Leatherworking 1 to 300 in WoW Forever: the cheapest route, priced

The route, priced live

The table below is worked out from the Leatherworking recipe list and the reagent medians on the market with the freshest scan. For every 25 skill points it names the recipe that still gives a point at the start of the step and costs least to make, a trainer recipe before one a pattern teaches. It redraws itself as prices move, so it will not match a guide written for Classic Era, and it may not match itself next week.

Read each row as where to start, not where to stay. When the recipe turns green, look at the next row or at the crafting table, which ranks every recipe by what it costs and what it sells for at the current medians.

Orange, yellow, green and grey

Every recipe has four thresholds, read from the game client's skill table and shown on each recipe page. While a recipe is orange every craft gives a point. From the yellow threshold most crafts still do. From green, some do. At grey none do, and the recipe is only worth making for what it sells for.

The practical rule: craft orange when it is cheap, craft yellow when orange is expensive, and treat green as a last resort. Light Leather, for example, is learned at 1, turns yellow at 20 and grey at 40. A Heavy Leather craft is orange until 125, yellow until 130 and grey at 135. Those windows are narrow, which matters below.

The leather chain: crafts that are also skill-ups

Leatherworking has a ladder of recipes that upgrade leather itself. Each one is a skill-up while it is orange, and its result is a material other leatherworkers need:

• Light Leather from 3 Ruined Leather Scraps, learned at 1, grey at 40.
• Medium Leather from 4 Light Leather, learned at 35, yellow at 75, grey at 85.
• Heavy Leather from 5 Medium Leather, learned at 85, yellow at 125, grey at 135.
• Thick Leather from 6 Heavy Leather, learned at 135, yellow at 175, grey at 180.
• Rugged Leather from 6 Thick Leather, learned at 185 and orange right up to 225, where it turns grey in one step.

The appeal is obvious: the leather you made is still leather. You can sell it, use it in the next recipe, or hold it. The cost is just as clear once you multiply it out. A Rugged Leather is six Thick, each Thick is six Heavy, each Heavy is five Medium. Upgrading only pays when the higher leather sells for more than the lower ones it ate, and in the first week that is often not true: on 6 November on PvP Horde US, Medium and Heavy Leather both sold for a little less than the leather that went into them. The crafting table shows the margin for each step as it is today.

Armor kits and the cheap middle

The other backbone of the route is the armor kit, a small consumable that adds armor to a piece of gear. Kits use few reagents and come at every tier:

• Light Armor Kit: 1 Light Leather, learned at 1, grey at 60.
• Medium Armor Kit: 4 Medium Leather and a Coarse Thread, learned at 50, grey at 105.
• Heavy Armor Kit: 5 Heavy Leather and a Fine Thread, learned at 105, grey at 165.
• Thick Armor Kit: 5 Thick Leather and a Silken Thread, learned at 155, grey at 215.
• Rugged Armor Kit: 5 Rugged Leather, learned at 185, grey at 245.

Between the kits sit the first pieces of gear. Embossed Leather Gloves (3 Light Leather, 2 Coarse Thread) are orange from 30 to 70; a Fine Leather Belt (6 Light Leather, 2 Coarse Thread) from 45 to 85. Both bind when equipped, so they can be sold, but they compete with every other leatherworker leveling the same way, and most will end at the vendor.

Forever also adds two enhanced kits taught by patterns: the Forceful Medium Armor Kit and the Mystic Medium Armor Kit, each a Medium Armor Kit with two Strange Dust and either two Elixirs of Minor Strength or two Minor Mana Potions. They pull from Alchemy and Enchanting, which is a reason to trade with friends in those professions.

Tanning Rack, Camp Tent and what pays on the way

Most of what you make while leveling sells for less than it cost. A handful of recipes are the exception, and on 6 November on PvP Horde US these paid at the median after the house cut, with real daily sales behind them:

• Tanning Rack, one of the crafts Forever added: 5 Medium Leather, 3 Fine Thread and 2 Simple Wood, learned at 100. It was the best-paying leatherworking craft that day by a wide margin, with about thirty sold a day.
• Light Leather itself, a few copper a craft but sold in the thousands every day.
• The Forceful and Mystic Medium Armor Kits.
• Camp Tent, another Forever craft: 5 Light Leather, learned at 1.
• Light Leather Reagent Bag and Kodo Hide Bag, both taught by patterns.
• Heavy Leather Ammo Pouch, 8 Heavy Leather and 2 Fine Thread, learned at 105.

A craft that pays at the median is only worth making if it sells. Check the daily sales and how long the current listings take to clear on the item page before making ten.

Thick leather and the Nightscape stretch

From about 150 the route runs on Thick Leather: the Thick Leather craft itself, the Thick Armor Kit, then the Nightscape pieces. The Nightscape Headband (5 Thick Leather, 2 Silken Thread) is learned at 160 and orange until 200. Nightscape Boots take 16 Thick Leather and 2 Heavy Silken Thread, learned at 190 and orange until 230, which makes them the usual bridge across 225.

This is where leveling starts to cost real gold, because Thick Leather comes from the higher zones and few players are there in the first week. Making Rugged Leather from 185 to 225 is a skill-up and a stockpile at once, but it eats six Thick each time.

250 to 300: patterns and an unpriced market

Past 250 leatherworking changes character. Of the 482 leatherworking recipes in the Forever catalog, 367 have a pattern item that teaches them, and nearly everything orange above 250 is one of them: the scorpid pieces, dragonscale, and the high end of the Forever additions. You cannot train your way to 300; you buy or find patterns.

The second problem is prices. Rugged Leather, Heavy Scorpid Scale, Rune Thread and the dragon scales have no market yet in a fresh economy, because almost nobody can farm them. The route table falls back to the recipe built from the most widely used materials where nothing is priced, and it will start naming the cheapest priced recipe as soon as scans show those reagents. Until then, the last fifty points are a plan rather than a price.

Skinning, the other half

Almost every leatherworker skins, because every rung of the leather chain starts as a skin. Skinning costs nothing but time, and in a market where everyone is leveling at once, raw leather sells steadily. Skin as you quest, keep what your next 25 points need, and sell the rest.

If you only want the gold, Skinning on its own may be the better choice for the first weeks. The profession comparison sets out why gathering is the floor and crafting the ceiling.

A plan for the first week

• Skin while you level and run the leather chain to around 150 on your own leather.
• Make Tanning Racks once you reach 100 if they still pay, and check the item page first.
• Buy Thick Leather only when the route says the step is cheaper than farming it.
• Leave 250 to 300 until the patterns and their reagents have prices; the route will update.

For single items, the guides to the Brawler's Leather Hood and Helm and the Cloudy Gustwoven Spaulders cover two Forever leatherworking recipes in depth. Medium Leather, the material half the early route depends on, is priced below.

The higher leathers have pages of their own: Heavy Leather and Rugged Leather.