Leather armor

Armor types
Cloth armor	Leather armor	Mail armor	Plate armor

Rogues, like this Blood Elf, wear leather armor

Leather armor is generally worn by demon hunters, druids, monks, and rogues throughout their full WoW "career". Leather armor provides more protection than cloth armor, but less than mail or plate armor. Hunters, shaman, warriors, paladins, and death knights can wear leather, but usually choose not to, due to its lower armor value than mail and plate, also most leather gear does not come with +Strength, which is more desirable to plate wearing classes because stacks with buffs such as Mark of the Wild or Blessing of Kings, while pure attack power does not. However, a Warrior or Paladin specced for DPS or healing may choose to use Leather Armor if the stats are an improvement in damage or healing; as a tanking class will be taking most of the damage in a group, the high mitigation provided by plate armor may not be necessary for a DPS or healer. Many leather wearing classes will most likely choose to wear all leather armor due to the leather specialization buff that will give them a stat bonus.

If an armor is leather in-game it will be tagged with "leather". Leather armor can be crafted by the Leatherworking profession.

Patch changes

Patch 7.0.3 (19-Jul-2016): Hunters and Shaman no longer need to wear leather until level 40.
Patch 6.0.2 (14-October-2014): Mail and Leather Armor pieces will always have Agility and Intellect on it.