WoW Skinning Leveling Guide 1-600

Let’s face it, Skinning can be tedious and take a lot of time to level. Every time you stop to skin a mob you lose time that could have been spent leveling or doing something more productive. If you’re primarily skinning in order to get leather for leatherworking you may want to just go ahead and buy the leather instead. Read this Gold Guide and don’t waste another second farming.

This Skinning Leveling Guide is updated for patch 5.0.5 and Mists of Pandaria.

For power leveling your skinning following this guide you won’t need to crack open your piggy bank and buy loads of materials from the Auction House. Instead you get to run around for hours right clicking mobs and then selling the loot on the AH. Right clicking (skinning) mobs you say??!! Yes, isn’t that your favorite thing to do? There isn’t much more to say than to just guide you through the best zones to run through and grab the skinning skill you want. You probably don’t even need the guide, you can probably just remember where you saw beasts during a particular level span and increase your skinning skill that way without even using a guide.

I have organized these beasts in this guide regionally, so you can go from one to the next quickly to get your skinning skill up as fast as possible. Although you will likely spend significantly more time killing and skinning mobs than you will traveling from zone to zone. Let the skinning guide begin!

What’s in this Skinning Leveling Guide:

Before you begin this skinning leveling guide you will want to make sure you pick up a skinning knife off a trade supply vendor or grab a Gnomish Army Knife off of the Auction House.

NPC Skinning Leveling Formulas

Below skill level 100: (Skinning Level / 10) + 10 and rounded down
..example 1: skinning level of 30 (30/10) + 10 = 13, max mob level that can be skinned is level 13
..example 2: skinning level of 95 (95/10) + 10 = 19.5 (round down) max level mob that can be skinned is 19

Over skill level 100: Skinning Level / 5
..example 1: skinning level of 321 (321/5) = 64.2 (round down) Max level of mob that can be skinned is 64
..example 2: skinning level of 449 (449/5) = 89.8 (round down) Max level of mob that can be skinned is 89

Alliance Skinning (Leveling 1-180)

This is the beginning section of this guide for the Alliance. Keep in mind you will have to revisit the skinning trainer in order to increase your max skill past 75 and again at 150 in order to make it to 180 in this section.

Level
Zone
Mobs
1-75
Dun Morogh
Any Beast
Gnomes and Dwarves starting area.
1-75
Ruins of Gilneas
Any Beast
Worgen starting area.
1-75
Azuremyst Isle
Any Beast
Draenei starting area.
1-75
Elwynn Forest
Any Beast
Human starting area.
1-75
Teldrassil
Any Beast
Night Elf starting area.
75-130
Loch Modan
Any Beast
Good continuation for Gnomes/Dwarves
75-130
Darkshore
Any Beast
Good continuation for Worgens/Night Elves
75-130
Bloodmyst Isle
Any Beast
Good continuation for Draenei
75-100
Westfall
Any Beast
Good continuation for Humans, once you reach 100 go to Redridge Mountains for faster skillups
100-130
Redridge Mountains
Any Beast
Good continuation for Humans
130-180
Wetlands
Crocolisks, Raptors, Whelps
Good continuation for Dwarves/Gnomes/Draenei
130-180
Northern Stranglethorn
Any Beast
Good continuation for Humans
130-180
Hillsbrad Foothills
Any Beast
Good continuation for Worgen
130-180
Stonetalon Mountains
Any Beast
Good continuation for Night Elves


Horde Skinning (Leveling 1-180)

This is the beginning section for Horde of this leveling guide. Keep in mind you will have to revisit the skinning trainer in order to increase your max skill past 75 and again at 150 in order to make it to 180 in this section.

Level
Zone
Mobs
1-75
Durotar
Any Beast
Orc and Troll starting area
1-75
The Lost Isles
Any Beast
Goblin starting area
1-75
Eversong Woods
Any Beast
Blood Elf starting area
1-75
Mulgore
Any Beast
Tauren starting area
1-75
Tirisfal Glades
Any Beast
Undead starting area
75-130
Northern Barrens
Any Beast
Good continuation for Orc/Troll/Tauren and possibly even Goblin
75-130
Silverpine Forest
Any Beast
Good continuation for Undead
75-130
Ghostlands
Any Beast
Good continuation for Bloodelves
75-130
Azshara
Any Beast
Good continuation for Goblins/Orc/Trolls possibly even Tauren
130-180
Hillsbrad Foothills
Any Beast
Good continuation for Undead/Blood Elves
130-180
Stonetalon Mountains
Any Beast
Good continuation for Tauren/Goblins/Orc/Troll


Cataclysm Skinning (Leveling 180-300)

At this point in the guide it is feasible that both the Alliance and Horde can do these leveling guide sections. Remember to go past skill 225 you will have to go back to the trainer in order to get to 300 in this section.

Level
Zone
Mobs
180-220
The Cape of Stranglethorn
Any Beast
180-220
Southern Barrens
Any Beast
220-250
Eastern Plaguelands
Any Beast
220-250
Thousand Needles
Any Beast
250-300
Un’Goro Crater
Any of the Dinosaurs
Western area is higher level than eastern
260-300
Winterspring
Yeti,Saber Cats in North


TBC Skinning (Leveling 300-375)

Moving on to The Burning Crusade expansion we will look to progress from 300-375. Now, I’m going to point out right now that you can level past 300 in the Old World as you can also level from 350 up in WOTLK, so if you want to stay in Old World or go to Northrend around 350, have at it. Just remember you will have to go to the skinning trainer to raise your skill past 300.

Level
Zone
Mobs
300-325
Eastern Plaguelands, Winterspring, Silithus
Most of Zones
If you don’t want to go to Hellfire Peninsula yet, you can stay back in the high level old world zones and get up to 325ish
300-310
Hellfire Peninsula
Hellboars
Eastern to Central Hellfire Peninsula
310-330
Hellfire Peninsula
Ravagers, Boars
Western Hellfire Peninsula
330-350
Nagrand
Clefthoofs
Lots of them available in the south-central region by Oshgun
350-375
Shadowmoon Valley, Blades Edge Mountains, Netherstorm
Beasts in Any of the Zones (there are a lot)
This step can be done in Northrend if you wish to, any starting area will work


WOTLK Skinning (Leveling 375-450)

For the Wrath of the Lich King leveling guide section you can actually stay in these areas longer after they turn green and still get skilled up pretty fast, the guide is intended to move you to more optimal areas where you might actually get better leather and skills faster.

You can actually start in the Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord at around 350 if you don’t want to get to 375 in the Burning Crusade zones. While I was testing this guide I walked from Howling Fjord to Grizzly Hills to Zuldrak just killing things on the way and skinning them and I went from 375-450 within an hour or two.

If you are just leveling your skinning to leveling your leatherworking you may want to think again, my advice is to buy everything to save time. If you don’t have the gold take a peek at this Gold Guide. I’ve used a lot of the tips in them to make a lot of money, it allows me to just unlearn professions and retest these guides whenever I want even though it costs thousands of gold.

Level
Zone
Mobs
350-405
East of Westguard Keep or West of Ford Wildervar, Howling Fjord
Shoveltusks, Rams
375-405
South of Fizzcrank’s Airstrip, Borean Tundra
Mammoths
405-430
Grizzly Hills
Deer, Bear, Wolves, other beasts
430-450
Sholazar Basin
Giraffes, Crocolisks, Gorillas, etc (there are a lot)


Cataclysm High End Skinning 450-525

Keep in mind you can stay in Northrend longer and skin up much longer to 475 or greater if you want, but if you’re anxious to get started in Cataclysm then go ahead and head to these zones.

If you’re in need of gold and would like to buy these materials instead of level, check out this Guide.

Level
Zone
Mobs
450-470
Mount Hyjal
Stags
470-485
Uldum
Crocolisks
485-525
Twilight Highlands
Any Beast, there are Tawny Owls and Highland Worgs north of Thundermar, but any beast works.


Zen Master Skinning 525-600

Valley of Four Winds 525-560

The reason for this specific mob is people are always killing them so you can skin them along with the simple fact they have low hit points and you can slay them fast. Not to mention there are ton of these Wyrmhorn Turtles.
Valley of Four Winds skinning

Dread Wastes 560-600

This is another area where mobs are plentiful and can be killed quickly. These Dread Scarabs also are non aggro so bonus there.

Dread Wastes Skinning

Enjoy your 600 skinning!

If you see something wrong or have feedback for this guide send an email to: webmaster[at]almostgaming.com

3 thoughts on “WoW Skinning Leveling Guide 1-600

  1. A little notice for the Cataclysm part of the guide. I followed it up to 470 killing the Stags. I bought a skinning knife so 470 + 10 and was able to skin the level 84 tigers outside Honeydew Village. Their difficulty was yellow so you can skin them even lower than that. So it looks like you can skip Cataclysm skinning altogether and move right onto the Exotic Leather.

  2. For the dread waste section 560-600, the dread scarabs can no longer be skinned. I suggest finding out where the klaxxi dailies are for the day and going to that area instead. There is usually a lot of mobs just waiting to be skinned.

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