And I'm telling you, that's not how it works. We are going with what the manga showed us already, and it showed us that Zoro is still doing the same thing he did with Lucci, with or without 3 swords. Zoro is a character that changes his sword number according to attacks, like he did against Kaido and such. You can't decide how Zoro is doing with only his sword count. The context of it is what determine's how much effort Zoro puts in and such. For example, even though Zoro was using 3 swords against Pica the majority of the time, he wasn't putting in as much effort as Lucci.
3 Sword The Zoro attack didn't do anything to Kaido, while Kaido had to dodge one sword attack. its not about swords; its about how much effort Zoro puts into those swords and attacks. Yes zoro's ultimate attacks with 3 sword so he is able to perform his peak attacks with 3 swords but that doesnt mean every single 3 sword attack is stronger than 2 and 1 style.
The fight's diff isn't determined by how much they were holding back or not, bro; its how the fight is going. I can say the same thing about Killer: how he didn't have his scythe's, which Killer was saying, "If I had those, you would be dead" and such (we don't take it as face value because the result would be the same), but I don't because that's not something that determines the fight's difficulty. especially if its about Zoro's sword count.
Zoro already fought Lucci with 3 swords too, bro, and Lucci didn't use any named attacks either. Your idea of named attacks doesn't work here.
Zoro is Yc+ with everything he got, as we saw with King. fight 2 sword, no bandana, no left eye = Yc1 doesn't exist.
The fight is already mid-diff, and if Zoro shows any damage (not just cheek scract btw but some damage) or an extreme level of exhaustion, it will be a high-difficult fight. which is perfectly fine for Yc+ vs Yc1
That is how things work.
You determine the difficulty of battle based on how much power they used compared to how much overall power they possess. Kaido would have a much harder time beating a YC1 character while only fighting in base mode and not using ACoC than he would if he used more or all his power. Does that mean Kaido is YC1+ just because he had a harder time beating an opponent while using less power? Of course not. That is what you are claiming and you are wrong.
You determine how much difficulty Zoro has in battle based on the number of swords he used the majority of time, who much power he use and the sword style techniques he use. There's a difference between Zoro beating an opponent while using 2 swords the majority of time and using only one sword style technique compared to Zoro using 3 swords majority of the time and using two or three sword style techniques.
There's a difference between Zoro using 2 or 3 swords compared to Zoro using a 2 sword style or 3 sword style. Zoro explained that to us when he faced the cat brother. Zoro went from struggling against the cat brothers to beating them with one attack.
It's true, the strength of Zoro sword style techniques are not determined by the number of swords it uses. But that not the case when it comes to determining Zoro's power level based on the number of swords he use. Zoro using 3 swords is stronger than Zoro using 2 swords. Zoro using 2 swords stronger than Zoro using 1 sword. As I said swords, not sword style.
Order from strongest to weakest goes:
9 swords - peak power level
3 swords - main power level
2 swords - casual power level
1 swords
0 swords
You talk about Killer telling Zoro things would have been different if he had his punisher blades. Yet, you left out Zoro's response where he stated it would have been the same regardless. Thats the truth because Zoro didn't use a single 2 or 1 sword style technique against Killer like he did when he faced zombie Ryuma and was limited to only using 2 swords.
Whenever we seen Zoro using 2 swords majority of the time he's facing a character who's nowhere close to his level and once he stops playing around he beats them. It happened to Hody, Monet, Pica, Hawkins, Killer, and Apoo. Lucci falls into the same category. He's just another opponent used to stall Zoro and show off Zoro's strength.
Zoro fights against King placed him on top tier, not YC1+. King is a YC1 who's harder to damage then Kaido or BM. Even internal destruction attacks can't hurt him in his flame mode as proven when Lucci and Luffy failed to hurt S-Bear with their internal destruction attacks. Luffy compared S-Bear to Kaido because of King's lunarian powers.
After Zoro mastered enma and obtained ACoC he was dominating the battle against King and had a King on the run. Zoro was clashing against King with normal CoA haki coated sword and King couldn't overpower him. He beat King with 3 attacks. 1 nameless attack, 1 low end techniques and 1 high end technique. Even his high end technique was nothing more than a KoH dragon style ultra tiger hunt, a mid-level technique. He never used asura mode or any high end techniques with KoH or dragon style.
2 swords Zoro is YC1 because that's what the manga is showing us against Lucci. Lucci is a YC1 who's fighting Zoro at peak power and I can't overpower 2 swords Zoro and control the battle. Zoro forces Lucci to go from being confident he could kill all the SH to being happy he can stall 2 swords Zoro.