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.