First, play the shamy you like to play. Either that be enchance, resto or element. Starting in Outland will get you some nice gear for either of those, but as Gaudion said
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Enhancement gear is not scarce at all. It's a common misconception that I think comes from the then initial quests in Outlands. At least on the Alliance side, all of the one-handed weapons you have access to in that first round of quests are all fast daggers or swords, which we can't use. However, there is no shortage of Enhancement-oriented mail/leather throughout HFP or anywhere else. Once you can get yourself a pair of suitable Outlands one-handers you'll be off like a rocket
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But when you actually make it to 25-man raids, you will find that most guilds will take enhancement shammies over elemental.
Ina 25 man, theres room for shamies. Put a enchance in a melee grp and it rocks. Put an elemental in a caster grp and watch all that spell dps go high as well. The 3% increase from ToW to hit and crit do make a lot of diff thats why an elemantal with ToW learned needs only 54 spell hit instead of the regular 100+. But yea, others should be hit capped on their own.
Elemental shamy can main heal some instances, i've seen it done even in reg MgT (but it was once in a life time) with just some gear switching. The reason is with all the spell dmg we get, we also get the pretty much same healing. So with a healing of 600+ you can main heal SOME of the instances.
In 5 mans, theres less spots so a resto will take priority over the other 2 and a cc class over them as well, but as dps goes, both enchance and element can dish it out like pros.
In my own experience. I've level my shamy as resto up to 60 (yea i know wasn't the smartest choice, but he made it there). When i entered Outlands my resto was getting pretty much owned by mobs :( so i switched to enchance. Was ok, but for me, something was still missing and died a lot. So for fun i went element and stayed like that since then and i do love my elemental.