With the new enemy-level and “loot drop” system tied to player level at classic levels (1-60), leveling up leather crafting seems hopelessly difficult. “Medium hide” is required in considerable numbers, but heavy hunting throughout Ashenvale, Stranglethorn and North Barrens in the 20s, or almost all parts of Kalimdor in the 30s and 40s, leather skinning vastly outnumbers hide skinning drops, and leather seems to transition very quickly from light to heavy.
What is the proper mix of character level, zone, and target creature(s) to maximize the chance of seeing medium hide and advance leather crafting?
Perhaps things are different in the Alliance, but in Horde-ville, I’m bumbling around in the dark, finding little.
Yes, I know Wowhead has info. But it seems that the variable-level drop logic now in place for lower level zones has made that database virtually useless.
The drop information on Wowhead should still be fairly accurate (barring any actual bugs when they added level scaling.) They didn’t change what mobs drop what.
Your skinning level itself will affect drops, but only if you’re skinning is below the level needed to get the mobs “true” drop. In that case you’ll get a lower tier of leather. (Being above the level doesn’t affect it.)
The reality is that this has always been a pain for as long as I remember. Hides just have a low drop rate. Just keep working on the mobs that give medium leather regularly. (Off the top of my head I’m thinking Southern Barrens or Stonetalon Mountains.) I’d also check the AH regularly for cheap hides, and it may be worth it to try some other recipes that don’t use the hides, even if they are less efficient overall.
VActually, it is easier than ever to level professions from 1-300 just by leveling in zones that drop the mats you need. For Medium leather and hides, I usually go to Feralas as they have many quests to kill things that drop medium leather as well as a couple of quests given by a Leatherworker.
After Feralas, hit Gnomergan, Un’Goro, and Silithius for more quests to kill things that drop increasingly higher ranks of leather.
You can reasonably expect to hit 300 by level 45.
Wow-professions.com lists all mats in the game and the best zones, with gathering maps to obtain them.
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@Udiza - Thanks for the sage advice. The most useful bit was that the medium hide drop rate is insanely low. Yesterday we (a pair of characters) were hunting while at lvl 31-32 in Northern Stranglethorn, doing quests for killing 10 of this tiger, then 10 of that tiger, etc., etc. With the pair of characters, one of whom skinned, we got some dozens of light and medium leathers, but only two medium hides.
Getting past the mid-100s level in leatherworking has been an unholy pain, even with multiple characters contributing their skinning efforts as they pass into and through their early 30s (in level).
@Nok - For reasons described below (see “@all” paragraph), we had a skinning character in all the zones you mention at various times while at level 40-50, and never saw one medium hide. On the plus side, the website you mentioned was incredibly useful and (just as important) up-to-date. Unfortunately, even that lacked a farming guide for medium hide (none listed on page that lists hundreds of mat farming guides). However, the overview understanding gained there has cleared up numerous mysteries. Thanks!
@All - My point about Wowhead is that while the individual mob type may be correct, if characters pass through the zone at too low or too high a level, they will not see much (or any) of that material. For example, if high level 20s characters are killing things that supposedly drop medium hide, because of their level, they may get light instead. Equally likely is that if the character is too high up in their 30s, or worse, has reached their 40s they’ll get heavy or instead of medium. This is probably not a big issue for expansion crafting, but characters can easily miss “required” crafting drops if the gathering character isn’t in the right zone, killing the right stuff, while at the correct level range. In our case, the most frequent problem was trying to “catch up” in crafting with somewhat higher level character(s). Being just five or ten levels too high could dramatically change the drop percentages, to the point where a relatively rare item (like medium hide) simply ceased to appear at all.
Knowing exactly what character levels correspond to exactly which crafting level material drops seems a black art that only the most experienced player will understand. I certainly did not until now!
Wowhead shows that medium hide is sold by a horde-friendly vendor
Have you considered buying it?
Honestly it’s not going to get much better, Leatherworking is just one of the more tedious and annoying professions to level. Should still be plenty of other recipes that don’t use hides, although sometimes in that situation they aren’t from a trainer, and getting them versus getting the mat you’re trying to avoid is a wash.
Out of a couple dozen characters that I played on a more consistent basis, this guy was the only one I kept LW on, and a lot of that was because he had recipes that were removed back in Cataclysm. My only other leatherworker was from when character level boosts included a profession boost too, so I wouldn’t have to level the damn thing again. I’ll even level Blacksmithing and Inscription more than once, and those two can be just as bad.
If you enjoy crafting or want to make all the things, or if you have all of the professions covered among a group of characters and this happens to be your leatherworker, that’s one thing. Otherwise and if you have LW on this warrior, since you’re still only level 30 I’m gonna suggest considering two things: 1) LW is one of the least useful professions for a warrior, and 2) BfA made a lot of profession leveling optional – leveling up Classic skills won’t have any affect on your ability to use the profession at higher levels, because the recipes and skill points for each expansion are now independent of each other. That means, if you want something more useful to a warrior and/or if you only want to craft certain things, there are other options, and you aren’t so far along that you’ll lose a lot of progress (seriously, if you think medium hides are hard to find, you just wait xD).
@Tinkerizmo - Of course I visited him. He sells exactly one piece of medium hide at a time. When he restocks another single piece is unknown, it’s many hours at the least. There is no flight station nearby, so getting back to him for each subsequent purchase takes a bit of treking and a few fairly easy fights (at least, in the PvE version of South Barrens). Overall, purchasing from NPCs (by a Horde, at least) is not feasible. This is another example of how Wowhead appears useful, but its usefulness is VERY limited.
When it comes to limited supply vendor items, the best strategy is to use a character you aren’t actively playing and just camp them at the vendor. Log into them occasionally, check the vendor, log out.
Another clarification: Character level will not affect the drops, so don’t worry about that. You won’t get higher leather than what is on the mobs loot table, so you can’t outlevel a drop.