When can Shamans REALLY start soloing?

[Estu]

You can solo 1-60, it's just really slow going until canni+regen and then still pretty slow until you get your epic or some kind of expensive gear. You are not a standard pet class so you can't expect that your wolf is ever going to be very powerful; light blue con is as good as it ever gets (at later levels, anyway; maybe occasionally dark blue when you get the first spell or two, but I don't remember).

Best way to go for soloing assuming you don't have good gear is just to root and dot. Send in your pet when it's full HP, let it do a little damage, send it back when it's low HP, let it regen. The pet isn't very useful for doing DPS; it's nice to have sometimes as a crowd control tool if you're dealing with pulling a couple of mobs at a time.