WotLK Skinning 1-450 Guide

Skinning Upgrade in WoW Classic WotLK, ExpCarry Guide

Skinning – an art and trade that allows you to gather leather, scales, and other such materials from certain deceased creatures (such as animals and dragons). Skinning and Leatherworking go hand-in-hand in World of Warcraft. These tradeskills will enable you to harvest valuable resources and subsequently craft them into high-level gear for specific classes, and various items that can be sold for a good amount of gold. In this guide, we will elaborate on how to level Skinning in WoW Wrath of the Lich King, provide the locations of the trainers, show the best skinning routes, and much more.

General Information About the Profession Skinning proves to be an incredibly useful profession in WotLK Classic, with a plethora of valuable items and consumables that can be crafted using leather. Moreover, this trade can be leveled alongside your character by skinning creatures that you kill during questing.

Skinning allows you to gather materials from creatures such as:

• Dragons;
• Animals;
• Silithids.

In rare instances, players may also obtain skins from humanoids. One can only skin the monsters if all the loot has been taken from the corpse.

If you decide to level Skinning, we recommend considering taking up Leatherworking as your primary profession. This way, you'll level up two professions simultaneously and won't be short of resources for crafting in the future.

Before you start farming for leather, you must first acquire a Skinning Knife. This item can be purchased from a Skinning trainer or from NPCs that sell general goods. Note that you can only skin creatures if the knife is in your inventory, not in your bank.

To determine if you can skin a particular monster, use this method:

Multiply the creature's level by 5. The resulting number is the level of skill needed to skin that creature. Example: if the monster is level 10, you can only gather materials from it if your Skinning level is 50. Keep this in mind while leveling the profession.

How to Learn Skinning in WoW WotLK

Profession Levels and Trainers Skinning has several progression levels:

Apprentice and Journeyman. You can learn the basic skills of Skinning from any profession trainer in your faction's capital cities. When you reach a major city, speak to a city guard and ask them to show you where the trainer you need is located. For Skinning, choose the dialogue lines "Profession Trainer" -> "Skinning". A marker will then appear on your map indicating the trainer's location. Expert. To level your Skinning skill above 300, you must visit a Skinning trainer in Outland or Northrend. Here, you can develop your trade up to level 375. Artisan. To level the profession above 375, head to Northrend and speak with one of the Grand Master Skinners. You can find the locations of these NPCs below. Training with these trainers will allow you to level your trade up to 450.

Grand Master Skinners in Northrend:

Alliance:

• Beast Tracker Jack - Borean Tundra.
• Frederic Burrhus - Howling Fjord.

Horde:

• Tiponi Stormwhisper - Borean Tundra.
• Roberta Jacks - Howling Fjord.

Neutral:

• Derik Marks - Dalaran.

Leveling Skinning in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms (1-300) The mechanism of leveling Skinning is quite different from other gathering professions because you first need to kill a mob before you can gather materials and improve your trade skills. Below, we'll show you how to quickly level Skinning from 1 to 300 in classic WoW locations.

Gathering Levels 1-65

Head to any low-level zone and kill beasts that drop Ruined Leather Scraps and/or Light Leather. It's worth noting that you can skin not only creatures killed by you personally but also monsters slain by other players who aren't leveling Skinning. Therefore, don't pass up any dead animal, even if it didn't die by your hand.

Gathering Levels 65-150

Before you move to a new location, visit your profession trainer and upgrade your skill to Journeyman. This way, you can continue developing your profession up to 150.

Now, look for higher-level monsters that drop the following materials:

• Medium Leather
• Heavy Leather

These are harvested from creatures of levels 13-30.

Gathering Levels 150-225

Upon reaching level 150 in your profession, visit your trainer again and enhance your expertise, granting you the ability to progress your profession to 225.

At this stage, your target will be creatures between levels 30 and 45. They drop Heavy Leather and Thick Hide.

Gathering Levels 225-300

Visit a Skinning trainer and raise your maximum expertise to 300. Then, set off to kill level 45-50 animals and skin them. Continue this process until you reach 250 in your profession.

We recommend initially targeting weaker monsters to save time. After reaching a skill level of 250, begin slaying stronger creatures and skin them for Rugged Leather, ensuring a steady improvement of your trade skills.

Leveling Skinning in Outland (300-375)

Once you reach Outland, visit the local Skinning trainer and raise your maximum skill to 375.

Gathering Levels 300-330

In Hellfire Peninsula, you'll find plenty of level-appropriate monsters to skin. These are primarily boars and ravagers. Continue skinning them until you reach 330 in your crafting skill. At this point, you can either stay in this area and continue skinning for a while, or move on to another zone.

Gathering Levels 330-375

After level 330 in Skinning, you should head to Nagrand. This area is teeming with creatures that are sources of leather. We recommend moving to the northern part of the zone and start killing talbuks and clefthoofs.

Upon reaching crafting level 350, head to another zone where there are higher-level monsters. If you wish, you can continue skinning creatures in Nagrand until you reach 375, but this may take a bit longer to level your profession.

Leveling Skinning in Northrend (350-450)

Upon arriving in Northrend, visit the local profession trainer and unlock the ability to level Skinning up to 450.

Gathering Levels 350-375

Begin gathering leather in Borean Tundra. Here, you will find plenty of rhinos and mammoths. Killing these creatures will quickly improve your Skinning skill. We recommend leveling your profession in this area until you reach 400, as there's an abundance of animals.

Gathering Levels 375-400

In the Grizzly Hills, there are also many creatures, including bears and deer. You can level up your Skinning here up to 425.

Gathering Levels 400-425

In Sholazar Basin, you'll find a ton of beasts to skin: lynxes, mammoths, crocodiles, monkeys, etc. You can level up in this location up to 450. You won't have a lot of competition here.

Gathering Levels 425-450

Another place to level Skinning is Storm Peaks. Here, you can improve your Skinning skill up to 450. The image below shows zones where there are many animals (jormungars, rhinos, mammoths). They are high level, but they allow you to get a lot of leather.

Remember these places, as you can easily farm expensive materials there in the future.

Most Valuable Materials Gathered Through Skinning in WotLK 3.4.0/3.3.5a

While exploring Northrend through Skinning, you will gather a number of valuable materials:

Arctic Fur - there's a small chance to get this from any monster in Northrend.

Icy Dragonscale - there's a certain chance to skin this from dragonkin.

Jormungar Scale - can be skinned from "Jormungar" type monsters.

Nerubian Chitin - can be skinned from "Nerubian" type monsters.

They are used in crafting high-level gear and consumable items, so they are in high demand and quite expensive.

Unique Skinning Ability

in Wrath of the Lich King Leveling up Skinning in WotLK 3.4.0/3.3.5a gives the player access to a unique passive skill called Master of Anatomy. It increases the hero's critical strike rating. The bonus to crit rating depends on the level of the crafting skill.

Best Skinning Farming Routes in WoW WotLK

Borean Leather

The best place to farm Borean Leather is in Crystalsong Forest. Go underneath Dalaran and find the Gorge Stalker wolves. There are enough of them to run around and farm leather non-stop. In addition, they drop Arctic Fur, which is also in demand. If for some reason you don't like Crystalsong Forest or the spot is taken by other players, try farming in Sholazar Basin from the monkeys/crocolisks or in Zul'Drak from the bears. However, the downside in the latter case is the long monster spawn time - about 10 minutes, but there is virtually no competition.

Jormungar Scale

The best place to farm Jormungar Scales is in Storm Peaks. There are several spawning spots for Ravenous Jormungar, Roaming Jormungar, etc., so you need to follow the route we recommend (see image). If you encounter high competition in Storm Peaks, which is not surprising, especially on crowded servers, head tothe north of the Dragonblight.

Nerubian Chitin

This material can be farmed in several places in Dragonblight (from Anub'ar Soulcrusher, Anub'ar Ambusher, etc.). It is quite in demand at the auction, but it drops quite rarely. Meanwhile, its appearance in the loot will be a nice addition to the Borean Leather, which is also skinned from Nerubians.

Icy Dragonscale

The best places to farm Icy Dragon Scale are Sholazar Basin (Primordial Drake). For those who are not afraid of difficulties, the Oculus dungeon is suitable. An alternative option is Dragonblight. Here, scales can be skinned from Mage Hunter of Dragonblight.

Note! The Oculus has a cooldown, so you won't be able to enter and exit it non-stop. Moreover, to farm scales there, you need to equip your hero well. Otherwise, he will die there and you will spend more money on repairing armor than you will earn from skinning.