Leatherworking

Continuing our series on Professions, I bring you Leatherworking.

At first glance, Leatherworking would seem to be a profession aimed at providing Rogues and Druids the love, with little utility for others. On second glance, and ignoring the ‘Leather’ part of the Leatherworking name, you find that at skill level 200+ Mail armor begins to be crafted by Leatherworking, just as your character would be reaching around level 35+ and, if a Hunter or Shaman, anticipating switching over to Mail gear at 40.

At skill level 200 a Leatherworker can choose to specialize in one of three paths;

• Dragonscale Leatherworking
  • A path focused on Mail armor for Hunters and Shamen
• Elemental Leatherworking
  • A path focused on Rogue and Cat DPS Druid gear
• Tribal Leatherworking
  • A path focused on leather for Druid casters

A note on why I specified Cat DPS Druid gear for Elemental Leatherworking. The armor you learn to make in the Elemental path is aimed mostly for Rogues. At the highest levels, the Heavy Clefthoof armor set, which is widely recognised as THE godlike crafted Druid Bear Tank armor, surpassing all quest rewards, is NOT Bind On Pickup, and does NOT require Elemental Leatherworking to learn the patterns or craft it. You also DO NOT need to have the Leatherworking skill to EQUIP Heavy Clefthoof Armor, the Leatherworking requirement is only in order to gain the benefits of the set bonus. Sorry for the long digression, please resume reading :)

I think that last note needs to be reinforced. There are many leather Bind on Equip items that say “Requires Leatherworking (xxx)” in the description. If that is listed under a SET NAME, followed by the pieces of the set and a description of the set bonuses, then you can still equip the item. It only means that you will not get the benefits of the SET BONUS unless you have Leatherworking at the listed skill level. For example;

You can see it says, in the description, Fel Skin (0/3) in yellow. That is the Set Name. The number in parenthesis is of course how many of that set you currently have equipped. Immediately under that, in white, it says Requires Leatherworking (350). That means that in order to get the benefits of having multiple pieces of the Fel Skin set equipped, you must have Leatherworking skill of 350+. It does NOT mean you can’t equip the set. Ok, thank you very much, now that THAT horse is beat into the ground, let’s move on.

Besides making the obvious leather and mail armor, Leatherworking also lets you create Armor Kits. Armor Kits are consumable items that provide permanent enchants to your armor. These are enchants, not buffs. When applied to a piece of armor, they permanently increase the attributes of that piece of equipment. They function exactly as enchants do, and replace/get replaced by other permanent enchants placed upon the item. Armor Kits can be applied to equipment designed for Chest, Legs, Hands and Feet. Enchanters cannot cast enchants on Leg, Shoulder or Head armor slots, so besides Tailors this is the only profession that can create Leg Enchants… and the items that give the enchant are consumables that can be sold in the Auction House. And boy, do they sell well. Although made by leatherworkers, the Armor Kits can be applied to any armor type, Cloth, Leather, Mail and Plate. The only varieties available to craft prior to level 300 Leatherworking and Burning Crusade are +armor. After level 300, varieties that can increase Stamina, Mana Regen, +Defense, and Spell Resist become available as well.

Starting at level 335 Leatherworking, you will begin learning to make dedicated Leg Armors. These function the same as the generic Armor Kits, but they can only be applied to leg armor. There are two kinds, one that benefits tanks, and one that benefits melee DPS. There are two versions of each kind, one crafted with standard materials, and the upgraded version that requires 1 Primal Nether (BOP from Heroics) to craft. Tailors get similar Leg Armor at the highest levels of their profession, with their leg armors aimed at benefiting ranged spell casters. It should be repeated that both the Leatherworking and Tailoring Leg Armors can be applied to any type of Leg Armor; Cloth, Leather, Mail and Plate.

Starting at level 340 Leatherworking you will begin to be able to make Drums. These are items that have charges, so they are consumables, but have multiple uses (30) before the item is destroyed. They are only usable by those with a high enough Leatherworking skill. The lowest level Drum, the Drums of War, are useable by Leatherworking skill of 325. Drum effects increase various attributes such as Attack Power, Haste, Healing, etc for the whole party, the effects last between 15 and 30 SECONDS, they stack with other buffs, and they have a Cooldown shared among all Drums of only 2 minutes. In effect, they act as many Burning Crusade Trinkets do, providing a short burst of benefit to be used as needed. However, they do not take up a Trinket slot, and can be used right from inventory. Each crafting of Drums creates a single item with 30 charges.

Finally, Leatherworkers can craft a few non-armor items. The most common are Quivers (arrow) and Ammo Pouches (bullets), but also include the fun Heavy Leather Ball, the 28 slot Reinforced Mining Bag, and the ultimate non-armor item, the awesome Riding Crop.

The Riding Crop is a BOE Trinket that, when equipped, increases your mounted speed on both ground and flying mounts by 10%. These sell VERY, VERY well. There is a cap in the game of +10% to mounted speed, so if you do not have a travel speed ability such as the Crusader Aura, this is a must have for flying mounts at level 70. And with this Trinket equipped and an epic Flying Mount, your speed goes from 380% normal (100% movement + 280% epic flying) to 418% (100% movement +280% epic flying +38% Riding Crop). In my opinion, the difference between a standard flying mount and an epic flying mount with Riding Crop is like the old “The Final Countdown” movie scene of a Japanese Zero versus an American F-14 Tomcat. Seriously.

So, let’s get down to the Bind on Pickup items that you can only make and use if you have the Leatherworking skill. The items that you can’t get a Leatherworker to make for you, or purchase from the Auction House.

Drums

• Drums of War
  

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• Drums of Speed
  

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• Drums of Restoration
  

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• Drums of Panic
  

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• Drums of Battle
  

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Regular Leatherworking items

• Boots of Natural Grace (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Boots of the Crimson Hawk (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Boots of Utter Darkness (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Hurricane Boots (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Living Earth Shoulders (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Heart of Darkness (BOE drop in Black Temple. May rarely be found in AH, but expect them to be very expensive.

  
  

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• Shoulderpads of Renewed Life (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Heart of Darkness (BOE drop in Black Temple. May rarely be found in AH, but expect them to be very expensive.

  
  

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• Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Heart of Darkness (BOE drop in Black Temple. May rarely be found in AH, but expect them to be very expensive.

  
  

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• Swiftstrike Shoulders (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Heart of Darkness (BOE drop in Black Temple. May rarely be found in AH, but expect them to be very expensive.

  
  

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Dragonscale Leatherworking

• Dragonstrike Leggings (BOP)
  

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• Golden Dragonstrike Breastplate (BOP)
  

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• Ebon Netherscale Belt (BOP)
  • Requires 1 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Ebon Netherscale Bracers (BOP)
  

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• Ebon Netherscale Breastplate (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Netherstrike Belt (BOP)
  • Requires 1 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Netherstrike Bracers (BOP)
  

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• Netherstrike Breastplate (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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Elemental Leatherworking

• Blackstorm Leggings (BOP)
  

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• Primalstorm Breastplate (BOP)
  

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• Primalstrike Belt (BOP)
  • Requires 1 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Primalstrike Bracers (BOP)
  

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• Primalstrike Vest (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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Tribal Leatherworking

• Wildfeather Leggings (BOP)
  

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• Living Crystal Breastplate (BOP)
  

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• Windhawk Belt (BOP)
  • Requires 1 Primal Nether

  
  

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• Windhawk Bracers (BOP)
  

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• Windhawk Hauberk (BOP)
  • Requires 2 Primal Nether

  
  

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.