DAh! bAh! HmM! blAH!
They had a plan. Their plan worked that two people can defeat it while three can't because of its changes. I don't know details, though... Someone who has read the book should be able to provide that.
Budget Zen: When you see something so stupid that your mind goes blank rather than try to rationalize it.
I found a post by someone who seems to know what they're talking about.
Balmung and Orca probably used that one multi-hit Blademaster skill against the One Sin. Revolver, wasn't it? Orca would strike first with a Rue Revolver, and then Balmung would time his own Vak Revolver so that his hits landed immediately after Orca's. Timed correctly, Balmung could get each of his hits to do damage. And yeah, a third person attacking would really screw things up. Unless he was in perfect sync with Balmung, and coordinating the actions of three people would be really difficult and unnecessary. Man, I wish it were possible to fight something like that in the games.
So from that it sounds like whenever you whack the One Sin, its current vulnerability changes to another predetermined vulnerabilty. If you hit it with Thunder, it becomes vulnerable to Darkness. Hit it with Water, and it can only take damage from Fire. If the One Sin changed to a random vulnerability when hit, it would be next to impossible to kill. You couldn't come up with a strategy against something like that other than firing off random skills and hoping for the best.Jejune wrote:Balmung was the one who actually did all the damage in the fight - the reason The One Sin was nearly impossible was that no matter what kind of attack a person used, it would immediately switch its elemental weakness to counter it. Balmung and Orca worked out a sort of one-two combo with impeccable timing, where Orca would use an ice elemental attack, and Balmung would then use a fire attack almost simultaneously.
Balmung and Orca probably used that one multi-hit Blademaster skill against the One Sin. Revolver, wasn't it? Orca would strike first with a Rue Revolver, and then Balmung would time his own Vak Revolver so that his hits landed immediately after Orca's. Timed correctly, Balmung could get each of his hits to do damage. And yeah, a third person attacking would really screw things up. Unless he was in perfect sync with Balmung, and coordinating the actions of three people would be really difficult and unnecessary. Man, I wish it were possible to fight something like that in the games.
When did I say it was at the same time? According to that post, they didn't strike simultaneously, they timed it so that Orca's hits would land first and switch the One Sin's weakness to whatever element Balmung was using, so Balmung's attacks could do damage. And it does sound like they had to hit consecutively with different elements, but not just any elements. If a Water move makes it vulnerable to Fire, you wouldn't follow up with an Earth attack.