On any given realm, you're likely going to see far less leather-workers, which means more opportunity for business. You can monopolize the market easier. The fact of the matter is LW can be a pain to level for some people, and in general more time-consuming to get materials for if you're going about it the traditional way.
The fact that all melee are going to need their leg enchants from you is a big part of business. The leg armors as a result aren't cheap. Depending on your realm, you can get the armors from 500 to 1k gold.
Leatherworking's income is going to remain relatively static because of how few people are willing to actually put in leveling the profession itself, and improved by how much people need the leg armor enchants (and this goes without mentioning any of the Dragon Soul-level gear it can make, which will sell really well, particularly the bracers, of which the craftables tend to be Best In Slot for nearly if not everyone).

By comparison, Glyphs sell singularly for each toon (you don't have to relearn a glyph every time you change which ones you're using, you just have to get dust), with the other available craftables no longer relevant in the later raiding tiers (as mentioned in the article).
I think the Inscription *in general* not making you rich when compared to Leatherworking actually makes a *lot* of sense.

Echoing razion. Even if the leg armor market dips belong 500g on my realm, this does not last long and typically the numbers are 800-1k. The advent of LFR means people are constantly getting upgrades and it only requires 10-15 people to get a new pair of trousers for me to make 10k from leg armor.

That would just be from leg enchants alone, though; PVP gear still sells - a keen buyer could acquire an entire set from my listings and spend over 5k on it. That scenario is unusual, but it does happen - mostly people are willing to shell out for one or two items which net around 1-2k.

The problem I've had with trying to sell the leg enchants, at least on my server, is that they tend to be priced below the mats required to make them, sometimes a little above. I could pair it with skinning and go get my own mats to make it to sell, but then I'd just be losing money by not selling the mats themselves. These mats are much more likely to sell, too, as most of the leg enchants I've put up take a few repostings before they'll sell.

Leatherworking is barely profitable because people don't farm skins. Skins are so expensive that everyone ends up getting a leatherworker friend to make their stuff for free, because just getting the mats costs an arm and a leg.


ie- I bought my priest the entire blue 377 pvp gear set. For that same price, I could have bought my shaman one item.

Blizzard-- make farming skins less of a death wish.

@Twill - "Blizzard-- make farming skins less of a death wish"

it's the only primary gathering profession that doesn't reward XP. Whilst i can understand why it doesn't, i can't help but think more people would pick the profession up if there were other gains to be had from it when levelling, e.g. additional XP.

@ Twill & jrb. Farming skins gives XP: YOU KILL THE MOB. It's not a deathwish, it's really simple. Skinning is a massively profitable profession right now if you have the time, the inclination and (most importantly at 85) are in the right place with a Potion of Treasure Finding on.

./agree with Basil. Scribes and Engis have the Bum Steer right now :/

@ Twill and JRB ...

Leave skinning alone. It's resistant to bots and a steady money maker. I can jump on my worgen farmer druid and clean up the crocs in TB for a decent return of my time investment.

It's not as mindless as flying in a circle in TH for ore, but at this point I can make more money from fishing than mining.

@jrb Mar 5th 2012 4:27AM:

Skinning is a great choice -while- leveling due to the crit bonus. That gives a handy DPS boost that's kept it a profession of choice for my DPS alts, as well as a lowbie druid tank on a server where I lack heirlooms - the crit helps my threat stay above the DPS of heirloom stacking PUGlies in large AOE pulls that people with such heirlooms expect tanks to make these days.

The XP bonus of the other professions is not significant enough to me to give up that crit bonus - which while also small, is just enough of an edge to be worth it.