Leatherworking Overview: Perks, Tools & Patterns

The Leatherworking profession enables players to craft a variety of items from leather and hide, including equipment and armor padding. It’s reliant upon materials gathered with Skinning and often paired with it as a result.

What You Get From Leatherworking

Leatherworkers get two special perks in Mists of Pandaria: fur linings and leg reinforcements. The Leatherworking-exclusive leg reinforcements offer the same stats as standard leg armors, but require fewer materials. Fur linings, however, are unique and offer more stats than the next best alternative.

Fur Lining

Fur linings can only be applied and used by Leatherworkers on their own items in the Wrist slot. These enchantments offer 500 Agility, Intellect, Stamina, or Strength, which adds up to 320 more stat points than the next best option via Enchanting. Each of these buffs is a constant stat bonus as long as you are wearing the item it is applied to.

• Fur Lining – Agility
• Fur Lining – Intellect
• Fur Lining – Stamina
• Fur Lining – Strength

Fur linings must only be learned once and they each have 3 ranks. They upgrade automatically when you reach 500 and 575 skill in Leatherworking, so you won’t need to train the new ranks.

Leg Armor

Leg armors are not exclusive to Leatherworkers, but only Leatherworkers can craft them. They provide strong Agility, Strength, or Stamina enchantments for the Legs slot. Leatherworkers get their own soulbound version of each enchantment which offers the same stats but at a much cheaper materials cost.

Like fur linings, leg reinforcements must only be learned once and have 3 ranks. They upgrade automatically when you reach 500 and 575 skill.

Armor Kits

In addition to the leg armors above, Leatherworkers can also make armor kits that can be applied to the Chest, Shoulders, Legs, Hands, or Feet slots. The Pandaria level armor kit is Sha Armor Kit, which adds 150 Stamina to any item it is applied to. These are often used by tanks for some cheap easy Stamina, especially while they are still leveling or gearing up for endgame.

Drums

Drums of Rage is the new consumable buff item for Leatherworkers in Mists of Pandaria, granting your group a slightly less powerful version of Bloodlust if you don’t have anyone in your group who can cast it.

Most of the lower-level drums won’t work at level 90, but Drums of Speed/Greater Drums of Speed and Drums of Panic/Greater Drums of Panic do and can still be useful, particularly in Challenge Mode dungeons.

Bags

Magnificent Hide Pack is a new Leatherworking Bag for Mists of Pandaria, providing 36 slots to store your leather and hide. The pattern to make it can be discovered when crafting Magnificent Hide using your Magnificence of Leather cooldown.

Leatherworkers can also craft some lower-level bags, primarily profession bags.

Crafted Equipment

Mists of Pandaria adds a lot of new patterns to the game for crafting high-level gear with Leatherworking.

Misthide & Stormscale Leveling Sets

The Misthide leather set and the Stormscale mail set are the basic Uncommon crafted gear for Leatherworking in Mists of Pandaria. Each piece of Misthide gear is made from 5-10 pieces of Mist-Touched Leather, and each piece of Stormscale gear is made from 5-10 Prismatic Scales. Misthide Bracers are the cheapest item you can craft if you are looking to Disenchant items for Pandaria-level Enchanting materials. Each piece has a random suffix that gives it various secondary stats. They are item level 384, but you can get lucky and proc Rare (blue) versions of the items that have a 415 item level and more stats.

Rare Cloaks

There is an item level 450 rare cloak, Stormscale Drape, that does not seem to be related to the green Stormscale set. Its primary stat is Strength and it requires a Spirit of Harmony to craft along with 20 Prismatic Scales.

There is also Quick Strike Cloak, another 450 Rare cloak with Agility as its primary stat. It requires a Spirit of Harmony and 20 Mist-Touched Leather to craft.

Crafted PvP Gear

There are several patterns for crafting high-level PvP gear with Leatherworking.

First, there are four basic Contender’s sets: Contender’s Dragonscale, Contender’s Leather, Contender’s Scale, and Contender’s Wyrmhide. Their patterns can be purchased with a Spirit of Harmony each from the Leatherworking Supplies vendor in each faction’s Shrine in Vale of Eternal Blossoms. These pieces are all item level 450.

In Phase 2, you can learn to craft many Crafted Dreadful Gladiator pieces. These patterns are learned randomly when crafting Magnificent Hide using your Magnificence of Leather cooldown. These pieces are item level 458.

In Phase 4, you can learn many Crafted Malevolent Gladiator patterns from crafting Hardened Magnificent Hide. These pieces are item level 476.

Crafted Epics

There are many epic endgame items to be crafted with Leatherworking as well. The first set of patterns can be purchased from the Golden Lotus faction at Honored reputation. These create item level 476 items:

The next set of patterns are raid-wide drops from the first tier of raids: Heart of Fear, Mogu’shan Vaults, and Terrace of Endless Spring. These patterns a item level 496 pieces:

There are four pairs of item level 522 items that can be learned randomly when crafting Magnificent Hide using your Magnificence of Leather cooldown starting in Phase 2.

Finally, there are four item level 553 patterns that can be learned while crafting Hardened Magnificent Hide in the final phase of the expansion:

Cosmetic & Fun Items

In addition to gear that is useful for its stats, there are plenty of items you can craft that may be appealing for transmogrification, including lower-level items.

Heavy Leather Ball is always a fun item. Herbalist’s Gloves remain useful even at higher levels for characters who are leveling Herbalism.

There are no battle pets or mounts to be crafted through Leatherworking.

Leather

Leather and hide are obtained by harvesting mobs of the appropriate level range with Skinning, primarily Beasts. Mist-Touched Leather is the basic leather for most Pandaria recipes. Prismatic Scale is likewise used as a base in most mail patterns.

Magnificent Hide is a rare special hide that can rarely be skinned from mobs in Pandaria and can also be crafted with Leatherworking via Magnificence of Leather, Magnificence of Scales, or Magnificent Hide.

Hardened Magnificent Hide is an upgraded special hide that is added in the last phase of the expansion alongside the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. It also has a one-day cooldown and is required for a few of the most powerful crafted items.

Tools

There are no special tools required for crafting with Leatherworking, and there is no equipment that improves the Leatherworking skill.

There are also no racial abilities pertaining to Leatherworking.

Leatherworking Bags

These bags can only hold leather, hides, and other Leatherworking materials, but they are larger than other bags of similar levels.

• “Carriage – Meeya” Leather Bag: Sold by Dawn Radue, the Bag Merchant in Stormwind City.
• Leatherworker’s Satchel: Made with Leatherworking. Pattern taught by any Leatherworking Trainer.
• Bag of Many Hides: Made with Leatherworking. Pattern drops from Gordunni ogres in Terokkar Forest.
• Trapper’s Traveling Pack: Made with Leatherworking. Pattern available from Kalu’ak quartermasters at Revered reputation.
• Magnificent Hide Pack: Made with Leatherworking. Pattern drops from mobs across Pandaria beginning in Phase 2.

Leatherworking Specializations

There are no Leatherworking specializations in Mists of Pandaria. In earlier expansions there were three types of Leatherworking that you could focus on, but those specializations were removed in Cataclsym. Any Leatherworker can now craft patterns from any former specialization.

Where to Learn Patterns

Many patterns are learned directly from Leatherworking Trainers, but there are some that must be obtained elsewhere.

Several of the most powerful patterns are discovered randomly when crafting Magnificent Hide.

Patterns for the Contender’s PvP sets are sold by Leatherworking Supplies vendors in each faction’s Shrine in Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Each of these patterns costs a Spirit of Harmony to purchase. Here are the vendors:

• Alliance: Tanner Pang at Shrine of Seven Stars in Vale of Eternal Blossoms
  • /way Shrine of Seven Stars 75.6, 47.8
• Horde: Krogo Darkhide at Shrine of Two Moons in Vale of Eternal Blossoms
  • /way Shrine of Two Moons 31.8, 48.2

There are some patterns for items for the Chest and Hands slot as well as the Leg Armors that require Honored with the Golden Lotus faction.

There are 4 patterns for Chest and Hands slot items that drop inside the three Tier 14 raids.

Pattern: Drums of Rage is a random world drop in Pandaria. It does not drop until the last phase of the expansion.