WoW Forever Leatherworking Guide

WoW Forever Leatherworking Guide Quick Overview:

• Leatherworking in WoW Forever has been significantly expanded through a variety of new recipes, opening many new leveling and gearing options.
• All three specializations provide valid items for different builds.
• Leatherworking is still best paired with Skinning and used by Druids, Hunters, Rogues, and Shamans.

Feel like the grind from 1 to 300 is too tedious? Skycoach’s WoW Forever Professions Boost & Carry can help you get through it with ease so that you can craft your gear without any limitations.

 

 

 

WoW Forever Leatherworking Changes

At a baseline, Leatherworking in WoW Forever works exactly as you would expect: you use leather, hides, and scales to create various gear, mostly armor sets and utility items. However, while Leatherworking’s foundation remains the same, Forever expands the profession by adding many new Patterns and reworking multiple existing ones so that they better fit the game.

As with everything in Forever, it’s not necessarily about reaching these endgame sections to simply craft the best meta gear — Blizzard clearly tries to make professions feel a bit more nuanced and useful for more players across different classes and character levels.

For example, Leatherworking now enables you to create Armor Kits for both physical and magic damage dealers. You will also be able to create quivers and ammo pouches, as well as various bags. If that’s not enough, Leatherworking allows you to get 5% rested experience thanks to the Camp Tent, Tanning Rack, and Sewing Machine introduced with the new Camping system.

Leveling Leatherworking in Forever

There are a few things I need to establish before giving any advice on leveling Leatherworking in WoW Forever.

First things first: I wrote this guide prior to the game’s full release, so it’s based on my early/mid-game experience with Forever as well as some theorycrafting. I will update this article once we have an established meta with a fully optimized leveling route.  

Secondly, if you are a new player, you have to know that your Leatherworking experience is based on the item you craft. There are four color-coded categories of these items:

• Orange recipes guarantee a skill up every time you craft them.
• Yellow recipes offer a decent chance of providing a skill point, but it starts decreasing as your recipe gets closer to the green category.
• Green recipes provide a low chance of getting a skill point, and it gets even lower as you get closer to the grey category.
• Gray recipes with no arrow indicators provide no skill points, no matter how many you craft.

Third, Leatherworking is a crafting profession, and crafting requires a lot of materials. While you might purchase some here and there, it would be impractical to fully rely on buying every single material to level from 1 to 300. The reality is that you will likely need to gather leather, hides, scales, and other stuff on your own at least to some extent. There’s a very good reason why players often pair complementary professions — in this case, Skinning and Leatherworking.

With all of these considerations in mind, you can already see how the effective leveling strategy is going to look: you should craft using orange and yellow recipes that don’t require a lot of expensive materials.

The first part is relatively simple and consistent, but you won’t be able to follow the second rule 100% of the time, since your drops are somewhat random and late-game recipes are obviously going to include more and more rare and valuable materials. Note that low-level materials aren’t going to become obsolete even during the endgame sections, so you’d better save some unless you want to go back to farm them once again.

Leatherworking Levels 1-100

The first 100 levels are going to be very straightforward, albeit boring. Start with crafting Light Leather into Light Armor Kits until your Leatherworking is around 40-50, then switch to Cured Light Hide and Embossed Leather Gloves. These will stop being good enough at around level 80, which is when you’ll have to switch to making Fine Leather Belts.

If you’re looking for a bit more long-lasting and effective solution, then you’ll have to make a trip to get a specific recipe. Kalldan Felmoon is a Kalimdor Vendor who sells Pattern: Deviate Scale Gloves, which are orange at 80 and can last you up to 117. You can farm the scales in the Barrens if needed.

Leatherworking Levels 100-200

Dark Leather Belts can help you out up to 137, but you should probably switch into Cured Heavy Hide at 125, when it’s still orange. You can also consider Toughened Leather Gloves as an in-between solution.

Once you get to 150, it gets even simpler: Barbaric Shoulders are a top choice that you can stick with until 180. If you’re willing to make another trip, you can buy Pattern: Gem-Studded Leather Belt from Vendor-Tron 1000 to increase your efficiency from level 160. Guardian Gloves and Thick Armor Kits can get you over the 200 breakpoint.

Leatherworking Levels 200-300

Craft Nightscape Headbands and Nightscape Boots until you hit the 225 mark, then switch to Cured Rugged Hide. At 235, you’ll be able to get Pattern: Wicked Leather Gauntlets from Leonard Porter in Western Plaguelands. This can last you for a while.

When you reach 255, get to Zannok Hidepiercer in Silithus to buy Pattern: Heavy Scorpid Bracers and Pattern: Heavy Scorpid Helm while you’re at it. These two will get you right up to 295. This is when you should get on a final trip to Felwood to purchase Pattern: Timbermaw Brawlers from Meliosh. These should be reliable enough to get to 300 without too much struggle.

Leatherworking Shopping List

Here’s an approximation of the amount of materials you’ll need to level your Leatherworking all the way from 1 to 300. The numbers may differ based on your luck as well as a few other factors — there’s not enough data available at the moment to be more precise than this.

Material	Amount needed
Salt	536
Coarse Thread	120
Fine Thread	219
Gray Dye	33
Silken Thread	41
Ruined Leather Scraps	96
Light Hide	10
Light Leather	244
Perfect Deviate Scale	34
Deviate Scale	102
Medium Leather	136
Medium Hide	76
Heavy Hide	149
Spider's Silk	50
Heavy Leather	224
Iridescent Pearl	54
Jade	54
Citrine	27
Thick Leather	100
Elixir of Lesser Defense	50

Leatherworking Specializations in Forever

Dragonscale Specialization

Dragonscale Leatherworking is still mostly about crafting Mail Armor, but now you have more variety and aren’t limited to just creating resistance gear as it was before. Dragonscale can benefit healers, spellcasters, and physical DPS characters equally.

Crafted Item	Skill Level	Materials
Green Dragonscale Breastplate	235	20x Rugged Leather 25x Green Dragonscale 2x Rune Thread
Green Dragonscale Leggings	245	20x Rugged Leather 25x Green Dragonscale 1x Rune Thread
Blue Dragonscale Breastplate	260	28x Rugged Leather 30x Blue Dragonscale 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Black Dragonscale Breastplate	265	40x Rugged Leather 60x Black Dragonscale 1x Cured Rugged Hide 2x Rune Thread
Black Dragonscale Shoulders	270	44x Rugged Leather 45x Black Dragonscale 2x Enchanted Leather 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Blue Dragonscale Shoulders	270	28x Rugged Leather 30x Blue Dragonscale 2x Enchanted Leather 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Black Dragonscale Leggings	290	40x Rugged Leather 60x Black Dragonscale 4x Enchanted Leather 1x Cured Rugged Hide 2x Rune Thread
Red Dragonscale Breastplate	290	40x Rugged Leather 30x Red Dragonscale 1x Rune Thread
Black Dragonscale Boots	300	6x Enchanted Leather 30x Black Dragonscale 4x Fiery Core 3x Lava Core 2x Rune Thread
Chromatic Cloak	300	30x Rugged Leather 12x Brilliant Chromatic Scale 30x Black Dragonscale 30x Red Dragonscale 5x Cured Rugged Hide 8x Rune Thread
Chromatic Gauntlets	300	5x Fiery Core 2x Lava Core 4x Core Leather 4x Brilliant Chromatic Scale 4x Cured Rugged Hide 4x Ironweb Spider Silk
Dreamscale Breastplate	300	12x Enchanted Leather 6x Dreamscale 4x Living Essence 4x Cured Rugged Hide 6x Ironweb Spider Silk
Onyxia Scale Breastplate	300	40x Rugged Leather 12x Scale of Onyxia 60x Black Dragonscale 2x Rune Thread

Elemental Specialization

Elemental Leatherworking is all about creating items from slain elemental mobs, so it makes sense that said items feature various elemental effects as a result. It features some good healing options as well.

Crafted Item	Skill Level	Materials
Living Shoulders	245	12x Rugged Leather 4x Living Essence 1x Rune Thread
Volcanic Leggings	245	6x Rugged Leather 1x Essence of Fire 1x Core of Earth 1x Rune Thread
Stormshroud Pants	250	16x Rugged Leather 2x Essence of Water 2x Essence of Air 1x Rune Thread
Living Leggings	260	16x Rugged Leather 6x Living Essence 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Stormshroud Armor	260	16x Rugged Leather 3x Essence of Water 3x Essence of Air 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Volcanic Breastplate	260	8x Rugged Leather 1x Essence of Fire 1x Essence of Earth 1x Rune Thread
Storm Gauntlets	270	20x Rugged Leather 4x Enchanted Leather 4x Essence of Water 4x Blue Sapphire 1x Rune Thread
Stormshroud Shoulders	270	12x Rugged Leather 3x Essence of Water 3x Essence of Air 2x Enchanted Leather 1x Rune Thread
Volcanic Shoulders	280	10x Rugged Leather 1x Essence of Fire 1x Essence of Earth 2x Rune Thread
Living Breastplate	290	16x Rugged Leather 8x Living Essence 2x Mooncloth 1x Cured Rugged Hide 2x Rune Thread
Stormshroud Gloves	290	6x Enchanted Leather 4x Essence of Water 4x Essence of Air 2x Cured Rugged Hide 2x Ironweb Spider Silk
Invulnerable Mail	295	20x Pristine Leather 30x Enchanted Leather 6x Huge Emerald 6x Azerothian Diamond 10x Pristine Scale 2x Rune Thread
Molten Belt	300	2x Fiery Core 7x Lava Core 6x Essence of Earth 4x Cured Rugged Hide 4x Ironweb Spider Silk
Molten Helm	300	15x Core Leather 3x Fiery Core 6x Lava Core 2x Rune Thread
Shifting Cloak	300	30x Rugged Leather 12x Essence of Air 4x Skin of Shadow 8x Guardian Stone 4x Cured Rugged Hide 8x Rune Thread

Tribal Specialization

Tribal Leatherworking uses materials gathered from strong and rare beasts to create great equipment, which was traditionally valued by Druids, for instance. Now that each specialization has been expanded, there’s probably no need to stick with gear from this one particular spec — but the core idea is still there.

Item	Skill Level	Materials
Chimeric Gloves	240	6x Rugged Leather 6x Chimera Leather 1x Rune Thread
Ironfeather Shoulders	245	24x Rugged Leather 80x Ironfeather 2x Jade 1x Rune Thread
Wildthorn Mail	245	40x Rugged Leather 2x Enchanted Leather 4x Living Essence 4x Wildvine 1x Huge Emerald 1x Rune Thread
Chimeric Boots	250	4x Rugged Leather 8x Chimera Leather 1x Rune Thread
Frostsaber Boots	250	4x Rugged Leather 6x Frostsaber Leather 1x Rune Thread
Chimeric Leggings	255	8x Rugged Leather 8x Chimera Leather 1x Rune Thread
Frostsaber Leggings	260	6x Rugged Leather 8x Frostsaber Leather 1x Rune Thread
Warbear Woolies	260	24x Rugged Leather 14x Warbear Leather 1x Rune Thread
Chimeric Vest	265	10x Rugged Leather 10x Chimera Leather 1x Rune Thread
Devilsaur Gauntlets	265	30x Rugged Leather 8x Devilsaur Leather 1x Rune Thread
Ironfeather Breastplate	265	40x Rugged Leather 120x Ironfeather 1x Jade 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Frostsaber Gloves	270	6x Rugged Leather 10x Frostsaber Leather 1x Rune Thread
Devilsaur Leggings	290	30x Rugged Leather 14x Devilsaur Leather 1x Cured Rugged Hide 1x Rune Thread
Frostsaber Tunic	290	12x Rugged Leather 12x Frostsaber Leather 1x Cured Rugged Hide 2x Rune Thread
Helm of the Great Chief	290	40x Rugged Leather 4x Enchanted Leather 60x Jet Black Feather 6x Large Opal 2x Huge Emerald 1x Rune Thread
Corehound Boots	295	20x Core Leather 6x Fiery Core 2x Lava Core 2x Rune Thread
Corehound Belt	300	8x Fiery Core 12x Core Leather 10x Enchanted Leather 4x Cured Rugged Hide 4x Ironweb Spider Silk
Hide of the Wild	300	30x Rugged Leather 12x Living Essence 10x Essence of Water 8x Larval Acid 3x Cured Rugged Hide 8x Rune Thread

 

 

Making Gold with Leatherworking in Forever

Just as with any other crafting profession in WoW Forever, your main way to make gold is to craft valuable items that will sell well enough to cover your expenses. As you can imagine, one of the best ways to do that is by getting materials yourself, making Skinning highly recommended. Alchemy, Enchanting, and Herbalism can also be helpful to an extent, since some of your recipes require materials provided by these professions.

After that, check out what type of gear sells really well, and craft it for profit. For example, the best thing you can do early on is identify which leveling gear is meta so that you can churn it out for sale. Covering the bases is also great, since the demand for quivers, pouches, and bags is going to be quite consistent.

Finally, when you get to higher levels of Leatherworking and get a better understanding of how the market works, you can get your hands on rare recipes to craft something most other specialists miss out on, or straight up head into the endgame crafting, which is always going to be highly profitable by default.

Best Class to Learn Leatherworking in Forever

Leatherworking is mostly designed to fulfill the gearing demands of Druids, Hunters, Rogues, and Shamans, and there’s little reason to invest in it while playing a different Class. After all, if you’ll be crafting all that gear, it would make sense to use it as well so that you don’t have to go out of your way to keep up with the character progression.

If you couple all this with the fact that Druids and Hunters are also among the best Skinning Classes, you can narrow the list even further down.

Leatherworking Legacy Bonuses in WoW Forever

With the Legacy system introduced in WoW Forever, it’s hard to ignore some of the benefits you can get for your professions.

• Working Overtime increases your chance to gain a skill increase from any tradeskill.
• Dedicated Study increases your skill level in your lowest tradeskill by a small amount or provides 3 random Elemental Essence if you have already reached 300 in all 5 skills.
• Performance Bonus grants a chance to receive 100% additional Merchant's Favor when turning in a supply crate to the Azeroth Commerce Authority or Durotar Supply and Logistics.
• Field Guide reduces the cooldown on adding Camp features.
• Reagent Economy makes it so your class abilities no longer require reagents purchasable from vendors, and your Tier 1 camping features cost no reagents to craft.

Admittedly, there aren’t any individual talents for Leatherworking, but even the generalist ones are a nice addition that you shouldn’t miss out on.

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Read our other WoW Forever Guides:

• Best Settings
• All Dungeons
• New Zones

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