by David Piner on Jul 10, 2005
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Skinning is one of the primary professions
players can choose to pursue in World of Warcraft. Taking up this
profession will allow you skin leather, hides, and scales from the dead
bodies of various beasts in the world of Azeroth and beyond. These skins
can then be sold on the Auction House or used by other professions to
create fabulous items.
As is is with all professions in World of
Warcraft you must first train Skinning before you can do anything else. To
train this profession seek out a Skinning Trainer. These trainers can be
found in all major cities and can be pointed out to you by any city guard.
You may unlearn Skinning at any time, however, you will lose any and all
skill points you have gained in the profession.
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Take a good look at your Skinning Trainer, as
you will want to return every 50-75 skill points to increase your rank.
Check out the chart below for information on profession ranks:
Rank Skill
Now that you have learned the Skinning
profession you are probably ready and raring to get out there and skin
your very first mob. Before you go gallivanting out the front gate, you
will need to make a quick stop off at the nearest Trade Supply Vendor and
purchase a skinning knife. Apparently skinning animals with your bare
hands makes quite the mess.
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With your skinning knife in tow, head out into
the wilds of World of Warcraft and locate a beasty that looks prime for
killing. As it is in real life, only some creatures can be skinned. The
actual list is quite daunting but some examples are; boars, dragonkin,
Nerubains, and bears.
After you have located a target, kill it and then loot every object
from it. Keep in mind that mobs cannot be skinned until they are
totally looted. If the corpse is skinnable it will say so in the
tooltip that appears after you move your pointer over it.
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alt="Skinnable Boar" />
Move
close
to the corpse and right click on it to automatically skin it. A loot
box will appear showing what type of skin you have obtained. If you
have auto loot on, the items will automatically be placed in your
bags.
Congratulations!
You
have just skinned your first of many creatures in World of Warcraft!
Skilling up Skinning is a cinch. You simply
need to repeat the process outlined above for skinning various creatures
over and over again. Each creature you skin has a chance to award you a
skill point. The chance of earning a skill point depends on the color of
the word Skinnable that appears in the tooltip of the animal. See the
chart below to see the colors and what chance for a skill point they
provide:
Besides skinning mobs you have killed
yourself, you may also skin mobs other players have killed to earn skill
points. When skinning a mob killed by another player, it is best to wait
until the person clearly leaves the area to avoid ninja skinning (a
practice that is largely frowned upon). Don't hesitate to follow a
non-skinner around the world to skin their kills, this is an easy way to
get free leather and skill points.
Another great way to get tons of leather and
potentially tons of skill points is to seek out areas that are filled with
large crowds of skinnable mobs. A great example of this can be found in
the Borean Tundra which is literally crawling with Rhinos. Killing and
skinning mobs in groups cuts down on the time you would normally spends
traveling and earns you skill points in a hurry.
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Another perk to learning the Skinning
profession is that you will learn the ability to convert lower-level types
of leather into higher level versions. For example 3 Ruined Leather
Scrapes can be made into 1 piece of Light Leather. This allows you to turn
what might be utterly useless leather into something you can sell and/or
trade with ease.
All professions in World of Warcraft provide
the player with a unique profession bonus. Skinning is no exception.
Players who take up this profession will gain the Master of Anatomy buff,
which increases your critical strike rating for every 75 points you have
in Skinning.
While you can ultimately pair any profession
with any other profession in World of Warcraft, some just go together
better than others. In the case of Skinning, Letherworking is the perfect
match. Like peas and carrots these two professions work together in
harmony, with Leatherworking using almost every item a skinner can
provide.
Do you have experience with the Skinning
profession in World of Warcraft? Please feel free to share any additional
knowledge you may have collected in our profession forums!