Since we are here:
How does everyone feel about 1.07 Shako?
My biggest problem is that it is so good, it becomes the default choice for almost all builds. This makes builds have less variation (especially when 5/7 classes will be wearing Enigma too. It means other choices are much less useful - 20FCR circlets, Griffons, Arreat's. This decreases variation in builds and makes arguably the best part of PvP - Tinkering with the build - less intresting.
So if (and I hope we do) restart HLD, do we ban 1.07 Shako?
max.
What you said. Bigger problems are:
1. It makes strong characters even stronger reducing the usefulness of lower tier characters
2. It inspires defensive playing style
I'm not sure what is the right amount of life Shako adds compared to alternatives we could use in its place. Like 500 for sorc and necro, 800 for assasin/paladin and 1k for barb? Could be. Whatever amount it is, trapper will become much stronger with extra 800 hp than say character like kicker. Sorc would profit more from 500 extra hp than barb from 1k. The fact is tier 1 characters are so strong that any extra buff on them is more pronounced than buff on lower tier characters.
Who uses Shako? Necro, sorc, hammer, assassins, barb. 3 of those characters (+ trapper) really don't need Shako to be stronger, but this extra life just pushes them even further above from weaker characters that also use Shako. It is awesome to have 5k hp sorc, but ya know, from time to time someone might want to play some lower than tier 1 character and stand a chance at killing her. Especially true against necro who is hard to kill, even harder if he has Shako. Hammer is another strong character who can 3 hit kill anything and on top of it is invisible majority of time. And has over 5k hp with max block. Let's add 5k hp trapper who can camp among traps and has block on top of it.
As for defensive playing style... I'm playing a barb against trapper. Barb has 8k hp, trapper has over 5k. Would barb bother to jump on trapper among traps? Probably no because he can't possibly come close to killing 5k hp anytime soon with clawblock. Will trapper attack barb? Hardly, that thing has massive 8k hp and besides barb is supposed to attack, not trapper.
Now let's assume characters don't use Shako. Would barb attack say 4.5k hp trapper more directly? Chances are definitely higher since that is no longer over 5k hp and barb could hope to kill her much sooner. In return, barb would have 7k hp now. Would trapper attack him? Probably not, but the fact is barb might play more offensively and has 1k less hp could give her some initiative for attack too instead of camping behind traps.
This is just one example, there are plenty more like it. I certainly am less inspired to attack and more inspired to just turtle if I'm facing some massive hp characters, or 5k hp sorcs or necs or hammers who I can't possibly kill anytime soon and have to play my cards in a more safe and cautious way. Without Shako sorcs and necros probably won't change their defensive style, but it will make other characters have higher chance of success if they attack them turning the game into more offensive battle.
Does this mean I'd ban Shako? No. I'm just bringing what issues I see in using it. In my opinion it makes PvP more of a turtle parade and making strong characters even stronger in comparison to lower tier characters. Similar arguments could be given for beta CtA as well and honestly I could literally write everything the same for it, but benefit of using it is longer duration making it less possible to expire in a heat of the battle and giving more mana making play more fluent, but one could argue we could use extra mana on charms to balance. I do think removing both Shako and beta CtA could increase quality of games, but I could also be wrong about that.