That's one of the reasons I suggested druid, too. Most beastform druid powers are melee strikes with martial-looking effects.
And I know it's weird, but beastform doesn't need to have a shapechanging flavor at all -- the base power doesn't change any game statistics. I'm not a fan of the 4e wildshape concept because it has you shifting form every few seconds. That's definitely not a classic fantasy trope. Eventually I started thinking of the different wildshapes as stances and moves in a typical human martial art. Say, bando, for example, if you want to get meta about the 'animal' theme.