This is all just hypothetical, but I'm curious as to what you guys think.

Playing Heavy in more scrappy formats like KOTH and Arena more often than not is very unrewarding due to his kit lacking un-team reliant offensive capability. Valve have acted on classes having limited play styles due to their current kit (The Gunslinger, Beggars Bazooka, Demo Shields etc.), but the Heavy remains a class that in more unorganized formats, has to play the role of a corner and corridor camping fatso because his kit does not allow him to safely move up into enemy territory (minigun rev up time, slow movement speed) by himself. I do not mean that it should be safe to move into enemy territory, but the Heavy is definitely the class that is taking the biggest risk at doing so.

So my question is: Should this be the case? Should the heavy possess a weapon that allows him to take matters into his own hands? People attempt this by focusing on his shotgun, however the role of the shotgun as it stands at the moment is a backup for the minigun, but most people understand that the killing power of the minigun is just so strong, that it's just much safer to keep your minigun topped up with ammo, and use your secondary for something that isn't a shotgun.

If I were to make some sort of shotgun that allowed for more selfish, scrappy play, I think it'd look something like this:

+60 health on kill
+10% movement speed
+20% reload speed
-75% max primary ammo

Again, this is all just for the fun of hypothesizing.

Maybe reduce his health a bit too.
He needs all that health because he is so slow and a large target.

But speed him up a bit, should his health stay at 300?

Maybe a minigun that only fires out one bullet a second or a weak minigun that you can run with.

a fast heavy is basically what you are making

"Creating a fat scout"
Imagined a Fat scout, due to the item change bug, creating a literal fat scout...
Somewhat disappointed....


I don't know what i think of the shotgun itself, Somehow, i can just see that it would make Heavy, in situations, a little bit too good.
Then again the burden of so little ammo, would be a punishment.

How about a minigun instead?

+40% movement speed when wound-up
10% faster spin up time
+50% max primary ammo
+17% clip size
10% slower firing speed
+20% bullet spread
-70% damage penalty (effectively rendering the weapon useless at long range)
Marked for death while wound up and for a short period of time after that
Cannot get ammo from dispensers while active
Having it wound up for too long without shooting causes the weapon to jam and stay so until you switch weapons

Minigun is already generally powerless at long range anyway since each shot only does 2 damage and the bullet spread means they don't always hit anything, useful only if someone else is fighting the target so you can chip off some health to make your teammate's life easier.

Heavy is all about surprising someone by getting in their face, either by coming around a corner or dropping from above. This way all the bullets hit the opponent and drops them quickly.