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 cloak s , leather and mail armors , armor kits , quiver s , and ammo pouches . The armor produced by leatherworking is chiefly of use to the leather and mail wearing classes : the druid , hunter , shaman , monk , and rogue . Getting started . Requirements . Unlike other 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 , 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 : Proficiencies and training . There are leatherworking trainers in the capital cities and starting zones that can teach all the trainable skills of the leatherworking profession . As with all of the professions in the game , there are several ranks of leatherworking , each trainable upon reaching a specific skill level and character level . 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 : 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 you had the option to specialize your leatherworking . Each specialization would give access to a specific set of patterns . As of Patch 4 . 1 . 0 several professions had their specializations removed , with leatherworking being one of them . Currently , only Engineering , Tailoring and Alchemy have specializations . 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 Leather s or Arctic Fur s 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 ) . Garrison . Players building their garrison s while on Draenor that have leatherworking should consider building a level 1 Barn ( for leather and fur ) and / or a level 3 Barn ( for ) . The Barn is classified as a medium building . Old specialization info . In the past ( pre - Cataclysm ) at later levels , players could choose from one of three specializations within the leatherworking profession to create certain higher quality items . These three specializations were : Dragonscale Leatherworking , Elemental Leatherworking , or Tribal Leatherworking . Each specialization granted the crafter the ability to create and equip special soulbound armor sets at higher levels in The Burning Crusade . When you reached 225 skill and level 40 , you unlocked a set of quests . These quests allowed you to specialize in various types of armor , which you could make for yourself only ( all BoP ) . Refer to the table below for a list of quest givers and their locations . Each specialization allowed you to produce only a handful of different items . These selections were arranged in a progression of better items for a few gear slots , so specialization amounted to being able to produce a nice partial set of BoP gear for yourself . You should pick the one that suited your class and play style . None of the specializations were particularly well suited to a hunter ; none produced mail armor with a major agility boost . A leatherworking hunter wanting to specialize would 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 could switch your leatherworking specialization without losing any skill points and without doing the specialization quest . First you needed unlearn your current specialization . To do that , you would go back to the original quest giver for your leatherworking specialization and pay to remove your specialization ( this cost varied depending on your level , at 49 for instance ) . You would lose patterns that require that specialization . ( Note : You would not lose any patterns available prior to The Burning Crusade since their specialization requirements were removed when the expansion was released . ) You would also lose the ability to equip the items that required that specialization . You could then learn a new specialization by going to and reading a book . He was located north of Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris . The book on his table would teach you either the Dragonscale , Elemental or Tribal leatherworking specialization skill . Note that there was little point to switching your leatherworking specialization unless you chose poorly in the first place and were looking to remedy that choice . You were 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 .