These guys were created to mimic what fighting your average Ds1 PvPer is like.

Gigachad "Input read to perfectly predict you with their bow shots, backstab you from the front like a Ds1 PvPer, and sprint like they just pooped themselves" enemy

Jankiest enemy in any souls game, reads your inputs with their bow shots, and can parry unparriable weapons like two-handed ultra greatswords and great hammers, and most notable of all, their infamous diarrhea pants sprint, just a really jank and weird enemy in general

The most 'broken" enemy in the game

"falconer will get his bird to dive at you..." Never saw that.

They walk funny

"...a falcon that can attack the player" What? Never saw that.

after extensive testing on dark souls 2 on ps3 on the most recent patch, with dark caitha's chime +10, and great resonant soul, and int/fth both at 45, and joined CoC, you can 1 shot the falconers at things betwixt only up to bonfire intensity 3. at 4, they require 2 shots.

leaving CoC you can one shot them up to bonfire intensity 5. at 6 they require 2 shots. for the sake of argument i respecc'ed to 65fth/65int and it was still requiring 2 shots, at both level 4/coc and level 6/no covenant, which really hinders the farm because at 2 shots i feel more comfortable killing the red phantoms vs using yearn and running, so that makes the farm exponentially more time consuming.

for ps4 i got the plat by doing coop, but since the ps3 community is so small now, i'm having to resort to offline farming.

It took me about 45 minutes to farm 10 sunlight medals - using symbol of avarice, gold serpent ring +2, watchdragon parma, prisoners tatters and occasionally using rusted coins.
Join champions covenant to make sure they keep respawning and farm the group of 5 near the forked road bonfire in the shaded woods.

I've killed 100 of these by now, they don't drop any Sunlight Medal!!!