Skjhdl;sdklfah;dfasl;dhjf[osaklcacmka!!!

That is all.

You can shoot him with magic from the doorway you know.
 
He just keeps trying to get you and then walking back down the stairs.

Hold up shield, circle strafe, go around back, lower shield, back stab. You can also wait until later in the game to fight him. Only reason to kill him immediately is if you use heavy armour.

Looking around at descriptions for awhile, its not actually Havel.  The Havel's Ring states that it was worn by his men to symbolize their adoration for their leader and to bear a heavier burden.  Further, the item description for the key that opens the upper door of that tower states that there was a powerful warrior locked down there by his traveling companions.  I can't imagine Havel's men doing that to him.  Nothing that effects how you go about killing him but I am a lore freak.

The roll + backstab method works well, or get the dragon sword and dance around him, dogding his strikes, chipping away at his health. Took me four tries. Felt hella good when he finally went down.

@SuperWristBands said:

Hold up shield, circle strafe, go around back, lower shield, back stab. You can also wait until later in the game to fight him. Only reason to kill him immediately is if you use heavy armour.

Yeah. I've gotten soooo close so many times. He always manages to one-shot me with this massive raper club.

@Turambar: havel the rock is havel the rock .. theres no reason to think he is anyone else except mabey a different version of him, he might be a hollow version of his former self , or a dark "clone" like the other unique knights (tower shield knight in the undead chapel etc..)

remember solaire states that all sorts of random heroes from throughout time are converging on lordran , some via the summon signs (not just solaire but the various npcs you can summon and also the npc black phantoms that invaded you)

havel is most likely just a remnant of his former strength , and possible the real havel would be alot stronger ... like a shadow of the past , eternally guarding his tower ..

also people seem to have interpreted some lore abotu how hes trapped in the tower , i think the developers just simply left it that way since it achieved nothing to let him chase you to the ends of the earth .

i think the reason he remains solitary in his stairwell , and isnt a crazy boss like ornstein and smough , or protecting any thing but a shortct , etc .. is that he is supposed to just be an embodiment of massive armor cool factor .. hes literally just a rock , and isnt a tool of any other aspect of the world , except the game mechnics that leash him to the tower .. ehhe

developer A : we have this shortcut right near the first boss , if we let peopel use it with the master key , they could skip past all this shit !

developer B : justy put a really tough monster in there to guard it then

developer A : but then people will think theres something really cool past there , and try and beat him despite the difficulty ..

developer B: well just use that havel guy , we havent got anywhere where he fits yet ..

developer A : great idea , nobodys going to be dumb enough and try and fight him until later , we will make his weapon one shot you.

developer C : what did you guys do with havel ? , he was supposed to be the ... ohwell ill just dump his armor in anor londo

hehe i put too much thought into this

@envane: Rofl...i got tired of getting one shotted by him while blocking...and ran past him and opened the door behind him with my master key anyway.

@Turambar: But when you get Havel's armor later on in the game, it's the armor that dude is wearing, too.

Dildo club

@Breadfan said:

Dildo club

That one-shots you. Such a dick move.

@Turambar: What about Ornstein's armor, though? You get it from a merchant, and I'm fairly certain that there aren't multiple sets of those.

@Turambar: What about Ornstein's armor, though? You get it from a merchant, and I'm fairly certain that there aren't multiple sets of those.

i did this dude today, i was at soul level 40, was piss easy, could even block his attacks haha. Dude probably is alot harder on lower levels.

@Turambar: god damn it please go on, i am too lazy to read all of the item descriptions but the lore amazes me!

Eh.. he was giving me trouble, and I really wanted his ring for my knight.

What I wound up doing was luring him out to the entrance to the tower he is in, and wait in the door way. Bait him into taking a swing at you, back step, then run in and hit him with a single strong attack, retreating out of the doorway afterwards. Since you're near the doorway to the tower, he won't chase you outside (or if he does, only a few steps down the entrance). Once he turns around and heads back to his start point, bait him into attacking you again. Rinse and repeat. Took about 2 minutes with the Drake Sword with a SL <15.

For some reason, he seems to stick to not using his shield during this method, which slows down his recovery time and makes this a lot easier.

He's trivial to beat, just drop everything except your weapon, hold with both hands, run up to him, keep circling him while being as close and possible, wait for an opening to backstab.
 
His animation are so long that I literally don't see how he could be a problem.

I striped naked and had 100% physical damage resist shield plus a spear. Took ages but I got him down. Lots of rolling around...

Press the roll button

The roll didn't always work for me so I just kept moving around in a circle on the floor above him (that makes it easier to get your blood stain if you die) and I kept my distance. I had better luck being out of range of his attacks then trying to roll away from them. I didn't get a lot of backstabs that way but I did kill him eventually.

Havel is a jerk, even with my 100% shield up if he connected with the 2-hand swing, I would be dead.

Learn his pattern, dodge, stab him in the back a lot of times.
 
Voila, free awesome ring.
If Havel still knocks the fuck out of you, consider him your tutor for dodging.

i believe circleing to his left is the easiest way to dodge his attacks fyi also gives you a perfect position for a backstab if you manages to roll during his attack

I just circled right and backed up if he got too close. If he gets up against a wall just disengage and lead him back to the middle. This is a patience fight.

Like most things in life, it's best to go in this naked.
 
For real, if you're trying to fight him early in the game (and why wouldn't you, the ring is awesome) any hit is going to most likely one hit kill you even through a shield.  Going naked gives you some valuable mobility. Two hand your strongest weapon (drake sword is the obvious early game choice) and circle strafe, rolling whenever he attacks. It's easiest to fight him if you lure him up to the first circular room in the tower. The trick for me was to not be too early on the roll action.  It was tempting to roll as soon as I saw him flinch, but you end up ending your roll right when he is starting his attack and he hits you square on for and instant death.  Delay your roll as much as possible and you'll be well out of his way while he has his dragon tooth in the ground, and from there go in for the easy backstab.  Repeat.  With the drake sword in two hand you can kill him in about 5 backstabs.

Struggled at first but it's soooooooooooooooooooo easy
 
Just go in with nothing but your sword, no shield, no armor, nothing, bring him up to the floor with the door just incase you die, roll TOWARDS him as he swings, backstab, repeat.

I had enough endurance to withstand a whole blow from him and still have enough to do an attack. I just whittled him down 35hp per hit.

Was fairly easy for me at level 40 or so. He only hit me twice, once with my shield up and once without (which definitely would have killed me had i been a lower level). All it really took was a bunch of circle strafing and backstabbing.

Two great chaos fireballs and he went down for me.

I was able to kill him once I had 20 End. He didn't one shot me at that point (with my shield raised). That, and morningstar backstabs did the trick.