In my science fiction setting, it is the tail end of the twenty-first century, and most scientific fields and engineering disciplines have advanced substantially. There has been further developments in laser technology, fueled by improvements in materials science and batteries (There are commercially available batteries with comparable energy density to gasoline), and laser weapons were widely deployed among current militaries for anti-drone and missile applications. However, the known issues with laser weapons (cooling issues and energy) have prevented anti personnel deployment.
However, humanity has recently come under attack. A directed panspermia mission from an unknown nearby civilization has implanted a new and very hostile ecosystem into the Sol System, similar to The War Against the Chtorr.
While I'm not going to go in depth into the details of the ecology here, part of the invasion includes a wide variety of toxic and carnivorous plants that have a habit of cropping up in inhabited areas and ensnaring and digesting people. I wondered whether this is a rare situation where lasers could be better than the alternative.
What the military needs is a multipurpose, man-portable tool that can be used by soldiers to perform weeding duty and safely destroy toxic plant growths at a distance, as well as cut out soldiers trapped in carnivorous plants without getting close and being eaten themselves.
I think that this situation could mitigate many of the disadvantage of handheld laser anything. The fact that the targets, plants, would be stationary, means that a lower power laser could be used for cutting and weeding. This would mean less cooling and fewer batteries necessary to run the laser. My understanding is phased-array optics could give precise control over the beam. But is my understanding of the science correct? Would lasers be the best choice for this situation?
EDIT It seems that per usual in science fiction, this is not a justifiable application for laser weaponry. The multiple issues JBH mentioned plus the much lower cost of a pole saw means the laser backpack will be removed from the setting. From a narrative perspective, this might be a good thing. Having manual control over the cutting implement getting your friend out of a plant makes the story more exciting then if the targeting is done via computer.