WoW Skinning Gold Guide

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Skinning

I have not touched much on Skinning yet in this guide. This is namely because I hate it (for a very good reason): it is simply not a good craft to get into.

In business, the stability of a given industry is highly influenced by the strength of the barrier to entry.

The barrier to entry refers to what does a person need to overcome in order to enter a business? Starting up a new bio-tech firm might be very profitable, but it is not something that can be done without money for equipment and to hire skilled scientists. The barrier to entry for that field might be considered high.

Compare that to a laundry mat. Laundry mats have a very low barrier to entry - the would-be business owner only needs a small loan to lease a building and some washers. It does not even have to be a very nice building.

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Laundry mats go out of business all the time. Why? Because the barrier to entry is so low, that new ones are popping up all the time, and as a result the competition is fierce.

Where am I going with this? Skinning is a lot like a laundry mat. It is the easiest, simplest, and downright easiest profession to level in WoW. If at any point skinning became super profitable, every gold-seller on your server would respec skinning (low barrier to entry) and level it up to the max level and would be off farming dragons for their scales.

With that said, if you insist in pursuing this profession (or are a Leatherworker) there are a few things thing that you farm to make gold with skinning.

Black Dragonscales:

These are used in a lot of new recipes for Leatherworkers. They drop pretty commonly off of skinned Black Dragonkin, which spawn in large numbers in the Obsidian Forest in the Twilight Highlands. Here is a map:

These also drop Pristine Hide and Savage Leather, which also have some value on the Auction House.

Twink Leg Enchants

Now this is a way you can make what I would consider to be "good" gold off of skinning, but you do need Leatherworking leveled up. You also need "Honored" reputation with Thrallmar or Honor Hold - you pick up the recipe from the faction vendor in Hellfire Peninsula for the Cobrahide Leg Armor and "honored" with Cenarion Expedition (recipe is bought at Cenarion Expedition).

All that you need to do is farm Cobra Scales or Clefthoof Leather yourself (since they are almost never on the Auction House), and then craft Cobrahide Leg Armor (which sells for ~300g) or Clefthide Leg Armor (sells for ~125g).

These also require 4x Heavy Knothide Leather (as much as 10g a piece) and 4x Primal Air (25g a piece). You can easily farm these yourself as well (see the farming guide for Primal Air, see below for Heavy Knothide Leather).

Take a look at this map:

Red Areas: Cobra Scales

These are the spawn areas for the Twilight Serpent - these can be skinned (rarely) into Cobra Scales. They are a fairly rare drop though, so while they are respawning, you can check out the other areas marked on the map:

Black Oval: Heavy Knothide Leather

This is the spawn area for Bach'lor. This is an elite Talbuk that spawns with a big group of other Talbuks. You can easily AoE them all down and then skin them. The great thing about this is that in the blue area is the respawn spot - they respawn in two minutes, allowing you to simply camp here to get tons of leather.

You need the Heavy Knothide Leather to make the leg enchants, so it is oemthing you can do while waiting on the snakes or clefthooves to respawn.

Green Area: Clefthoof Leather

Large quantities of Clefthooves spawn here; you can round them up on your mount, kill them, and then skin them for leather. This is another thing you can do in your downtime while waiting on Cobra Scales to respawn if you already have plenty of Heavy Knothide Leather.

Conclusion

While skinning is not my favorite, it can be used in conjunction with Leatherworking to earn a decent amount of gold, especially when pursuing the twink markets.

---> Next: Chapter 3: WoW Farming Guide 

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