Leatherworking

Leatherworking is one of the primary professions. Your character can only have 2 primary professions at any time.

The leatherworking profession allows players to utilize the leather gathered through the skinning profession to create a variety of items, including cloaks, leather and mail armors, armor kits, quivers, and ammo pouches. The armor produced by leatherworking is chiefly of use to the leather and mail wearing classes: the druid, hunter, shaman, and rogue.

While Leatherworking used to offer specializations at later levels, most recipes that used to require those can now be trained by all leatherworkers and many of the items made are now bind on equip.

Getting started

 * Getting started with Leatherworking
 * Places to farm

Requirements
Unlike some professions, such as blacksmithing, which requires both a purchased item and a world location for creation of items, leatherworkers do not require any special equipment or locations to process their materials into finished products. As long as the leatherworker has all of the required materials for the creation of an item, it can be made anywhere in the world at any time.

There is an exception to this in the case of the curing component,. This can only be made by leatherworkers with 250 Skill or higher who have acquired a from an engineer.

Note that since the Burning Crusade, the items crafted with Refined Deeprock Salt are not much in demand anymore and you can level without the salt shaker.

Suggested 2nd profession
Since leatherworking is almost exclusively dependent upon materials gathered from skinning creatures around the world, skinning is the most recommended profession to pair with it. Attempting to level leatherworking to 450 exclusively through purchasing leather through the Auction House is not recommended on some servers, as some materials are not usually available in great quantity and it can be prohibitively expensive. That is not to say it is impossible, however, especially if an alternate character is used to farm leather for your leatherworker. If you do choose to level through the AH, be prepared to spend a few thousand gold doing it. Also, leatherworking is unique in a few ways that makes skinning almost invaluable that most people don't see:
 * High-end Northrend and Cataclysm recipes are bought in Dalaran for skins and furs. Unlike jewelcrafters, for example, that have to do dailies to earn a specific currency for their recipes, we can literally farm patterns.
 * Skins aren't nodes. Even a maxed level miner or herbalist still picks up a node they pass by when in Elwynn and sells the materials. Few people will kill and skin low-level mobs when they could farm higher level mobs with a greater yield. Low-level leatherworkers without skinning can find themselves in a standstill when no leathers are up for sale.
 * This can also turn into a profit for you if you do farm these leathers as they are top dollar due to rarity.

Suggested classes

 * Druid
 * Hunter
 * Rogue
 * Shaman

Training in leatherworking
There are leatherworking trainers in most of the capital cities that can teach you the basic leatherworking profession. As with most of the professions in the game, there are several ranks of leatherworking, each trainable upon acquiring an appropriate skill and class level, and are trained from the next higher up trainer.
 * See leatherworking trainers for trainer names and locations.

Faction recipes
Some recipes are only learnable after achieving a certain reputation level with a particular faction. These are listed at the faction recipes entry.

Leather conversions
Leatherworkers are also able to take lower quality leather materials gathered through skinning and convert them into higher quality items. As the quality increases, for example, from light to medium, the number of lower quality materials required to make one higher quality material increases. The table below shows the conversions between all types of leather. Conversions taught by trainers are shown in bold green text. (The fractions are for comparison only. Leather cannot be split into lower grades.)

To create for curing, you'll need an Engineering-made. This item requires a skill of 250 in leatherworking to use, and now has a short cooldown timer similar to an armor kit.

About relative leatherworking skill levels
When you open the leatherworking window or go to a trainer, you'll notice that the items in the list are colorized. The color used for the name of the item to be made has the following meanings:
 * Red: You're not yet able to learn to make this item (you'll only see this on pattern items).
 * Orange: You will always gain a skill point making the item (unless you're already at the maximum).
 * Yellow: You will probably gain a skill point making the item, but might not.
 * Green: You will most likely not gain a skill point making an item, but you could. (unlikely)
 * Gray: You won't gain any skill points making an item. In most cases, you'll probably just want to ignore gray skills completely (though don't forget that you can always use them as needed; for example, to turn leather scraps into light leather...)

As your leatherworking skill level increases (by making items), patterns will go from Red to Orange, Orange to Yellow, Yellow to Green, and Green to Gray. This means you must keep learning new leatherworking patterns to continue advancing in skill.

Specialized leatherworking
In Burning Crusade you had the option to specialize your leatherworking. Each specialization will give access to a specific set of patterns. After patch 4.0.1, however, the method to obtain the specializations has changed. This article must be updated to include this information.

As of Patch 4.0.1, there are no more specializations in any profession. All of the recipes from the specializations are available to everyone in that profession. Most items are no longer bind-on-pickup.See []

Gaining a specialization
When you reach 225 skill and level 40, you unlock a set of quests. These quests allow you to specialize in various types of armor, which you can make for yourself only (all BoP). Refer to the table below for a list of quest givers and their locations.

Take note that each specialization allows you to produce only a handful of different items. These selections are arranged in a progression of better items for a few gear slots, so specialization amounts to being able to produce a nice partial set of BoP gear for yourself. You should pick the one that suits your class and play style.

Also note that none of the specializations is particularly well suited to a hunter; none produce mail armor with a major agility boost. A leatherworking hunter wanting to specialize will have to decide between good agility in Elemental Leatherworking or mail armor in Dragonscale Leatherworking. The mail Netherscale Armor set is slanted towards AP and stamina, which will also benefit hunter pets, as well as crit rating and some intellect and MP5. Hunters desiring agility for this set will have to gem for it.

Switching a specialization
As of patch 2.1.3, you can switch your leatherworking specialization without losing any skill points and without doing the specialization quest.

First you must unlearn your current specialization. To do that, go back to the original quest giver for your leatherworking specialization and pay to remove your specialization (this cost varies depending on your level,  at 49 for instance. See here for more.) You will lose patterns that require that specialization. (Note: you will not lose any patterns available prior to The Burning Crusade since their specialization requirements were removed when the expansion was released.) You will also lose the ability to equip the items that require that specialization.

You can then learn a new specialization by going to Narain Soothfancy and reading a book. He is located north of Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris. The book on his table will teach you either the Dragonscale, Elemental or Tribal leatherworking specialization skill.

Note that there is little point to switching your leatherworking specialization unless you chose poorly in the first place and are looking to remedy that choice. You are changing out the ability to wear one set of BoP gear tailored for one class for another set of BoP gear tailored for a different class.

High-level leatherworking
Trainers only have a limited selection of patterns for the highest levels. The best are available from Braeg Stoutbeard who stands outside the Legendary Leathers shop in the Magus Commerce Exchange area in Dalaran. For a few Heavy Borean Leathers or Arctic Furs he will give you a pattern for a rare or epic item of leather or mail.

Fur Lining and Leg Reinforcements
In Wrath of the Lich King, leatherworkers can apply Fur Lining to their own bracers and Leg Reinforcements to their own leg armor. Since these augments are meant for the leatherworker's personal use only, applying them causes the equipment to become soulbound.

Each type of Fur Lining requires 400 leatherworking and requires 1. The resulting bracer enchant is equivalent to the best "self-only" enchants provided by other tradeskills and better than any enchant you can buy or otherwise acquire.

Both types of Leg Reinforcements require 405 leatherworking. They provide exactly the same enchant as the and, but at a vastly reduced cost, and available at level 70 (as opposed to 80 for the epic leg armors).