you leave + 1d4 rounds. it does not have the massive potential of shutting down casters, and shaken doesn't have the -2 weapon damage penalty that sickened does. But it has the persistent debuff that's basically impossible for them to remove in combat.
Obscure Passage (b) (G): Just jump through walls like nothing, so long as it's not too hard. And even from level 1, you can just cast multiple times (admittedly spending spell points each time) to dig deeper.

Edge of Night (d) (G): Normally damage sphere effects are just bad because Destruction sphere exists. But here, you've got massive AoE and duration. And it's completely passive after you cast the darkness. It's actually pretty neat that they made a talent that deals less damage, and have no inherent debuff be comparable to Destruction sphere in a positive way. Now, is it as good as some of the other effects you can add to Darkness? Probably not. But it does hold up. Especially vs large numbers of enemies.
Pure Darkness (d) (G): Darkvision alone does not penetrate the darkness, and it even halves distance of special senses. That's incredibly unique, and helps to ensure that you have the one-way concealment advantage.

Silent Darkness (d) (B-G): Grants CL as perception penalty to hear you in darkness, and some chance to cause verbal casting to fail. Might stack with Black lung to be utterly impossible to cast verbally. Costs a spell point though.
Tenebrous Legerdemain (b/d) (B-G): Free action steal / pickpocket each turn against anyone in the area of effect, using the higher of 3 options (probably 2 that apply, but regardless). Not the most useful in combat. Pretty funny when you swipe everyone's gold purses in the tavern. You can even simply cast it in the middle of the street, leave, and then a couple minutes later, peoples stuff starts missing.

Thick Darkness (d) (<B>): Very minor debuffs, and halves move speed (which is distinct from difficult terrain). Also can act to help cushion a fall.
Stygian Immersion (b) (B): Best case scenario is allowing the use of swimming-based sneak attack. But people are just going to get away from the block of shadow water, unless there's literally no way to.
Shadow Tag (b/d) (B): Meh, you get to track peoples' directions and life status. If you somehow have spare talents, it's at lest somewhat decent for keeping track of the party. Or to track down the idiot who stole your wallet, without letting on that you know where they are heading.

Flat Black (b) (B): OK, you can hide terrain...by giving it a dark make over, making it extremely obvious something's hidden there. Best case scenario is bluffing that there's dangerous terrain when someone is chasing you. Alternatively you could just....cast darkness, and make it actually dangerous, and slow them down while you're at it.
Directional Darkness (d) (B): You give up your (Darkness) slot to allow one-way concealment, which you can already do. That's really not worth the slot, let alone the talent.
Hungry Darkness (b/d) (B): Every 2 failed saves you deal 1 damage per HD, and reduce fort by 1. That is worthless. Move on.

Numbing Darkness (b/d) (N-B): Every 2 saves you reduce Reflex and AC by 1. Next.
Intoxicating Darkness (b/d) (N): Now, every 2 failed saves you simply reduce will saves by 1. Congrats?

Spoiler: Shadow talents

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Shadow Lurk (G-S): For 1 talent, it's a scouting summon for a spell point that stuns the person it was copied from for 1 round. With 2 talents, it becomes a nonmagical copy of a target, which doesn't have class abilities and half damage and insubstantial hit points. But if you make a copy of an enemy brute, those drawbacks don't matter. If they want to spend a turn hitting it, that saves you a hit, and keeps them stunned for the next turn. If they don't, you get a source of damage, a flanking buddy, and a scout when you finish up the fight, as it lasts for 10 minutes / level.

Shadowed Mien (B): grant 1/2 CL to bluff and intimidate. Sense motive DC is increased by CL. And you can spend a spell point for CL temp hit points. Nothing incredible. Barely even worth picking up, unless you really just want to help the face.

Shadow Slick (B-N): As a blot, it's awesome and lasts for minutes. As a shadow, it also has a chance of causing martials to lose their weapons for a couple rounds at a higher cost.
Imbue Shadow (N): For a spell point, you can blind a single target for 1 round per caster level while concentrating. If you instead cast Darkness, you could effectively blind everyone in a decent area for 10 minutes per caster level. Oh boy, what to choose. Oh, and you can cast some darkness abilities as short duration, single-target debuffs. For an additional spell point! Why?

Shadow Tag (?): It's just a way to target-use this without using an intermediary darkness/blot. Might be stealthier.

Most melds last for 1 hour / level

Spoiler: Meld Talents

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Clearsight (S++): This is literally a required talent if you want to use a more disruptive Darkness talent than the base sphere. Without this, you either harm your allies as well, or you use it like fireball, and they just move out of it.
Voidwatcher (S): Blindsense within any of your areas of darkness. Pretty incredible. Also advantage on perceptions against thing in dim or dark conditions. My god. Absolutely incredible with Greater Darkness.

Step Through Darkness (G-S): 5ft step back, and the move action to teleport. You are now out of danger, and have your dark carrier between you and whoever threatened you with a pointy stick.
Hide in Darkness (<G-S>): If you have someone who needs to hide while being observed, and doesn't care about the giant sphere of obvious darkness (or you take the talent to let melds work outside of your areas of darkness), then this is just the thing.

Dark Slaughter (<G>): Adds essentially 1d6 points of precision damage under sneak attack conditions. That's the same bonus damage as a +1 weapon enchantment, and you can just give it to a natural attacker to boost all their NAs. Not fantastic. But situationally usable.
Edgelord (<B>): Very minor intimidate bonus, but they can demoralize as a move action...you might be saving them a feat there. At level 10, they can do it as a swift action instead.Which means that they will need said saved feat to be able to intimidate 3 times a round, but hey, you help someone with their over specialized build. Congrats. I mean, at level 10, you can give it to everyone who doesn't already have a use for their swift action. Low use > no use.

Feed on Darkness (N-): Life sphere exists. For 1 talent and drawback, you can pick up the unconditional fast healing for the same time and rate. When you would take an additional Feed on Darkness, you could instead take a restore talent to make you more versatile, and improve your fast healing. And you can make your fast healing from Life sphere go on for hours/CL. There's no point for this talent. Hell, you could ask your DM for a drawback where your life sphere only works in your darkness, and then you'd be a talent up, relative to this.

And finally, the feats.

Spoiler: feats

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Damning Darkness (<G>): I mean, I guess I should mark E for Evil, but whatever. If you don't care about any potential Goodie Two Shoes getting in the way of your darkness, it's a neat bonus to all your darkness in an evil campaign.
Defiant Shadow (<G>): Makes your darkness much harder to dispel. Also makes it much easier to dispel light spells with darkness. And a few other caster level related situations.
Shadow Doppleganger (G): Makes your Shadow Lurk look like the original, and deal full damage, unless they disbelieve.

Dark Room (G): Hides your rope trick, in a post-nerf Pathfinder.
Hypnotic Darkness (<G>) This is a natural combination which works well with some existing synergies. It's a -1 to saves. But that's literally in addition to any other benefit the darknesses can offer.
Event Horizon (?): I don't generally like the telekinesis sphere, as it's almost as talent hungry as Dark sphere, and combining the two probably means you've got a very stretched thin build. But this single feat can help add a layer to prevent people from leaving your darkness.
Lurking Surprise (G): Essentially lets you cast by proxy for a spell point, with a chance of losing the spell. There aren't a bunch of darkness spells you'd truly appreciate casting far away from yourself. But you can.

Twilight Adept (?): I played a light knight before. I didn't find anything particularly inspiring about the light sphere, but typically you can't have darkness and light work in the same area. Possibly not even blot and light. So this is a build enabling feat.
Shade (?): I mean, darkness and figments seem...counter to one another. But imagination is literally the calling card of illusion. Good luck. Maybe you can make it look like a piece of hell broke through to the world.

Aura of Mystery (<B>): So long as it's dim or dark, you benefit from constant Obfuscation (anti-divination). I've never once had this come up in my games, but I won't say it won't ever come up in a game someone may play. But if you are a sneaky boy, this can prevent divination spells from finding you while you try and hide, without relying on obvious magical darkness.
Shadow Cage (?): Don't know enough about wards to truly rate this, but from brief inspection, they don't look worth the trouble.

Shadow Feast (?): I can definitely see a dark caster going out of mana real quick. This lets you get some extra burst out, or even to just burn your CAS, and just use no-save stuff...like base sphere darkness. It's definitely a last-ditch effort. If you're not willing to burn at least 6 points of your CAS, you are better off with Extra Spell Points. But I honestly don't know if low CAS builds are "good," and thus that's not as big of a trade off as I feel like it is.
Body Double (N-B): Basically it's a chance to absorb 1 hit for 2 spell points. You can do better.
Black Totem (N-B): Generally, totems aren't great. And you can take Clinging Darkness for better, more mobile darkness, generally. There are particular exceptions. But generally.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

I notice you left out the Event Horizon feat, which lets you use the Gravity Ward/Well talent from Telekinesis as a (Darkness) talent. It seems pretty great in combination with Dual Darkness to trap enemies in the damaging darkness or something

[SangoProduction]

I notice you left out the Event Horizon feat, which lets you use the Gravity Ward/Well talent from Telekinesis as a (Darkness) talent. It seems pretty great in combination with Dual Darkness to trap enemies in the damaging darkness or something

I could have sworn I made my comment on that feat. So I checked again. And I didn't. I guess I made it mentally, but didn't write it. Thanks for keeping me honest.

EDIT: Actually, I did but I missed it in my pass through. I made it better with your comment.