Very laggy hits

So this happened a while ago, but I've never seen anyone mention it, so I'm curious. I was fighting a guy with a greataxe, and I dodged well out of the way of an attack which still managed to flatten me. On my screen, it wasn't even close. The strange thing is, he messaged me saying that on his screen it wasn't close either.

So does anyone have an explanation as to why this would happen? My assumption has always been that phantom hits are hitting on the opponent's side.

lag, bad lag, on both ends. nothing can be done about it if its that bad for both players, so just ignore it.

Forum Pirate wrote:lag, bad lag, on both ends. nothing can be done about it if its that bad for both players, so just ignore it.

Well of course it's lag. I was just wondering if anyone knew the actual reasoning behind it. Normal phantom hits make sense, it hit on one player's screen but not the other. If it didn't hit on either, I don't see why the game would register a hit at all.