Leatherworking Leveling Guide, 1 to 300

At a glance

Leatherworking crafts leather and mail gear, armor kits and specialist patterns. Skinning supplies most leather and hides. It is a primary profession, so it uses one of two primary slots. Thread, dye, salt, scales and other reagents add to the leather cost.

Use the Forever material route below, checking the Nightscape Pants learning conflict before buying its 210-225 batch. The conditional upper route depends on obtaining suitable patterns before the previous recipe becomes gray. This is public-source research, not our own game test.

The current Forever guide reports no Apprentice level gate. Train each later rank before its cap. Specialization is optional: you do not need one to continue past 225 or reach 300.

The Forever route by skill range

Counts are expected crafts, not guaranteed points. Recipes that are yellow or green can consume materials without giving a skill-up. Save the hides and belts used in later rows.

For this hide-based route, budget about 99 scraps, 27 Light Hides, 416 additional Light Leather, 10 Medium Hides, 251 additional Medium Leather, 46 Heavy Hides, 217 additional Heavy Leather and 315 Thick Leather. The opening scrap conversion supplies 33 of the 449 Light Leather consumed later, and the early Medium Leather conversion supplies 8 of the 259 Medium Leather consumed later. The seven Heavy Leather conversions supply the remaining seven of the 224 Heavy Leather consumed, provided you save them. You also need 175 Salt to cure all listed hides, plus the table's threads and dye. These totals exclude optional camp objects, specialization and unlucky extra crafts.

The 175-195 step needs 26 additional cured Heavy Hides. The 20 from the earlier curing row have already been consumed. If hides are expensive, use a leather-based alternative such as Barbaric Leggings or Barbaric Harness while its skill color remains useful. Obtain the required vendor pattern first and recalculate leather, gems and buckles for the replacement, rather than buying both paths.

Check Nightscape Pants before buying the 210-225 batch. The current beta route uses it from 210, but a current trainer listing still shows 230, and the recipe is associated with Artisan trainers rather than capital Expert trainers. Its learning gate is unresolved in these sources. If your trainer will not teach it, continue Nightscape Headband only while it still awards points (gray at 220 in the current catalog), then obtain another suitable pattern or wait for trainer access. A level-30 character should not assume the displayed route guarantees 225.

Planning Forever 225-300

The current Forever recipe catalog and recipe tooltips establish the following options. They provide a conditional planning path, not a tested material total. Obtain each pattern before buying its batch. Colors give the skill at which the recipe becomes yellow, green and gray; green crafts may take many attempts and gray crafts give no points.

If Nightscape Boots is already learned and still awards points, one possible sequence is Boots to 235, Wicked Gauntlets to 255, Wicked Headband to 275 and Wicked Belt to 300. Check the trainer's actual learning gate before relying on that first bridge. The first and last steps include yellow crafts, so no fixed count is guaranteed. If you only obtain Wicked Bracers, an already learned Nightscape recipe can bridge to their 240 learning gate while its current color permits; expect slower points near gray. Nightscape Pants become gray at 245 and Boots at 250 in the current data, so neither supplies an unlimited fallback.

Original Classic vendor leads are Leonard Porter or Werg Thickblade for Wicked Gauntlets and Jase Farlane for Runic Headband. Verify their current Forever stock and binding before the trip. The other Wicked patterns require individual acquisition; a pattern appearing in the database does not prove it can currently be bought from a trainer. Reaching Artisan or choosing a specialization does not automatically teach these patterns.

Count materials per craft, then buy the next batch after checking actual skill progress. Do not halve the reagent budget because an armor tooltip appears to list extra output: output and skill-up behavior need confirmation in the current client.

Dragonscale, Elemental or Tribal

The inherited specialization gate is skill 225 and character level 40; confirm the current trainer requirement before travelling. Pick by the specific endgame recipes you intend to craft, not only the armor label. The inherited switch rules can involve unlearning the profession; inspect current trainer options before assuming a gold-only switch.

Dragonscale. Deliver 2 Tough Scorpid Breastplates, 2 Tough Scorpid Gloves and 10 Worn Dragonscales to Peter Galen in Azshara for Alliance or Thorkaf Dragoneye in Badlands for Horde. The two patterns come from Wastewander enemies in Tanaris or the auction house. The crafted pieces require 36 Thick Leather, 40 Scorpid Scales and 12 Silken Thread in total, in addition to the ten Worn Dragonscales. This path focuses on specialist mail recipes.

Elemental. Deliver 2 Globe of Water, 2 Heart of Fire, 2 Core of Earth and 2 Breath of Wind. Alliance uses Sarah Tanner in Searing Gorge; Horde uses Brumn Winterhoof in Arathi Highlands. Brumn is not a trainer for both factions. This path includes resistance gear and specialist leather pieces.

Tribal. Complete the Wild Leather quest chain with Pratt McGrubben for Alliance or Jangdor Swiftstrider for Horde in Feralas, including its final report to the faction's Expert trainer. Obtain the Turtle Scale Gloves pattern needed along the way. Then deliver a Wild Leather Vest and Wild Leather Helmet to Caryssia Moonhunter in Feralas or Se'Jib in Stranglethorn Vale. This is a multi-step prerequisite chain, not a single trainer purchase. The inherited Devilsaur set is a later Tribal goal; confirm its current recipe requirements before specializing.

Recipes and Forever checks

Mystic Medium Armor Kit is a current skill-80 pattern sold by Saenorion in Darnassus for Alliance or Mahu in Thunder Bluff for Horde. It uses 1 finished Medium Armor Kit, 2 Strange Dust and 2 Minor Mana Potions per craft, and adds 2 spell power plus 16 Armor to a chest, leg, hand or foot item. The user needs level 15. Its pattern is tradeable, unlike the early reagent-bag pattern below. Price the Enchanting materials and Alchemy potions as well as the leather, and inspect the target item's existing enhancement before applying a permanent kit.

Early reagent storage. Light Leather Reagent Bag requires Leatherworking 30 and makes a six-slot reagent bag. Each craft uses 8 Light Leather, 1 Cured Light Hide and 3 Coarse Thread, outside the leveling budget. The pattern binds on pickup, so Alliance Leatherworkers should visit Saenorion upstairs in Craftsmen's Terrace, Darnassus themselves. Current recipe indexes list the Horde quest Beasts of Thunder Ridge from Kamari in Orgrimmar as another source; check the displayed pattern reward before committing. Its current quest text requests 5 Rough Lizard Hides from Thunder Ridge and 2 Cured Light Hides. The finished bag binds when equipped, unlike its pattern.

Keep Cured Hides and useful limited-stock patterns; they can avoid an expensive detour. Check the exact specialization requirement on a raid or reputation recipe before paying for it. Inherited Thorium Brotherhood recipe requirements provide later planning leads: Tribal is required for Corehound Boots at 295 and Corehound Belt at 300; Elemental for Molten Helm and Molten Belt at 300; Dragonscale for Chromatic Gauntlets and Black Dragonscale Boots at 300. Lava Belt needs 300 without a specialization. The Thorium Brotherhood guide gives each standing gate.

For later Onyxia Scale Cloak preparation, the inherited unlock requires a level-60 Leatherworker with skill 300 to complete their own Onyxia head turn-in, then The Journey Has Just Begun from Major Mattingly in Stormwind or Overlord Runthak in Orgrimmar. It teaches the cloak recipe; merely attending somebody else's head ceremony is not the personal unlock. Current Forever recipe records use 1 Scale of Onyxia, 1 finished Cindercloth Cloak and 1 Rune Thread per crafting action, and the finished cloak binds on equip. The scale needs a prepared Skinner, while the Cindercloth Cloak is a Tailoring product. Confirm the high-level quest's actual Forever access before planning a raid batch, and use the Onyxia guide for the supply bridge.

Blizzard confirms new profession recipes and a Tanning Rack used for advanced Leatherworking. Use the camping guide for the station ladder. Inspect the next pattern and skill color before buying its batch.

In Forever, the October 16 public data lists Working Overtime as an increase to tradeskill skill-up chance. That can change expected material use on yellow or green recipes; it does not mean an exact 20% reduction in every shopping list. The route budgets do not assume that perk. Bartering discounts vendor items under its current rules, not training or repairs, so do not subtract it from every profession expense.