Shades of Black

Shades of Black is a Technick in Final Fantasy XII that enables the user to cast a random Black Magick spell for zero MP and ignoring Silence status, even spells which are yet to be obtained. The major drawback of Shades of Black is that the player has no control of the spell that will be cast on the target.

For example, if the target is resilient to, or worse, absorbs the Water element, there is no way to prevent the Water spell from being executed. Also the Charge Time is longer than normally casting a spell. The Technick can be bought in Archades for 5,000 gil and its license costs 40 License Points.

International Zodiac Job System
In the International Zodiac Job System version Shades of Black can be used by the job classes Breaker, Monk, Mononofu, Shikari and Uhlan. Shikari and Breaker must first acquire the License for the Esper Adrammelech and Cúchulainn respectively. The Technick is found in a chest in the Tomb of Raithwall's Cloister of Flame.

Due to the fact that the categorization of magick spells in Zodiac Job System version is rearranged, the spells to be drawn are slightly different, e.g. Ardor can no longer be cast with Shades of Black because it is not a Black Magick anymore. The spells are also equally weighted, with low level spells having equal chance of being drawn as high level spells. Shades of Black is also a new Technick used by Larsa, replacing Telekinesis from the original version.