A 15% chance to avoid (not immune to) a damage event. It is not a flat 15% damage reduction; instead, it functions similarly to healing for 15% of the damage taken. This means that for a singular large hit, only 1/5 players receive value, while the rest get nothing. This makes it unreliable as a defensive cooldown for the entire group.

Commonly paired with Spirit Link Totem, as the pseudo-healing it provides to affected players is spread to the rest of the raid, equalizing its value. Additionally, since both abilities are ground-based cooldowns, they usually align with the same moments.

However, during a damage event with multiple ticking hits, it averages out, making it comparable to a raid-wide defensive cooldown like Power Word: Barrier.

Talent-wise, the default cooldown is 5 minutes (300 seconds), but it can be reduced to 3 minutes (180 seconds) through talents. The loss in effectiveness is minimal, so assigning it as a 3-minute cooldown is fine.

Assign for damage events when the raid is stacked. Choose the highest damage event available, as Darkness will effectively mitigate 15% of the total incoming damage.