Soldier Melees
Soldier Melee Options
Pain Train 
+1 capture rate on wearer
10% bullet damage vulnerability on wearer
When Held: +10% faster move speed on wearer
When Held: +20% damage vulnerability on wearer
Essentially the Powerjack for Soldier, this speeds him up at the cost of taking more universal damage. Speed is an important utility that most of his other melees lack, so there's good reason to always bring it along. The increased damage vulnerability just requires you to be a bit more careful with NPCs, bosses, and zombie Mutations.
Half-Zatoichi 
This weapon has a large melee range and deploys and holsters slower
No Honorbound penalty!
Soldiers and Demos can duel with katanas for a one-hit kill
Gain 0% of base health on kill
The Half-Zatoichi has been changed so you get no health from killing a zombie. The weapon switch penalty is definitely felt when you want to quickly deal with a low zombie but are slow to the draw before someone else kills them. It's really only here because it lets you one shot Half-Zatoichi Soldier and Demo zombies and because the increased range can be nice.
Disciplinary Action 
This weapon has a large melee range!
-25% Slower Swing Speed
Can't inflict speed boost on teammates or yourself.
Unable to inflict speed-boost upon anybody - there is still a use for the disciplinary action; that being its substantial melee range, giving it a little edge over the other melees enough to use it as an alternative go-to from the Half-Zatoichi, albeit slower swinging speed than that.
Escape Plan 
When Held: -28% slower move speed on wearer
When Held: -90% less healing from Medic sources
When Held: Move speed increases as the user becomes injured
When Held: Marked-For-Death until short period after switching weapons
Max move speed is ~116% of normal Soldier speed
The Escape Plan gives the Soldier increased movement speed at lower health as long as it's held out. However, the weapon is taxed with a movement speed penalty while held making it so you are slower than normal at high hp and not that fast at low health. Despite its potential to provide more speed than the Pain Train, you shouldn't even be walking around at low health as you could easily die from NPCs, bosses, or zombie Mutations. Plus, Marked-For-Death affects all sources of damage adding onto the danger. If you want to use this over the Pain Train, you'll have to be ten times as careful.
Equalizer 
When Held: -90% less healing from Medic sources
When Held: Damage increases as the user becomes injured
While the Equalizer does give you the potential to deal more damage, this has the same downside as the Escape Plan being that it's too dangerous to use at low health with so many sources of damage surrounding you. This does have the upside of letting you help your Medic build ÜberCharge faster, although it'd be best for them to generate it naturally by healing those upfront tanking hits. Still, it's better than nothing.
Shovel 
Dig your own grave with this.
No benefits or attributes.
Market Gardener 
20% Slower Swing Speed
Deals crits while the wielder is rocket jumping
Due to rocket jumping being disabled, you're essentially wielding a shovel with a slower firing speed. Even hitting yourself with an explosive and trying to melee a zombie while still in the air doesn't let you crit!
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