Poaching for skins
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 4th 2008 at 5:00PM
I have to thank you, other players on my realm. If it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't have reached 450 Skinning already. Yes, the garbage of dead mobs that you leave behind becomes my profit -- when you leave that worg corpse or the dead drakonid behind, I'm all too happy to run over, skin it, and clean up that little mess you've made, while sticking a little gold in my pocket as well. Matthew is right there with me -- he calls it poaching, though we're both referring not to stealing, but to simply skinning the leftover mobs of all those players before us.Truth be told, I probably poached more than ever down in the mines of Netherwing Ledge -- there were always players killing down there, and what they didn't skin, I did, both for the quest skins and for my own Knothide. But in the expansion, things are even better -- everywhere I go, there are fields of leftover mobs, and even when someone is able to kill a mob before I get there, I hover over them to pick up the skin afterwards.
Matthew has put together a list of all the great places to pick up extra skins -- I'll agree that Coldarra is full of poaching options right now, as is Kamagua on the other side of the continent. Grizzly Hills, also, is not only full of creatures to skin, but lots of leftover corpses as people quest across the zone (though odds are that if you keep up on skinning, you'll be 450 by then anyway). Think of it as a service -- we're the garbagemen of the realms, cleaning up your kills so the next can spawn and the circle of loot can go on.
Filed under: Skinning, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Leveling, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Nintai Dec 4th 2008 5:07PM
Outside Warssong Hold has lots of trash as well. I was at 450 before I left the Tundra.
Ed (Sindarin, Hydraxis US) Dec 4th 2008 5:47PM
Same, those Nerubians are a godsend for a new grand master skinner.
Dwant Feb 18th 2009 7:54PM
I just started and I am only level 4. I read all the guild books and it says that if you are a hunter you should learn how to skin animals. There lies the problem. I don't know how to become a skinner...Is there a place you have to go? Level you have to be???
Devilmachine Dec 4th 2008 5:09PM
I don't have a problem with people skinning the mobs I've killed, it's not like I can do anything with it anyway. (I'm a miner/JC'er)
Another good location for skinning poaching would be in Sholazar Basin, lots of nesingwary quests there which require players to kill a number of beasties, all of which can be skinned.
FlameFlash Dec 4th 2008 5:26PM
I loved this out in Nagrand, glad to hear there's still a way to do it (and that it sounds more often now.)
What I hate are the mobs that are so big they hide the person who killed the mob. Couple times flying I'd swoop in a bit too early and skin. Quite the embarassment but a very fast whisper and never had hard feelings afterward.
Dharon Dec 4th 2008 5:15PM
I have no problem with people picking up my skins when I'm on my hunter. Heck, I'm providing them with a service free of charge. I make sure to loot my mobs so people can clean them up. If only the poor sods could skin those sentient races...
Anyway, my problem is with the gits who hang around my shaman and get all annoyed and angry with him when he skins his own mobs.
Uhh, this is my mob. I'm a skinner. I'm skinning it. Get your own leather, ya mooch.
Jeramy Dec 4th 2008 5:16PM
I hit 450 skinning in my second day without trying (it's called BOREAN tundra for a reason,). Sholazar Basin is the premier skinning zone though... I can spend an hour there and leave with a stack of Icy Dragonscales and 4-6 stacks of leather.
I love being a skinner.
Ekimus Dec 4th 2008 5:20PM
I hit 450 on day too, I didn't even realize I had.
Now, I've got all this regular leather, and almost no scales needed to push to 450 LW... Oh well.
Trueheart Dec 4th 2008 6:10PM
It's called Borean Tundra after Boreas, Greek god of the North Wind and bringer of winter. Borean leather, likewise. I don't think they named the zone after the leather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreas#North_wind_.28Boreas.29
Samenjas - WildHammer Dec 5th 2008 1:04PM
I think what he was trying to say that the area isn't particularly exciting - the BOREan Tundra. Besides, no one in Azeroth has ever heard of this place called Greece or their obviously inferior pantheon of "gods".
elly Dec 4th 2008 5:17PM
i was finishing up some Zul'Drak quests that i had skipped in my compulsory-leveling-to-80 the other day and i noticed a Troll player following me around. at first i was a bit creeped out, 'cause i thought i had perhaps stolen his mobs or something (i tend to be overly nice and don't want to offend anyone). then i realized he was following me to skin my mobs. it was kinda neat.
being a bit of a tidy person, that was one thing i really regretted when taking up herb/alch - leaving a trail of dead mobs behind me with no way of cleaning up. :D
Turtlehead Dec 4th 2008 6:02PM
On my mage I'm completely unable to resist dropping a blizzard on any pack of animals I see. (Fully talented, it's a critting beast of soloing beauty.) Same as you, I had a troll following me around the other day cleaning up.
Went into town to repair and sell my trash. Heading back into the field I found him on his raptor waiting patiently just outside aggro range of the guards.
Cool! my very own Horde pet! What, no achievement for that? Bummer.
(Since those mines came up, if you play a mage and want to feel heroic, get on the tracks parallel to the big room where all the skinning happens. Cast slowfall and jump the gap, through the window, and spray arcane explosion as you drift through the room just over the floor, aggroing the whole place. It is *very* satisfying.)
MechChef Dec 4th 2008 5:19PM
I don't skin. But I am eng/mining. I poach the crap out of the dead elementals for the Hot and Cold Son's of Hodir Quest. Most of the time no one is mining the dead Brittle Revenents, so I poach em. The corpses are mostly vendort trash, but I'll sometimes get a mote.
Dracula Jones Dec 4th 2008 5:18PM
Dragonblight, near the goblin questgivers in north-central, there are almost always dozens of worm corpses to skin. A couple quests have you kill many of them and most just leave the corpses. Excellent source of Jormungar Scales, too.
Manaia Dec 4th 2008 5:24PM
My problem is that noone is looting the corpses fully so that I cannot skin them, It ticks me off, especially on netherwing ledge where the droprate of the quest skins is horrible
Rohannor Dec 4th 2008 6:03PM
I always try to loot my corpses so they can be skinned, but sometimes on rare occasions it's not possible. If my bags are full and I'm a few kills short of heading back to vendor stuff and turn quests in, I am going to keep the loot that I think will sell for more. If that means I don't pick the gray tusk off of some beast I just killed, that's how it's going to be.
Techwolf Dec 4th 2008 5:23PM
Agreed. I "poach" all the time. I was 450 very early in the expansion. After the mobs hit level ~75, they seem to drop Borean Leather (instead of scraps) nearly 100% of the time, so it's much easier to get the Heavy Borean stuff.
Dragonblight is a great place to get Jormungar Scale very early. Plenty of people doing a quest to kill them and you can pass right behind them.
I do wish they had a short timer on them before allowing others to skin. There's a place in Zul'Drak with bats and spiders that ended up with some people not waiting for me to skin my own loot. That didn't bother me so much.
The one that got me was as I was AE farming rhinos in Boring Tundra for rhino meat (and leather), another druid comes up and skins my loot. I /s I am skinning these. Reply: "So, am I supposed to be sorry?"
No, you're supposed to have some common courtesy for other players.
I've long thought that players need to have a thumbs up/down rating system with comments. I'd surely tack a nice "Steals leather skinning drops" with a thumbs down on this guy.
Perhaps I should work on a JerkList mod that lets you make notes about such players you find in your travels.
/rant off
Fyve & Boomstick Dec 4th 2008 6:30PM
LOL! I would love a jerklist addon. Theres so many folk that dont warrant an ignore. But that i dont want to deal with.
Skinners that spam right click over the mob you've just killed waiting for you to loot are the worst. If i'm in that situation. I just dont loot. I take great pleasure in killing everything in sight, not looting anything.
To me there is nothing sadder than a lonely corpse, no other players around for miles, but unskinnable... Except, when its irritating the hell out of a skin ninja.
Balius Dec 4th 2008 6:56PM
If I'm following a trail of skinnable corpses that clearly lead to a player, I usually just assume he isn't a skinner. If I have no clues to tell me one way or the other, I'll ask "Do you mind if I skin these?" rather than make assumptions.
Well, one time I (a level 70 rogue in tier 5 at the time) asked, the (level 65) warlock goes "Yes! Goddamn poachers!" and then proceeded to leave loot on all his kills, in what I can only imagine was an attempt to spite me. This had several effects; he missed out on the loot, I was forced to kill my own Clefthoof Bulls (making it harder for him to complete his quest), and the unlooted Clefthoof took longer to de and respawn (making it even harder for him to complete his quest).
Remember people, someone skinning your kills costs you nothing unless you were planning on skinning yourself. Being spiteful about it, however, just makes everyone unhappy, especially you.
Basic Dec 4th 2008 7:54PM
re JerkList: VanasKoS has a hate list like that - the mod needs some work tho