Skinning allows players to gather leather, hides and scales by skinning certain mobs. Not all mobs of each type can be skinned, e.g. birds cannot be skinned despite being beasts. Leather, hides and scales are used for leatherworking. Leather is also used for some blacksmithing, engineering, and tailoring recipes. Additionally, sheep can be skinned for [wool] (percentage drop), making minor amounts of wool cloth available earlier than it drops from humanoid mobs.

You need to purchase a skinning knife. You can find skinning knives at Profession-related item merchants (or simply at the General trader). Remember to keep the skinning knife in your bag at all times if you want to gain leather/hides/scales from the beasts you kill.

Any skinnable corpse will have a color code on the "Skinnable" property when you move your pointer over it:

* Red: Not skinnable.
* Orange: Difficult to skin, may fail; high chance of increasing Skinning skill level.
* Yellow: Moderately difficult to skin, almost never fail; moderate chance of increasing Skinning skill level.
* Green: Easy to skin, should never fail; low chance of increasing Skinning skill level.
* Gray: Very easy to skin, should never fail; no chance of increasing Skinning skill level.

Up to skinning 100, you can find out the highest level mob you can skin by: ((Skinning skill)/10)+10. For example, if your skill is 90, you can skin mobs up to level 19.

From skinning level 100 and up the formula is simply: (Skinning skill)/5. For example, if your skill is 200, you can skin mobs up to level 40.

You can get enchants and certain weapons that increase your skinning skill above your current skill level:

+5 Skinning: Enchant Gloves - Skinning
+10 Skinning:
[Finkle's Skinner] is a main hand dagger that drops off The Beast in Upper Blackrock Spire.
[Zulian Slicer] is a one-handed sword that drops off High Priest Thekal in Zul'Gurub.

The enchant and weapon combined give up to +15 skinning. Dual Wielding the two weapons above while wearing enchanted gloves gives skinning +25.

Selling leather and hide can be profitable on the auction house, but also useful if you take Leatherworking. All the classes listed here can wear leather armor. Leatherworking also produces Mail Armor items from scales obtained by skinning with attributes useful to hunters and shamans. There are three specialties of leatherworking which produce armor more suited for some classes than others:

* Druid (Tribal Leatherworking or Elemental Leatherworking recommended)
* Rogue (Elemental Leatherworking recommended)
* Hunter (Dragonscale Leatherworking recommended)
* Shaman (Dragonscale Leatherworking recommended)

Where to skill up skinning

Alliance

* 1-25: Crag Boats and Wendigos in Dun Morogh South of Kharanos
* 25-50: Kill Wolves around Brenwall Village
* 50-100: Goretusks in Westfall, around Sentinel Hill
* 100-130: Crocolisks and Raptors in Bluegill Marsh in the Wetlands
* 130-150: Bears and Mountain Lions south and west of Tarren Mill
* 150-170: Kill and skin Yetis in the Yeti Cave in Hillsbrad
* 170-180: Raptors all over Arathi Highlands

Horde

* 1-25 Mottled Boars and Scorpids in southern Durotar
* 25-50 Boars and Scorpids in north Durotar
* 50-100 Plainstriders and Prowlers outskirts of Crossroads
* 100-130 Stormsnouts and Thunderhawks near Camp Taurajo area
* 130-170 Hyenas, Lions, Wyvern and Thunderhawks all over Thousand Needles
* 170-180 Turtles and Basilisks southern/western Shimmering Flats

Alliance & Horde

* 180-220 Raptors, Panthers and Tigers in STV around Nessingways Camp
* 220-250 Raptors and Gorillas all around the Gurabashi Arena
* 250-270 Stags and Hippogryphs in Azshara
* 270-300 Turtles and Chimera in Azshara
* 300-310 Hellboars in Hellfire Peninsula
* 310-330 Ravagers in Hellfire Peninsula
* 330-350 Clefthoofs and other beasts in Nagrand
* 350-375 Netherdrakes in Netherstorm and beasts in Shadowmoon Valley or Blades Edge Mountains
* 375-450 Skinning is fast all around Northrend for the Alliance and Horde. You will probably max it out in Borean Tundra or Howlign Fjord.