Hi All,
Looking forward to classic - I’m going to roll a shaman but I would like to heal. Should I just go Restro the whole time or would elemental be enough for healing / solo leveling to get me through the dungeons as a healer? Appreciate the help 
Happy classic
Funzone
You’ll be better off leveling as Enh with a healing set in your bags for when you run dungeons, as they’re not very difficult and easily doable in a non-healing spec. Elemental is rough as a leveling spec until 40ish, but be prepared to drink a lot.
enhance with a 2H staff buddy until about 40 when you get flurry and 2 1handers
Down rank spells, even damaging spells until your mana pool is bigger - definitely helps
Enh would allow you to heal (just keep a set of int gear around). While its probably not worth it, if you find yourself healing and doing dungeons a lot, 5/5 in imp healing wave (1st tier talent in resto) is one of the strongest healing talents in all of the tree.
They key to healing while leveling is to read up on the 5s rule. For shamans i like to auto attack while healing if my tank is good enough its really fun.
If you have a mage friend ele leveling can be viable, but still less than ideal. (Leveling as any spec shaman is a battle of being OOM 24/7.) Mage water could help this but still not worth generally. (I hear 40+ ele isn’t bad.)
Rockbiter is almost always your best weapon enchant/imbue (don’t use in groups as it generates extra aggro). This is true for all levels and weapons until maybe 58+. Frostbrand > for faster weapon speeds than WF (i think its 2.8 speed where they are equal in dps), but rockbiter beats them both. If you have + frost, spell, fire damage these increase the damage of the elemental weapon enchants. However the scaling isn’t super high. AP also scales WF better. Crit scales them all.
WF has a current bug (maybe) where a proc that crits can eat a 1flurry, so if this is fixed it might do a bit more damage.
There are elemental/hybrid leveling specs that would use frostbrand well. And heal better… its lower damage than pure enh. But its the 2nd best.
Also at 40, or 30, you can stop going into enh and switch over to ele for more dps or resto for more healing. Most going into ele for dps, but resto is also very viable so you can do this (also later and later the dungeons the harder they are to heal.)
This is classic, shamans don’t get dual wielding.
Careful, his shaman knowledge from cata is important here.
Hybrid resto/enhance spec, dagger with flametongue. The faster the better.
I think with using the classic formula slow 2h scales better than WF still for overall dps.
Frostbrand always scales better than FT at any weapon speed
As dps, I used to like running dungeons more when a priest was healing than when a shammy was trying to heal.
I would not recommend leveling as Resto or Elemental even if you intend to do a good bit of dungeons. Just make sure to keep some Int gear around.
Elemental is REALLY insanely mana hungry. You will be broke with the amount of water you need and even then it won’t be enough.
Enhance is uncontested for leveling. Swinging a 2h with windfury doesn’t gobble up all your mana. Just carry a healing set for dungeons. After 40+, you can start putting points in resto if you want. You’re giving up clearcasting, but the 3/3 hit talent almost makes up for it.
30min mark~ish breaks down all weapon enhancements related to weapon speed and their scaling. It’s pretty interesting and even though I’m not playing a shaman I was surprised by how much I remembered wrong if the given data examples are indeed correct.
FB or RB seems to be the best way to go on average without have to look up a graph for every new weapon speed. Those two are consistently top or 2nd at almost every weapon speed. WF only seems to be great at 2.2, 3.4, and 3.5 otherwise RB or FB will be better.
Honestly, 2hs are better off using rockbiter
Its not someone in beta tested them all FT is the worst at every speed.
Look at my above post its his update for classic testing Rockbiter > then WF at 2.9 weapon speed and above and Frostbrand at 2.7 and under >FT.
Overkill is an issue with WF and as such in dungeons it is your go to.
Why shamans are fine.
I’ll be leveling enhancement, and hope I won’t have to heal. Like druid, shaman seems best at support: tanking in a pinch, healing in a pinch, and some average dps, while using totems to buff the party.
Having extra heals is nice.
This. I just leveled to 38 as elemental because I wanted to see for myself. Its do able and by 30ish you can have a decent mana pool to do multiple pulls in a row if youre playing smart and doing a bit of melee. The bonus is while healing you have a little more staying power if a pull goes wrong in dungeons. An enhancement is more efficient at leveling solo and can handle healing dungeons just fine. They can go oom if a pull goes wrong.
*Also, i did have fun leveling as elemental. Especially starting in the late 30s when +spell power gear starts coming available. *
That’s what the video I showed said too. Your above guide maybe update for better accuracy on the numbers. It still stands that when leveling use either RB or FB 