World of Warcraft Guide: Skinning

Skinning is a gathering profession which involves skinning animals to obtain leather. This guide will overview the skinning profession and how to level it. 

Any player can learn the skinning profession and it only requires a skinning knife which can be bought from numerous vendors. Skinning trainers are in every city and a few towns have skinning trainers also.

Levelling Skinning

The maximum level of skinning is currently 450, it will obviously increase once Cataclysm is released. A player can skin almost any beast from boars to dragons and some types of spiders. As a player levels and moves from zone to zone the creatures in these zones will also become harder to skin. Therefore skinning should be levelled as a player does. Skill points will be gained if the skinning of a creature is in yellow or orange and sometimes green. Creatures can be skinned not only for leather but for other items such as scales - these are primarily found on dragons. 

Uses of Skinning

Skinning goes particularly well with the leather working profession as a player can use the leather they have skinned to make armour. It can be used with another gathering profession purely to sell the items skinned. A player needs to completely loot the animal they kill before they can skin it. If another player who doesn't have the skinning profession completely loots a creature it can be skinned, regardless of who killed it. 

Overall skinning is a useful profession and can be very profitable, it is easy to level it up to maximum.