Paid attention to
what? All I remember was just Samson going on about Léna smelling like she's in heat and plunging his spear or whatever. And his mooks giving me a hard time because they're hitting me for >1/6 my HP and it takes three Hail/Flame Slashes to kill each (assuming no misses.). And stripping my clothes.
Now I went back to check and Samson says one of three things that are
randomly chosen when taunting:
Mhm? Did you smell something? This scent? Oh right, you damn witch! Getting aroused even while fighting us, are you!?
Heh heh, after all your swordwork is just pretense, mere playing at being a knight! You what real knighly swordfighting means to me? Let me carve it deeply into your body!
Hmph, a paladin's power is not as it's rumored to be... Is a paladin not supposed to be one who possess both magic to manipulate the very firmament, and swordwork verging on divine speed?
Third taunt is the only one that might provide a hint, and only for people who paid attention and remembered the flavor text for Shine Thrust (the 'divine speed" part). And even then it sounds like taunting the player into using a useless move, because it's Holy elemental. Or the player might be taken in by the "magic" part of the line and goes on to research magic and imitate Mylène with lightning magic.
(I mean, sure, the Necromancer does something similar, but his case is more intuitive because the game lets you know that Purify is supposed to be extra effective on undead, with the Necromancer' apparent immunity looking kinda suspicious. And Necro panics more and more as you spam Purify, hinting to you that you're on the right track. Also Marie outright tells you that some Purify-immune undead can be Purified with repeated applications of the same anyway, if you didn't mess up and let her be captured.)
When I fought Samson? Didn't get the third "hint" taunt (seriously, why lock it behind RNG?). Got my clothes halfway torn off by the time I dealt with the mooks (three Hail/Flame slash each and I missed like
twice). I mean, sure, I stumbled into Shine Thrust out of desperation, but without knowledge of the exact gimmick (like, how you're supposed to figure it out on the first go? At least with map bosses you have items to heal and you don't autolose after missing the gimmick enough times), I wasted my TP trying to stunlock him (because clothes ripped off so I didn't want him to get a turn) and couldn't cancel the instadeath counter when I ran out. (a mistimed heal [putting me above the HP limit for ultimate techs] didn't help either.)
So, to recap, player is supposed to:
1) Get the correct taunt message in time.
2) Realize it's supposed to refer to the Shine Thrust move by remembering a specific flavor text. And not get distracted by the rest of the message. And not get dissuaded by the whole "Humans are immune to Holy" thing.
3) Realize the Shine Thrust stuns Samson (and humans) even if it does zero damage.
4) Realize that Samson can't do shit (other than attacking for damage) if you aren't taunted, so reserve Shine Thrust only when Samson taunts in order to conserve TP (instead of wasting TP trying to stunlock Samson.)
It's a tall order. I think most people just came back for Round 2 on a next run (after BADEND), or reloaded then level-grinded for Thunderflash Slash (no need to bother with the gimmick when you're dealing lightning damage). Or misread the tip and went and research magic. (which also gives lightning magic.)
Or are lucky enough not to pay attention to the tip and only fought Samson at a higher level, so it wasn't even an issue.