Talk:Combat Mechanism/@comment-26352945-20150501210632/@comment-26215551-20150501235353

I'm not sure if this answers your question adequately, but the answer can be summarized pretty succinctly: Yes, level makes a difference in combat - otherwise there would be no point to sword levels. A Lv.50 Tantou will do better in combat than a Lv.10 Oodachi, even though the Oodachi's listed stats are much higher. The level serves like a multiplier to the listed stats, modifying how much damage they deal and receive.

As for why it seems like a certain gap makes a huge difference, you can think of it this way: when a sword's stats (after being modified by level) exceed another sword's by a certain amount, they'll "pierce" damage beyond the troops and do some damage to the enemy sword directly, in addition to killing the troops. And if they're not strong enough, they only damage the troops.

tl;dr Keep your swords properly leveled and don't rely on listed stats alone