The 2 classes that use it are classes I would never associate with mail armor. I understand each game, story, or fantasy has its own lore but hear me out.
A hunter would be out in the forests living off the land. Killing animals for food, and more than likely using the pelts for armor, shelter, and clothing
A shaman would be similar in that their people probably live in a village, and don’t really have modern weapons and armors. Lots of cultures also have shaman that wear animal bones and such, wearing pelts and skins seems far more likely
Why would either of these 2 classes go mine ore, process it into metal, then forge that metal into chainmail armor? It makes no sense to me
Shaman was just designed to be Thrall pretty much. Thrall wore armor a couple times and swung Doomhammer so shaman has to do the same. Doesn’t make sense but it is what it is.
if shamans wore mail, they wouldn’t take as much damage as mages. So you see, the armor itself is mail, but shamans get cursed by the elements (the goblins angered them) so they are forced to wear mail but when they put it on it becomes normal clothing, not even cloth mages wear, just normal clothing but looks like mail. Its the lore reason why shamans take as much damage as a mage.
Shaman wear mail because they wore it in EQ, and this game started out trying to be the Blizzard EQ. No idea where it originated that shaman would have the second highest armor class (it sounds counterintuitive to a degree), but that’s as good an idea as any.
A major reason I want the Spell Breaker class. They’d basically by magic paladins using magic instead of light while wearing mail. It’d be a cool class
Basically Nordic chainmail if they were going for that aesthetics in EQ which definitely isn’t leathers and for sure isn’t plate.
I see it also as a bit on a play of being like a flip of D & D’s cleric which for WoW they made a wider distinction gap between the Priest (Cleric) and Paladin armor classes. Shaman just kind of filled that gap.
For hunters I just see it as people who prefer to staple trophies to their version of kevlar vests.