WoW Forever Skinning leveling guide 1-300: where to skin, trainers, and gold

Wowhead calls Skinning one of the easiest professions for making gold, especially while leveling. You're killing beasts anyway, and every corpse gives you extra loot. Unlike Mining and Herbalism, you don't have to run anywhere, because the materials are lying right at your feet. Trade supplies vendors sell the Skinning Knife for 10 copper, so it costs next to nothing to start.

In Forever a skinner has new scarce materials to sell too: Pristine Leather, Pristine Hide, and Pristine Scale. The new Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, and Tailoring sets and the best level 60 items need them, and they drop rarely. On the beta, Pristine Leather went for about 2 gold apiece on the Auction House, and testers complained on the Blizzard forums that it was too expensive.

Skinning is most often paired with Leatherworking. Nearly everything a leatherworker makes uses leather and scales, and our Leatherworking route goes through more than two thousand pieces of leather and scales. The pair is especially good for Druids, Hunters, Rogues, and Shamans, who make their own armor. If you don't want to craft, Wowhead suggests Mining or Herbalism. Both make gold on their own, and there are plenty of beasts on the way to veins and herbs.

• Pristine materials. Beasts sometimes give Pristine Leather, Pristine Hide, or Pristine Scale on top of the regular loot now. These are new scarce reagents that the new sets and a lot of level 60 items can't do without. Which beasts drop what, and what it's worth, is covered in the pristine section.
• Tanning and the camp. Along with the profession you get Tanning, the window where a skinner puts together camp items. From skill 20 you can put a Camp Chair down at the campfire, and everyone sitting nearby gets +2% crit with attacks and spells. Later the Field Guide and the Trapper's Workbench join it, and the camp section has the details.
• Trainers and a guidebook in starting zones. Six starting zones have novice Skinning trainers. They only teach Apprentice, but they're right where you start. And a quest at level 3-4 lets you pick one of three guidebooks for gatherers. Pelt Collecting for Beginners teaches the profession if you don't already have two primary professions and adds 2 skill points, up to 15.
• A new enchant and a knife that add skill. Enchant Gloves - Advanced Skinning adds 10 to your Skinning skill, twice as much as the old enchant. Another 3 come from the Keen Skinning Knife, a reward for the Horde quest Unwelcome Guests in the Barrens. Why that matters when the cap is 300 is explained in the skill bonus section.
• Legacy. Wowhead doesn't show any Legacy Challenges for Skinning, but three perks help a skinner too. Bountiful Harvest adds 20% more scarce materials from Mining, Herbalism, and Skinning for each of its 5 ranks, Working Overtime raises your skill-up chance, and Dedicated Study adds a point to your lowest profession once every 23 hours.

A skinner has no recipes, so there's no crafting route either. Your skill goes up when you skin a beast you've killed. You can only skin a corpse if your skill is high enough for its level. Wowhead gives the formula: level 1-10 beasts only need skill 1, levels 11-20 need (level − 10) × 10, so skill 70 for a level 17 beast, and from level 21 it's level × 5, so skill 210 for level 42 and exactly 300 for level 60.

That gives you the main rule: skin beasts just under the highest level your skill allows. The further your skill outpaces a corpse's requirement, the rarer the points, and Wowhead says straight out to move to a higher-level zone once points start coming slowly. If you're leveling a character, you don't need special zones at all. Follow the regular questing zones, take the beast-hunting quests, and skin everything you kill, and your skill will keep pace with your level on its own.

Don't wait until you hit the cap to train ranks. You can learn Journeyman from skill 50, Expert from 125, and Artisan from 200, so no points go to waste at 75, 150, and 225. The zones up to 225 in the table come from Wowhead's overview and the ones after 225 from the Warcraft Tavern guide, and the second column shows the beast level you'll be able to skin by the end of each stretch.

Skinning costs almost nothing, just a 10-copper knife and training, and everything you skin is pure profit. Not everything sells equally well, though. The money is in the leather and scales other professions buy by the hundreds, for leveling, for their own gear, and for raid gear. Here's what will definitely sell in Forever, and why.

You won't find Auction House prices here. The beta was capped at level 30, so nobody has seen level 60 prices yet, and after launch your realm's Auction House will show them. The only hard number is a price ceiling, since a vendor at the Black Market sells pristine materials, and there's no reason to pay more than the vendor charges.

Every Skinning trainer teaches Apprentice (up to 75), and six starting zones also have novice trainers who only teach that rank. The higher ranks come from regular trainers in the capitals and towns: Journeyman (up to 150) from skill 50, Expert (up to 225) from 125, and Artisan (up to 300) from 200. All the training costs 5 gold 55 silver 10 copper, and Artisan is almost all of it.

Wowhead doesn't show the character level each rank needs in Forever. According to the beta data we collected in our gold guide, gathering ranks unlock earlier than crafting ones, with Journeyman right away, Expert at level 10, and Artisan at 25. We'll double-check this at launch.

There are two more trainers on Zephras Isle, where Skyborne characters start, Mendalass Tattermend in Shen'dar Village and Ishlee Breezewhisper in Valanaar. You can start the profession with them, but Wowhead doesn't say yet whether they teach the higher ranks. Starting-zone vendors also sell a bag, the 4-slot Apprentice's Skinning Satchel.

Pristine materials are the headline addition to Skinning in Forever. When you skin a beast, you might get Pristine Leather, Pristine Hide, or Pristine Scale on top of the regular loot. Wowhead doesn't know the drop chance yet, or which beasts drop what, but the beta data gives some hints.

Wowhead says Pristine Leather dropped from dozens of different level 10-26 mobs, and Pristine Hide from level 25-34 mobs. There's no data on Pristine Scale at all, since the beta was capped at 30. The items also have different item levels, 25, 45, and 60, so it looks like the higher the beast's level, the more valuable the pristine material. That's our guess, and we'll check it after launch.

They drop very rarely. One tester in the Wowhead comments counted roughly one Pristine Leather per 600 skinned corpses. Another wrote that they got 5-8 a day until level 25, and after that the leather stopped dropping completely. The second claim isn't confirmed yet, but if it holds up, Pristine Leather is best farmed before 25.

The Bountiful Harvest Legacy perk adds 20% more scarce materials for each of its 5 ranks. If you plan to live off pristine materials, it makes sense to take it early.

Material	Item level	Dropped on the beta from	Used in recipes	Mister Graphed
Pristine Leather	25	Level 10-26 mobs	126: Leatherworking 80, Blacksmithing 30, Tailoring 16	5g
Pristine Hide	45	Level 25-34 mobs	46: Leatherworking 43, Tailoring 2, Engineering 1	20g
Pristine Scale	60	No data	16: Leatherworking 12, Tailoring 2, Engineering 2	50g

The camp is a new Forever system. At a campfire, each player can put down one item from their profession, and everyone who sits or works nearby for at least a minute gets its bonus. All camp items share a 1-hour cooldown. A skinner puts them together with Tanning, which comes with the profession.

You learn to put together the Camp Chair at skill 20, either from the trainer for 1 silver or through the Camping 101: Skinning quest. The chair takes three Light Leather and two Simple Wood and gives +2% crit with attacks and spells. While your skill is under 25, putting the chair together can give you a point too. Note that the chair and a druid's Moonkin Aura don't work together.

The Field Guide unlocks at skill 140 and goes right on top of the chair. It keeps the chair's bonus, and anyone who reads it gets Track Beasts, just like a hunter. Its blueprint drops from Lady Anacondra in the Wailing Caverns, but Wowhead says only about once in three hundred kills.

The Trapper's Workbench is a skill 300 item, with the chair's bonus plus a trap. What kind of trap is still unclear, and Warcraft Tavern suspects it means hunter traps. Wowhead says the blueprint drops from Houndmaster Loksey in the Scarlet Monastery, but the chance is tiny, about 0.02%.

Item	Skill	Effect	Materials
Camp Chair	20	+2% critical strike with attacks and spells; Moonkin Aura and the chair do not work together	Light Leather (3), Simple Wood (2)
Field Guide	140	The chair's bonus plus Track Beasts for everyone who reads it	Medium Leather (3), Slimy Murloc Scale (2), Fine Thread
Trapper's Workbench	300	The chair's bonus plus a trap	Simple Wood (2), Heavy Leather (4), Iron Bar

The only tool you need is a Skinning Knife. Every trade supplies and leatherworking supplies vendor sells it, and you don't have to equip it, since keeping it in your bags is enough. Hover over a corpse, and if the cursor icon changes, right-click to skin it. You have to loot the corpse completely first.

Bonuses let you skin beasts your skill isn't high enough for yet. They don't give skill points, but Wowhead says some mobs need more than 300 skill and can't be skinned without bonuses. Gloves can only hold one enchant, so the +5 and +10 don't stack, and unlike the regular knife, the bonus knife has to be equipped.

What	Skill bonus	Where to get it
Keen Skinning Knife	+3	Horde reward for the Unwelcome Guests quest in the Barrens
Enchant Gloves - Skinning	+5	Glove enchant from an enchanter
Enchant Gloves - Advanced Skinning	+10	New Forever enchant; it needs Cured Rugged Hide

• Skinning beasts way below your skill. The further your skill outpaces a corpse's requirement, the rarer the points. As soon as points slow down, move on to higher-level beasts.
• Waiting for the cap to train a rank. You can learn Journeyman from skill 50, Expert from 125, and Artisan from 200. If you hit 75, 150, or 225 first, the points from corpses go to waste until you get to a trainer.
• Vendoring pristine materials. A vendor pays 1 silver 25 copper for Pristine Leather, and crafters on the beta paid about 2 gold. List it on the Auction House or give it to a leatherworker you know.
• Leaving corpses behind in a group. You can skin someone else's kill once it's been looted. Agree with your group to loot corpses fully, and skin everything at your feet.
• Putting the chair down next to a druid in Moonkin Form. The chair and Moonkin Aura don't work together. If there's a druid like that in your group, decide which bonus you need more, and if it comes to that, put down another profession's item at the campfire.