Following on from some discussions in the Mace thread, what factions and builds can succeed in competitive games without including a specialised shooter? I'm not counting a piece like Captain Panaka, for instance, as a specialised shooter.

Issues with having an all-melee team:
i) Can't get through a diplomat walls
ii) Can be significantly slowed down by mouse walls
iii) Will have problems against a big piece with Riposte or Djem So, like the new Mace, Vader Scourge of the Jedi, or GMLS.

Abilities that make an all-melee team more feasible:
i) The ability to kill diplomats - eg Indiscriminate, or Lord Vader's Overwhelming Force/Sweep combo
ii) Force Leap
iii) Levitation
iv) Force Repulse/Thought Bomb/Unleash The Force
v) Flight/Tow cable

So based on this, I think you can build the following all-melee squads and do OK:
i) Imperial - a Jarael/Lord Vader swap squad is viable.
ii) New Republic with Levitation - I guess you can put something together with Ganner/Anakin and someone like Jaina Solo SotJ or Kol Skywalker. You have to leave strong pieces like Mara Jade Jedi and Han Solo Galactic Hero on the bench though. [edited: I forgot Mara was non-melee]
iii) Old Republic - Jedi Battlemasters have Force Leap.
iv) Vong - a few different options - the Firebreather lets you get right through walls of mouse droids and diplomats, but I don't know how tier 1 it is in other ways? And Sheodai Shai has Indiscriminate as well.

And these are maybe viable, but a lot more marginal:
v) Sith - Thought Bomb with Lord Kaan? It's not a good trade if you have to sacrifice Kaan to kill a wall of three Camaasi Nobles though.
vi) Republic - Doombot can tow someone over a diplomat wall. But he's likely to die once he's inside the wall, and unless you can keep swapping in attackers, you only really get one or two attacks off.

What other all-melee teams can work?

Just a side note, I would consider Mara a specialized shooter, since she can deal a decent amount (up to 40) mobile or up to 80 using 1 FP. Bonus if she's adjacent b/c then she can do her powerhouse 120 assault.

Good point - oops!

I'm not trying to argue that melee is weaker than shooters, or anything like that. I'm more trying to think of squads that are virtually 100% melee that can cope without a decent backup shooter.

Lol @ Dr. Evazan. Adding him to my Lobot reinforcements kit.

Keep in mind that that squad had few tricks that helped it overcome its disadvantage of being all melee. Force Leap on most of the attackers is a big one. If you have an all-melee squad that can't get through a wall (of either Mouse Droids or Caamasi Nobles or whatever), then you will have a LOT of trouble, just as much as ever.

To make a good all-melee squad that's one of the biggest things now; being able to get through opponent's walls of characters. The current map list helps advancement, but if you can't get past a wall of Nobles, there's literally nothing you can do. To fully overcome this you really need to be able to get your WHOLE squad over that wall, or at least a lot of it; with something like R2-AD, you can get a single character over, but then R2 will probably die and it will be your one single piece that got over fighting your opponent's entire squad while your squad sits behind the Nobles and watches.

I am pretty sure you can lightsaber sweep nobles right? If so, there are plenty of characters in the republic faction that can deal with noble walls.

awesome, makes it a little harder for you to deal with noble walls, for sure, but I still believe it is pretty simple to do with all the stuff republic can bring to the table, walking through walls, towcable, swap....

I believe we'll be seeing more of that power in the future.

Yes, I'm a little concerned with some of the comments saying the JBM swarm is not a tier 1 squad. While I don't have to claim it's the new "gatekeeper" as some without real backing to that opinion have claimed, the JBMs have the ability to overcome many of the problems inherent in the game for all melee squads. Although as I am sure you would agree, the reason for it being all melee is that there were not any support shooters that really fit or did as much as simply another JBM could offer. However I think that changes with RaR. Right away, I would drop a JBM and insert Atton. I also like the idea of an Atton/Carth/KC with 2 JBMs, Seer and Bastilla - a classic jedi interference build.

But back to JBMs in general, Lou has been running them in swarm fashion at all point levels with great success this entire year, just like Ian has. There was no reason to doubt other than simply having not seen it before I suppose.