Damage is capped to ~20 until level 20 I believe.
Imo always look for HP gear, not worth switching at later levels. You probably won't really have money to invest in good gear anyways so get stuff that will last or save up for the stuff that will.
Everyone's playstyle is different but when I play a shaman I generally ignore wis completely and go for HP/Sta, maybe AC. The problem is that shamans are really awkward until Kunark, you don't have class defining slow yet, your heals are weak, your 1 mana conversion spell isn't that great, and you only get hp regen from a couple mediocre spells and a rubi bp if you can happen to find one. Also, classic itemization for a shaman isn't too good, it's fairly easy to max out wis but good HP gear is hard to find in a lot of slots. Nearly all the best shaman gear (Bladestopper, BCG, etc) is also fairly unobtainable. Since it may be awhile before we see Kunark, it may actually be beneficial to keep a mix of wis/hp (didn't think I'd ever say that) to help cast 100 single target buffs in a row.
It isn't until Kunark where shamans really come into their own, and then you should completely eschew wis for HP/Sta/AC, due to how awesome tank soloing is as well as Turgurs/Torpor/Canni3.
You may have to experiment a bit but remember that mana regen > mana pool, never sacrifice the former for the latter.
Shield AC > any other slot AC, so this is one slot where high AC will help.
All of the above reasons is why I don't play a shaman on P99, although I've mained one for years on live and it is easily my favorite class. I'm not trying to steer you away from the class, shaman are decent and are as "bare bones" as basically any other class in classic, but the playstyle pre-kunark doesn't really interest me. It's also too bad that we'll never see Luclin or PoP, two expansions where shamans really shine.
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