Washing Pole worth using anymore?

[EmperorC3]

I'm a new player on my first playthrough and I've had a lot of fun with the katanas and longer reach weapons, so I figured the washing pole would be a fun weapon to base a build on. But most of the things I could find online about the washing pole's strengths seemed to have either been nerfed(bleed) or outclassed.
TL:DR Is it worth using?

[Laati]

Yeah.. it's def fu*king worth it.

Doesn't make me suicidial at all whenever somebody does running r1.

[Laughing Clown]

It's a pretty popular weapon. (At least it was for a while)

[Seferofe]

It's running R1 and range for outspacing is pretty much it's only strengths. Even then people will find/know how to punish the running attack pretty early in the fight if they know what they're doing. Also, pretty sure with the washing pole the R1 doesn't actualy combo into another R1. Either that or I'm thinking of something else from DS 2, but I'm pretty sure.

I'd recommend to just go for a sharp uchikatana, the frayed blade or the chaos blade. Frayed blade is definitely the better option, but I like the look of the chaos blade way more, especially the sheath.

[Tao314zdin]

If you want to tryhard - no, otherwise it is fine weapon, but do not over-rely on running r1 if you have good connection because it is parriable by reaction.