Phantom Damage!

Trying to fight someone with a scythe or a katana with a delayed weapon like the murakumo is near impossible, you might as well just give up unless you can predict their attacks perfectly. Seriously this game needs servers! Or they need to find someway of limiting this affect, maybe the same way they do when people backstab at the same time. I know this is a rant, but it is so frustrating.....

Get gud then .

Practice makes perfect, and you can only improve through practice. I use a claymore sometimes and that's not easy against fast weapons.

PM Reim. I can't use it for crap, but Reim is scary with it. I understand its easier to land a hit with it in one hand, and roll attacks are your friend.

Try a character with a lot of poise. If they just freely swing away at you, just attack when they are. You will sustain a bit of damage, but you'll have a better chance of stunlocking them. This may kill the other player, or do at least a lot of damage. The Mura is a very powerful weapon.

If you want to keep your gear, but have a spare ring slot, try the Wolf Ring.

If you're using a slower weapon, stack poise so you can attack through their attacks and rail them with your much stronger weapon...problem solved.

Poise, a good roll and a good defense are your friends. You can also parry, and the mura is scary with that.

Just practice and learn the precision of hitting them while they're attacking you. Nearly no weapon in the game can out-trade the Mura.

Poise helps.

The reason it helps though is trading (which you are probably going to need to get good at) which requires a fair bit of prediction yes. The mura and STR weapons in general have steep learning curves.

Well it is the first time I've experimented with a the Murakumo admittedly, but the phantom damage can be retarded sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if it's my connection though.

I also have fairly low poise, so stun locking isn't always an option, which means I have to rely on dodging and attacking.

The Mura is best 1H. Running R1 is lethal. Also, play unlocked a lot of the time. Manually aim the thing toward your opponent (where he will be when the hit should land) and use it to dead angle.

If you need to stunlock and the 1H doesn't do it, then go 2H just to stun lock them.

And R2-R2 deals massive damage and can be aimed (sometimes up to 1K). Sometimes, I purposely miss the first R2. The opponent rushes in only to get hit by the second R2 (and I aim it).

And, as said above, you should get some poise to use it. 40 is fine, but 55 is better.

I've dead angled people with the murakumo in full dragon form with the roar. A regular two handed attack can easily hit upwards of 700 damage on people in light armour.
Also, as Reim said never play unlocked with the murakumo, to do so is to give away all your advantages. I believe I have only ever been out-damaged with a buffed falchion or a leo ring halberd.

Did you mean "never play locked"?

I lock on to flame spray!

I lock OFF to Murakumo

To OP: Huh, that's funny. Whenever I fight someone with a Murakumo I always get hit primarily with phantom damage. Happens with very few other weapons but Murakumo always hits me after I've avoided it (well seemed to).

Damage detection is done on the client of the guy getting hit. Use your roll's i-frames.