Skinning is a primary profession in World of Warcraft that allows a skinner to take a knife and remove the fur/skin off of various beasts in the world of Azeroth and beyond. A skinner also benefits from their ability to carefully filet skin off through Master of Anatomy. Master of Anatomy provides a passive Critical Strike Rating bonus that’s one of the better reasons to take Skinning (other than the awesome farming ability).

Skinning only requires a dead skinnable beasty (or dragon or one of the many other skinnable critters out there). Any class can benefit and it doesn’t need a “Find:” ability either, so you can take it along with Herbalism or Mining for massive cash. The leather obtained is used by Leatherworking which often turns it into Fur Lining or Leg Reinforcements that sell really well, so leather is often in demand. As an added benefit, any enemy killed in the glorious hunt for their fur will also drop their normal loot providing a double source of income.

Getting Started

To learn skinning you will want to find a Skinning Trainer. Trainers are available in every major city and can be located by simply asking a guard. The trainer will teach you skinning for a small fee and then every 50 – 75 skill points you’ll return to increase your rank from Apprentice all the way up to Grand Master. See the chart below for more information on levels.

You can unlearn skinning at anytime on your skills tab. Though if you drop it now and pick up later you will lose all of your skill points you’ve gained.

Skilling Up

First things first you’ll need a skinning knife. Grab one from any trade supply person. The best one to look for is one that’s right next to a skinning trainer.

There isn’t any talk of endlessly grinding recipes or finding any dandelions here. Skilling is real simple. You can skin anything that’s skinnable to your level. You figure this out by taking its level and multiplying it by 5. So a level 20 enemy will need 100 skinning to be skinnable. A level 80 enemy will need 400 skinning in order to rip its hide off. The enemy will also have to be “skinnable”, in so much that it has to be flagged by the game as something you can skin. The complete list is daunting, but most beasts and dragonkins can be stripped of their skin for your personal profit. Once you’ve located an enemy that’s within the level of skill you have it’s time to slay it.

That’s right! You have to slay the beast in order to get the skin off. Otherwise things might be a little bit awkward. You’ll also have to loot it once the beast has been put down (why do Gorillas have silver on them?). You can then right click the enemy to skin it assuming all of the above conditions are met. A tooltip will show if it’s skinnable (and its level). If “Skinnable” is highlighted in red then the enemy is too high for you.

One last note. Don't skin another skinner's kill. That's just rude. You can skin anything someone has killed, as long as they don't skin it (and don't have a problem with you skinning it).

Making Cash with Skinning

Of course, you’ll want to stuff your pockets with cash after going through all of the effort to slay a beast, take it of its possessions, and remove its skin from the flesh. Well, that’s certainly possible. Two types of leather present the biggest profit. Low level leather can sell well for people skilling up, but it’s not always in the highest demand. High level leather sells really well, as long as leg enchants are needed which is often between Tuesday – Friday when people get their latest gear and need to enchant it.

Leather is easily farmed from enemies in Northrend to produce Borean Leather. There are a few prime farm spots, but some will disappear if you phase out of the area. The Argent Vanguard in Icecrown are in a constant battle with spider people loyal to Arthas. These nerubians have a really fast spawn rate and there are NPCs around who will help you kill them. They drop a ton of Borean Leather and Arctic Furs, so you never run out and you don’t have to move around a lot. The downside is that you’ll have to give up on a lot of quests in Icecrown that are triggered from phasing out of that area.

Otherwise you may find Sholazar Basin as a great place to farm. You’ll find a good deal of non-aggressive Gorillas there, not to mention the other skinnable beasts that roam about. An epic flying mount can really help speed up the rate of collection if you’re over farming one area.

MoA: Mastery of Anatomy

MoA is a nice passive ability that increases as you level your skinning ability. At level 80 it will provide you with an additional .875% chance to gain a critical strike. That’s really nifty and possibly better than herbalism’s lifeblood (which doesn’t scale well with more HP). Below is a chart of the various levels.

Secondary Professions

There are three skinning friendly professions. Mining, Herbalism, and Leatherworking.

• Leatherworking: The thing that comes to mind when you think skinning. The truth though is that many Leatherworkers don’t have the time to farm the materials for everything they make. So they instead are the ones who buy the leather off the auction house. You’re not required by any length to go into Leatherworking, but it does use almost everything you can gather. It’s worth a consideration, especially if you’re a leather or mail wearing class.
• Herbalism & Mining: Two gathering professions that are an allstar choice with Skinning. You can gather herbs or mine while hunting beasts for mega amounts of gold. Although, you can’t really dedicate to doing both really well at the same. This combo helps at lower levels a lot more than at the highest level.
• All Other Professions: As good as anything, really. You can’t make an argument about being a Skinner/Blacksmith other than the fact you can’t mine your own metal. If you’ve got the gold to fund the profession then there isn’t much reason to take its partner gathering profession along with you.

Leather and Hide List

Hides come off certain enemies (there are no hides in Northrend, they were replaced by the Artic Fur which is a lot like the Frost Lotus which drops randomly from skinned enemies. Hides are dropped randomly from different enemies that are in Northrend and below, but the drop rate is lower.

Converting Leather

You can combine certain pieces of leather to create a higher tier of leather, assuming you have the recipe.

3 Ruined Leather Scraps = 1 Light Leather
4 Light Leathers = 1 Medium Leather
5 Medium Leathers = 1 Heavy Leather
6 Heavy Leathers = 1 Thick Leather
6 Thick Leathers = 1 Rugged Leather
6 Borean Leathers = 1 Heavy Borean Leather

It takes a various number of scraps to convert scraps into leather. For instance, 5 Borean Scraps make one Borean leather. Scraps can be given instead of leather at times.