Level Your Skinning Skill

Skinning is an excellent money maker in the World of Warcraft and also provides the raw materials for leatherworking, and some bits and pieces for other professions. Prices on some of the higher level skinned items (eg: Savage Leather) are right up there with other gathered items. Often they’ll be pretty good for lower level items, as well, since people tend to farm the high level areas.

Also, since you are going to be killing so many beasts in this game you won’t have to do much to make some good cash through your skinning profession, even if the prices get a bit low at times. Skin everything you kill and you won’t have to pay much attention to what level your skill is, it will always be high enough, unless you’re blasting through the levels using Recruit-a-Friend.

Note – Players will frequently kill animals which they don’t skin, so you can go in and clean up after them, gathering piles of free skins.

Master of Anatomy (MoA) – as your skinning skill increases you gain an understanding of Anatomy. This gives you a small bonus to your Critical Strike Rating (not crit chance.)

Skill Range	Train Up	Min. Level	Title	MoA Level	Crit
1-75	50+	1	Apprentice	1 (at 75)	3
76-150	125+	1	Jouneyman	2 (at 150)	6
515-225	200+	10	Expert	3 (at 225)	9
226-300	275+	25	Artisan	4 (at 300)	12
301-375	350+	40	Master	5 (at 375)	20
376-450	425+	55	Grandmaster	6 (at 450)	40
451-525	500+	75	Illustrious Grandmaster	7 (at 525)	80
526-600	n/a	80	Zen Master	8 (at 600)	320

 

Items Obtained from Skinning

Note: Items such as Heavy Savage Leather and Cured Hides are created by Leatherworking, and are not skinned. Any given critter might drop any of several types of leather.

Medium leatherHeavy HideWarbear Leather

Old world	Hides	Specials
Ruined Leather Scraps	Light Hide	Thin Kodo Leather
Light Leather	Medium Hide	Devilsaur Leather
Heavy Leather	Thick Hide	Enchanted Leather
Thick Leather	Rugged Hide
Rugged Leather	Raptor Hide
Outlands, min skill 300
Knothide Leather Scraps	Fel Hide	Primal Tiger Leather
Knothide Leather		Primal Bat Leather
Heavy Knothide Leather		Thick Clefthoof Leather
		Core Leather
		Crystal Infused Leather
Northrend, min skill 375
Borean Leather Scraps	Arctic Fur
Borean Leather
Heavy Borean Leather
Cataclysm, min skill 450
Savage Leather Scraps	Pristine Hide
Savage Leather
Mists of Pandaria, min skill 525
Sha leather scaps
Sha leather

 

To get the Skinning skill simply run to your nearest trainer (ask a guard for location) and don’t forget to buy a skinning knife from the supply guy/gal. Then get to work.

By the way, Worgen are the best skinners with a +15 bonus and quicker skinning.

Getting Started

All of the starting areas offer plenty of opportunity for skinning, you don’t have to travel to Durotar or Elwyn Forest, unless you want to. You should get your skill to at least 65 before moving to the next zone.

Generally mobs will have a skinning requirement of 5x their level, so those level 14 mobs will require (5 x 14) 70 skinning skill. If you keep your skinning skill at a minimum of 5x your own level you should be good all the way to the end.

Notes:

• Beasts in the startng areas (the level 1-5 areas) cannot be skinned.
• You will need at least 300 skill to skin anything in Outlands, 375 for Northrend, and 450 for the Cataclysm zones.
• Trapper’s Traveling Pack holds 28 slots (for skinning.) There will likely be a bigger on in Mists of Pandaria.

How to Enhance Your Skinning

+5 Skinning:

• Enchant Gloves – Skinning– +5 to Skinning
• Enchant Gloves – Gatherer – adds +5 to Skinning, Herbalism and Mining

+10 Skinning:

• Finkle’s Skinner– dropped by The Beast in Upper Blackrock Spire
• Zulian Slasher – dropped by Zanzil in Zul’Gurub when in Heroic mode

+15 Skining:

• Pick Worgen as your race.

How to Level Any Profession Quickly

Want to make professions easier? This is an in-game guide to leveling all of your professions and getting all of your achievments. All of the “where to go and what to do” is right there for you. Get yours here.