Quote from Sjorsmeaster >>

"If you are inside the darkness and can see through it, attacking someone who is outside it, you don't get disadvantage since you can see, but you don't automatically get advantage, because your weapon has to leave the darkness in order to hit the target, so they have a chance to see it coming."

Considering the rules as written your bold statement above is incorrect:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets

If you are unseen in respect to a creature outside of the darkness spell, you DO have advantage.
"When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it."
This goes for both melee and ranged attacks

 My view is that if you are inside a zone of darkness and someone else is outside of it 5 feet away, some part of you or your equipment has to cross those 5 feet to make a melee attack, and in doing so you become seen. Your view may be different and that's equally valid. A lot of 5e doesn't define things as precisely as I would like, and the vision and hiding rules are a mess TBH. For example by RAW see invisibility infamously doesn't negate the advantage or disadvantage given by the Invisible condition.

No, while they have a larger range of darkvision its still acts as a normal darkvision.

To all the people who were debating if you can see a light on the other side of magical darkness think of it this way:

When you stand in the dark and look at a light source in the distance, you can see the light because a tiny portion of the light reaches your retina. Not enough to illuminate your surroundings, but enough for your eyes to see the source. You need at least some light to reach your eyes to see the source, it is impossible to see a far away light source if you were ever in "true darkness".

With this in mind, and the way the spell is worded, you cannot see normal light emitted past the magical darkness because "A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

So in the hallway with torches example, you cannot see torches past the magical darkness while standing in the area, because none of the light can reach your eyes. The one exception to this would be if the torches in the hallway were high level magical light. In that case you would be able to see the torches down the hallway, just as you would irl with normal darkness and normal light.

One time our party was trekking through a desert, so my bard fashioned a kite out of items he had on him, cast Darkness on the kite, and flew it above us, repeating every 10 minutes.  The whole party got to enjoy walking in a nice spot of shade for an hour.

Quote from Criskornelus >>

Yep! In the description. The magical darkness emanates from the object you are holding. If you have the warlock invocation of "devil's sight" and cast darkness on your pact weapon if you are pact of the blade, you can go to town on any creatures within 15 ft of you, as they'll be effectively blind unless they have truesight or some other sense, and your pact weapon is the source of the darkness, moving with you. Can make for a wicked combination!

 Can confirm. I have a Paladin/Shadow sorcerer multiclass, and it's ludicrous how brutal that combo is. He casts Darkness anchored to his breastplate with 2 sorcery points, so he can see through it, and every enemy that he engages in melee combat with is blind. Every attack against him has disadvantage, and he gets advantage on every attack he makes. Plus an AC of 21 with full plate and shield, and Divine Smite, and trying to tangle with him in melee is just begging for death.

Dose darkness  count as complete  cover ? 

Quick question,

Considering "If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness."

Can Darkness be cast on a small item at hand and being cover uncover within your turn? As in, putting a small item in or out a pocket should not consume a full acction and it will help you control when the area of effects appears. 

On another note, is to be assume that the Darkness will dissapear/reappear instanly ?

I think yes. Casting on a small item at hand and being able to cover and uncover within your turn will allow the darkness to dissapear/reappear instantly.

If you can move say 45 feet on your turn, then have your attack action, then pulling an object out of your pocket during said move, wouldn't consume any extra time.

Also I believe drawing a weapon from a scabbard/holster isn't time penalised. On your turn. So Casting darkness on weapons blade could give the effect instantly.

My character a Monk has the darkness spell. I cast it on my dagger blade and can unsheath it at any stage. As the darkness affects my own companions, I need to be careful where I use it. I try get around behind the enemy and use it away from them. My thoughts though, when I approach the enemy from behind, the enemy will be enveloped in the darkness and no one from the outside would see what was happening, until I thrust my dagger completely into the enemy's back, at which point the blade is completely covered dispelling the darkness and giving a strobing type effect.

May as well chip in another argument I haven't seen yet: Consider a case where darkvision isn't in the game at all. Just humans with no special abilities. Then it's safe to revise the spell to

Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. Nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

Which is plenty clear mechanically. It creates an area of darkness, a defined game term (Which does not mean the utter absence of light by the way, just anything poorly illuminated enough, including 'all but the brightest moonlit nights'), and specifies that the area of darkness is not illuminated by nonmagical light. Illuminate is not a defined game term, but the dictionary definition is "make (something) visible or bright by shining light on it; light up." Which does not state that light cannot exist in the area, just that it can't make things in the area visible or bright. 'Bright light' and 'visible' are game terms as well, so we can use those as mechanics too.

End of the day D&D isn't a physics simulator. That way lies peasant railguns and survivable orbital reentry. The spell description tells us what the spell does, and we make up flavor about how it does that. So if silhouettes being visible makes the mechanics unbelievable, say that it adds misty dust around things, or clinging shadows. Or just say that being unable to see their posture, the location of their armor, and the positioning of their weapon with the usual level of precision makes it too hard to target them with spells and difficult to target with attacks.

The mechanics are that it's treated like a normal dark area, with a couple extra caveats. So either no one can see the stars when it's dark out, or creatures with darkvision are the only ones that treat the spell as a dark cloud, or we accept that dark areas and deep fog have different rules despite having the same game tag, and use common sense to make up the difference. I know which option breaks my immersion the least.

Seriously the arguments I see for it being a fog cloud feel like someone saying a spell that creates 'an impenetrable veil of darkness' actually blocks arrows, because it's impenetrable.

Quote from Fryedegg >>

Question regarding the Darkness Spell:

"Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range"

So "a point you choose" is THE point of contention. Can the point be anything? IE a 40ft monster's forehead rendering it blind for 10 minutes?  Gimping it for the entire fight.  Had this happen on Saturday and while the rules clarify the spells uses on "objects" it doesn't specify if it works on actual creatures or not.  While it was awesome as a player to fight a giant 40 ft snake monster with a darkness sphere around it's head the entire fight, I felt bad for my DM since it made the encounter a joke.

Just want to handle this properly in the future.  Could not find a specific answer regarding this.

Why would that make it blind? Darkness only prevents you from seeing creatures in it. Creatures not in the area of a spell aren't affected by the spell.

Quote from Whynot2 >>

Quote from Griz_Behr >>

Would the caster be able to see normally, or are they also affected by the darkness?

 

Quote from prex360 >>

I just want to make sure, but the caster is also affected by the blindness. Just cause you casted it doesn’t mean you can see in it correct?

 Correct prex360. The caster is hampered by casting the spell. The description would have to say otherwise. Keep in mind that this is a TERRIBLE stealth/infiltration spell. It is a very good combat/control spell though to hamper ranged combatants/spell casters.

 No, it's an excellent stealth spell. You're obscured, and you can see anything not in the area of the spell just fine.

Quote from Zierloth >>

If you have ranged enemies and melee enemies you can put up darkness to force the ranged to either stop attacking or close into melee. 

You can use it to block line of sight from one mob to another as to keep the two from aiding each other. 

Use it to create confusion allowing your party to rescue a fallen party member or to escape. 

It is a very situational spell, must does have its uses outside the Blade of Darkness combo.

 Darkness doesn't block line of sight.

Quote from Emmaria_ >>

To all the people who were debating if you can see a light on the other side of magical darkness think of it this way:

When you stand in the dark and look at a light source in the distance, you can see the light because a tiny portion of the light reaches your retina. Not enough to illuminate your surroundings, but enough for your eyes to see the source. You need at least some light to reach your eyes to see the source, it is impossible to see a far away light source if you were ever in "true darkness".

With this in mind, and the way the spell is worded, you cannot see normal light emitted past the magical darkness because "A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

So in the hallway with torches example, you cannot see torches past the magical darkness while standing in the area, because none of the light can reach your eyes. The one exception to this would be if the torches in the hallway were high level magical light. In that case you would be able to see the torches down the hallway, just as you would irl with normal darkness and normal light.

 No. Light can pass through an area without illuminating it, and a spell only affects creatures and objects in its area. You can see the torches.

Light cast by a magical weapon. Would that cut through darkness so the bearer of the weapon could see?

In a recent game the ruling was no -- because the decision was how do you determine the level of the magic weapon since  weapons don't have levels in 5e. 

The exact example was the light cast by a flame tongue. I was first told but its fire so no...I personally (I DM as well) was a little taken back that long time players in the group don't know the difference between non-magical and magical fire. I do understand I'm nit picking the wording of the darkness spell here but it says "nonmagical light can't illuminate it". Well magical weapon's light is cast by magical flames does that not cause magical light?

I didn't argue at all but the logic bothered me enough to post here for clarification.

I think in this case the rest at the table including the DM were too hung up on it being fire (which again I find stunning that long time players don't know a difference between non-magical and magical fire) and two the working of the spell associating it to a level "a spell of 2nd level or lower.." since weapon's have no levels.