Rhythm Stick

Almost immediately after I thought my idea well had run dry, I hit on something of an idea. A rhythmic melee weapon. Basically, the weapon charges on a timed charge bar. The bar fills up, and if you can land the hit just as the bar hits 100%, you get a bonus.

The initial idea was as a training weapon, one that somehow taught new players to time their swings properly, or taught them how to engage foes at melee range, by encouraging the bonus to happen as they're swinging, or if not a bonus, at least a little celebratory noise. That way, they'd know when they were connecting with a melee swing.

But then I thought that maybe it could be a gambling thing. The bar's 0-charge leaves the weapon at fifty percent, with 100-charge giving the weapon 150% damage. Alt-fire to choose the charge. Whatever you pick, that's your melee damage for ten seconds.

Or perhaps the bonus isn't damage. Maybe if you can land it just as an enemy is using a melee attack, you counter his attack and deal a crit--a karate weapon that's ideal for melee mode!

This idea needs a little brainstorming.

The Party Favors

Party Favors
Level Communism Fists
On Kill: Four seconds of using the primary weapon of the victimized class.
DOES NOT WORK ON PEOPLE OVER 200kg

Whenever the Heavy catches a victim in his grasp, he puts them in a headlock and squeezes. Every powerful squeeze causes their fragile bones to twist and snap, pulling the trigger on whatever weapon they happen to be holding, until finally, well, puny baby bones weren't meant to be broken that way.

I know it wouldn't work as an unlock, necessarily. It's pretty complicated and the actual benefit is badly broken... I just like the mental image of the Heavy with a Scout under his arm, forcing him to shoot people because the Scattergun's tiny trigger is too small to accommodate hands of Slavic proportions.

Generic Melee Idea

The Leverage
Level 10 Crowbar
 +5% damage for every enemy within 100 Hammer Units
-5% damage for ever ally within 100 Hammer units 

This generic melee weapon gets stronger when you're by yourself! Of course, if you're in the majority it's not very strong.

The Arms Race

The Arms Race
Level Vodka Fists
On Miss: Hit Yourself, dummy
On Kill: Throw enemy ragdoll for heavy damage

A weapon that allows you to kill enemies, and then throw their bodies at their buddies. Yeah, this is a remake of the Heimlich Counter Maneuver, but I liked it so much I wanted to repost it.

The downside is kind of a rough issue. On the related SPUF post  people pointed out that hitting himself would allow for advanced mobility options, or "self-damage jumping". It immediately split, one person liking it, the other seeming to dislike it. Either way, I'm not wedded to that as a downside, so if it's not downsidey enough... who knows. If it's too tough on the Heavy, a simple cooldown on missed swings might be preferable.

And handling a technical issue: I know that ragdolls are handled client-side. On a kill, the "real" ragdoll would have to be hidden or destroyed immediately, while the heavy created a generic version of his victim's ragdoll in his hands to serve as the actual projectile weapon. Since it has immediate in-game consequences, it would be treated as a projectile, NOT a ragdoll, in order to prevent people's optimization settings from killing the rag-doll. Think of it as a sandman ball that happens to be victim-shaped.

For a model, I was thinking that rather than created a new set of gloves for the Heavy to wear, his melee animations would change. The idle animation, rather than a pugilistic boxing pose, would be the Heavy standing with his palms open flat and displayed, almost like his retreating animation. The swing would be an open-handed swat. On a kill, he'd lift the body over his head--from the player's perspective, he'd see the Heavy's elbows (maybe?) and the hand of his victim visible in the upper corner of the screen. From someone else's perspective, they'd see the swat animation coming down, followed by a brief recovery animation as the Heavy lifted up his victim.