Butcher | Dark Souls Wiki

Attacks

Cleaver Swing

Their basic attack is a typical swing with their cleaver, it has medium range and can do quite the damage against light armored classes. These swings can be parried, but rolling out of the way is always your safest bet.

Running Swing

The Butcher holds the cleaver upright with one hand whilst running, then swings it at you. This can stagger the player's attempted blocked, and can knock them down, if unblocked. A well-timed roll out of the way, when she's a meter away should do the trick.

One-hand Chop

The Butcher holds the cleaver upright with one hand while crouching, then lunges forward and smashes it to the ground. This move track's the player's position and will knock stagger them if blocked, or knock you down, if unblocked.

Two-hand chop

A 2-handed smash into the ground, that once again, can stagger if blocked and can knock down, if hit cleanly. However, it is slow and easy to dodge with a well-timed roll.

Stake combo

An unblockable, relatively quick attack with the stake in their off-hand. If you are caught you'll be pinned to the ground, and subsequently hit with another unblockable attack; a cleaver chop, while you are lying face down.

Strategy

Fighting the Butchers is pretty straight forward. The problem is that several of their attacks can knock you to the ground, and can hit you while you are knocked down. Use the pillars to your advantage, or clear out the 'cafeteria' upstairs and fight there if you need more space to maneouvre. Try to stay behind them and avoid their heavy attacks. The slow two-handed attack gives you plenty of time to get behind and backstab. The left handed stake-combo takes a good chunk of health if it connects, so make sure it doesn't. Circle counter clockwise to avoid the stake up close, going clockwise can get you caught. 

To make quicker work of them, make use of their susceptibility to bleed, and poison effects.

Strategy 2 - Ranged

The first Butcher can be defeated relatively easily with arrows, or one of the Soul Arrow spells you can purchase from Griggs of Vinheim. To do this, sneak down the stairs and aggro the Undead Attack Dog so that you don't have to deal with him. Back up the stairs and kill the Dog in the dining room area. Then, shoot the Butcher from the balcony here and slide to your left once they start coming for you. The Butcher will fall into the water below, then head down the stairs and shoot them while they are in the water; the hit will always be successful if you time your shot to hit them when they reach the top of the stairs. Slide left, up the stairs, to lure them off-course and back into the water. Repeat until they are dead. You can drop down for a plunging attack to finish them off if you're running low on spells or arrows, especially with the Giant Rat coming up before the next bonfire.