And i thought the Briefs had it bad

Since when have we been skinning thongs?

Ever killed a Furbolg

I assume he meant throngs.

But skinnies in thongs -- yah, that'll prolly make someone's morning.

I thought that the reason that picking up herbs and hacking mines granted xp was to balance out the gathering professions that don't involve killing. I've got each of these professions across various toons, and I love free skins as much as the next skinner (big 'ol thank you to people who loot animal corpses!), but I don't miss the xp granted by picking up the skin because I get more than the "gather xp" the next time I kill an animal for its skin.

On the other side of that, I was surprised to see xp granted by picking up herbs (and mining mines). My main is an herbalist and I can't say that I thought I was missing out on anything while maxing out the skill during Wrath. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the xp, I just see it as a pleasant little bonus from Blizzard along with the new herbs to pick up in the new zones.

"The majority of things people skin tend to be thongs others have killed and left while leveling"

Don't think so. Really don't think so. Show data.

To back up the skinning other people's kills theory, my druid spent most of my farming time for medium leather in the dig site in Wetlands with all the raptors. If anyone else was questing there, i spent far more time skinning their kills than my own. STV, Ungoro, nagrand and Sholazar Basin were similar expeiences. It's one of the best things about skinning, really.

He obviously meant THINGS... THINGS people... not Throngs, not thongs, THINGS.

I skin other people's kills all the time... provided they are killing and moving on, and I make sure I am not stealing other people's skin targets.

So long as they aren't using them, I figure why not.

WoW does not improve your ability to remove thongs. This is a fact.

All I know is that when killing thongs, you have to get it on the first shot. Those things get really angry when merely wounded.

I tend to find that if you level with someone who has Herbalism or Mining then they tend to start vastly outlevelling you if you have neither.

While I understand that the majority of players don't level in pairs and it will never change, it would be a nice extra if Blizzard implimented a feature that allows the turning off of XP gains from nodes. Having said that, I've no idea how difficult that would be to impliment.

Is there any chance wowinsider could do competitions that apply outside the US and Canada?

It's also worth noting (to me!) that Archaeology also grants xp!

I leveled to like 100 skill and got half a level out of it. (from high 82 to low 83)

Although I skin other peoples kills if I trip over them, I skin several times more of my own kills. I utterly disagree. To make any serious progress in the profession, you must actually farm leather.

It's irrelevant whether you can skin other people's mobs or not. The fact of the matter is, if you *want* to gain experience while skinning, you *can*. You aren't forced to take the option of killing to skin, but you can do so if you choose, so if you choose not to, that's entirely in your hands.

Miners and herbalists have no real options. Sure, there are a few mobs that drop herbs and ores, but very rarely, and they don't improve your skill, they just give you the mat. So they have to mine and pick herbs if they want to skill up, and unless they get XP while doing so, they're not advancing their character's level during the time they're "wasting" working on their profession. Fairness to them means allowing them to gain XP while mining and picking herbs, just as it means allowing you to gain XP while killing mobs for skinning. It's still slightly unfair in that you can choose not do (by just skinning other people's kills) whereas they don't have that choice, but it's more fair than the alternative.

"things" he obviously meant "things". Maybe

Miners and Herbalists only encounter nodes for their trade every so often whereas skinners can go out and choose from hundreds of nodes in any zone. Granting XP for something that is found occasionally and requires you to be watching for them is different from allowing someone to get extra XP for something they already got XP for and might even get XP for again when they turn in a particular quest.

I've leveled skinning to max and mining to max on separate characters and I think that the way it is now makes sense in terms of sheer numbers of 'nodes'.

I leveled from 84 to 85 on Archaeology alone. Got some nice toys and a cool land mount I'll rarely ever need to use.