to sprint hold circle, you can also sprint on the ladder by holding cirlce and once you get to the top once you see the dude (before getting off the ladder) quickly press R3 to lock on to him and then just dash towards him when you get on the tower, and remember NEVER stop just do it all while you are rushing towards him, you want to get to him while hes still on the fence of the tower next to the big gun to throw him off with a couple of hits.

also i think i need to clear this up:

there is not a single ability locked behind a class, because to be honest there is no "class" in souls games, there are just certain items and weapons that require certain stats to use, and you can make your character use everything that the game offers you from spells to the largest weapons or guns. that being said; yes it is better to focus your stats in one direction, for example focus them on strenght, endurance and health to make a tank.

you make your own classes or you can make a character thats a hybrid and can use anything, also when you get to the max level in Bloodborne youre character is all classes in one (its pretty fun to play as that  ).

I hit him once and he fell off, which makes me sad because all my friends say that he was really hard. I wanted to have a good fight.

You can only talk to him in NG+ or if you glitch

Going through the trouble to befriend him grants you a new Gesture, but you wont be able to buy his armor until you beat him. Pick you're route.

It's terribly easy to go by enemies in this game until you get to the lower chalice dungeon spiders/hell hounds. So don't be afraid to just run by some of them if you looted the place already. Old Yarnam has two shortcuts, find them and you can evade the Old Hunter's aim quite easily.

About the Old hunter: His AI like many of the enemies in this game have a range. Sometime bosses are easy and sometimes they bring their A game. He has never fallen off the top by himself for everytime I've fought him--Seriously! He has fought me tooth and nail for every time I approach him from entrance to Old Yarnam.

When I was low level and new to the game, he would actually drive me to the edge and push me off quite often. Probably because of my skill level, and so the only way I found to be able to kill him was to come around the shortcuts so he didn't see me. It would usually give me 1-2 seconds head start and if you rush to him, you can push him off. Otherwise, as soon as I neared the top of the ladder, he was already heading toward the middle of the platform. Good Luck.

Everyone I know has killed him nu pushing him over the edge. That's how I did it. Lure him to the edge, whack whack, done

Use the Hunters pistol. AS SOON AS YOU CLIMB UP THE LADDER, START SHOOTING.. don't stop shooting until he falls off.

Reset your game, climb up and pick up your reward.

aanyway, have fun with this once you get to the Chalice dungeons.

Never before have I loved a game so much only to have a feature like this come across and utterly demolish my love for it like the Chalice Dungeons. Bland, repetitive, boring, just not fun.

How far did you get in the Chalice dungeons? They maned me up, specially the defiled ones, errr... never again did I stare at my big bar of health pick regular enemies one at a time. Basically, once the fear of getting hit stops because you've evaded harder things with half your health that can kill you in one hit, you look start laughing at regular enemies. And once you can dart in and out of mobs of enemies, you just beging to feel the rewards of dungeons, hunters like 'the old hunter' appear like regular enemies that you can time well enough for them just scratch you here and there.

It took some practice, but I beat him without throwing him off the roof. It's actually not that hard once you figure him out.

That gattling guy is another hunter just like you. Currently I am in forbidden woods farming echoes. I am level 37.