I wrote a thing. Beware, this is long as **** and pretty rambly but bare with it and call me a fraud if you feel like it. Was prompted by a reddit post asking to explain lasers then it got out of control. Straight copy pasted.
Lasers are super deep and hard to fully understand. I don't fully understand 100% of their utility, but I have a pretty good idea of what roles they play. Lasers force you (the person having lasers shot at them) to either approach to beat the laser coming out, eat the laser and take percent, shield, jump, roll, spotdodge, or go to ledge. Beating the laser can be hard to do (but isn't always possible). When a Falco shoots a laser from the corner, he hard commits to something that takes a while to get a hitbox out and leaves him in the air where he can't CC. However, if the laser connects, the other person is stopped in their tracks (barring powershielding).
The threat alone of lasers can make opponents antsy (so they approach a lot due to not wanting to be lasered) or highly passive (don't want to run into big strong Falco hitboxes like the unCCable dair). There's a whole spectrum inbetween as well. I think more power lies in being able to manipulate where the opponent lies in that spectrum with my laser usage. Many things go into how much laser spam I can get away with (MU as different characters have different tools to deal with lasers, space between characters, powershielding ability of the opponent, how much stage I have behind me, etc). If someone backs up to ledge, I by all rights can laser spam to 999% if they don't do anything about it. Sure this works, but where's the fun in that
IMO it's more constructive to play into a scenario where I have the majority of stage to play with while they have a sliver, then stop lasering particularly if I have the lead (this is where I think a lot of players might disagree). I have all of stage to work with. I have forced you into a situation where your options are hugely limited. My mere presence now applies immense amounts of pressure. I can stand a roll's length away and with good conditioning and such, turn you into my puppet. Lasers have done their job. Now I can smother you. Sometimes, I feel as though you'll weasel your way out. But guess what? I HAVE THE ENTIRE STAGE. I can fall back to wherever I want, whenever I want, and continue to exert as much pressure as I want (retreating lasers, feint movement back then approach, play with spacing etc).
Now it gets tricky. This is where you have to pick apart how the other person plays. How do they drop shield? Were they even shielding? Do they jump to plat? Do they empty jump? Do they fall back to ledge? Do they roll? Do they attack OoS? Do they WD OoS and throw out attacks? Do they advancing WD OoS back into shield? Do they start throwing attacks out? You can beat all of these incredibly hard by letting yourself lose total control in exchange for observing their counterplay to how you're pressuring them. But even when you drop the pressure, you can still have enough stage to regain control at any time. As you practice this more, you pick up on habits faster. You start reading rolls and applying shieldpressure that baits counterattacks for you to punish and stuffing movement. But in doing all this, you have to remain unpredictable and able to shift gears in an instant.
The part where this gets even more absurd is when Falco grabs ledge. You conceded 100% of stage for w/e reason. This is bad right? Not even. When Falco grabs ledge, he should be back onstage instantly and better yet, INVINCIBLY. Invincible edgedash is super broken. Super hugely immensely Brawl MK levels of broken. You can invincibly return to stage and put out (pretty much) any hitbox you want WHILE STILL INVINCIBLE AS THE HITBOX COMES OUT.
Or.
You can stand there and walk forward. Falco's walk is scary. Falco's movement as a whole should be scary, but I think it's done an injustice in the meta. Dash > WD is fast. DD is actually useful enough to microspace and subtly create situations where you can outspace just about anything with dash > WD. Outspacing things isn't free by any means, you have to be smart and the opponent can always call out your movement by going in deeper and snagging you.
Hold up. You can get people in the corner and smother their shield or you can fall all the way back. What about the inbetween? This is where things REALLY get fun. If your ledge mechanics and shield pressure are good, you now get to play the onstage game. Footsie with them. Make them ask questions and doubt themselves. Is he coming in? Is he retreating? Will he laser again? Will he stuff my movement? Can I catch him? Is this a bait? Instill that fear. Make them guess. More importantly, make them guess wrong. Don't let them guess wrong, MAKE them guess wrong. Obviously this gets more difficult the better the player you're up against, but there isn't a player alive who doesn't have to deal with the tools you have. Make them work. If all you do is dance around with lasers, they're going to know that all you do is move in and out with lasers and you'll get read, stuffed, and killed. If you never shoot lasers, you can get steamrolled. If you use the threat of lasers, shieldpressure, baiting, etc, the other player can't stay comfortable. You get to dictate how the mixup game is played. You control what tools they have to use. But you cannot laser everything. You have to take risks, otherwise you'll never learn when just to run instead of retreating laser. What if they'd have whiffed something if you outspaced as opposed to retreating lasered? You could have killed them for it, but instead you shot a laser, did 3% and gave them the chance to collect themselves because you lasered them out of their endlag which may have sacrificed frame advantage.
This has gone on too long. Quote bits and ask questions if things need clarifying. Call me an idiot if you feel like it, just do it so it leads to discussion. I really love Falco as a character and want to push him in directions no one else has. I feel as if there's soooo much room for improvement but no one's thrown anything new into the mix. Cheers.
Edit: HOLY **** I DIDN'T REALIZE I HAD WRITTEN SO MUCH. Hopefully it's useful. This turned into How I Think About Falco 438 instead of How to Laser. didn't even touch on platforms. Way too late