You can make good gold by killing masses of hide-dropping beasts and selling their hides on the Auction House or Trade channel. These mobs will also drop stackable loot, which sells well to NPC vendors. If you have Forestry as one of your professions, you can turn hides into leather, which usually sells for more.
Any beasts that drop leather are potentially good targets to farm for hides. Doing a quest or deed in an area that has a lot of hide dropping mobs? Keep killing after you finish until your bags are full. If you are going out specifically to farm hides, look for areas that have easy-to-kill mobs and are close to a vendor so you can empty your bags frequently.
Make LOTRO Gold with Hides & Leather
Supply and Demand
Crafting is constantly changing in LOTRO and with it supply and demand. The launch of Free-to-Play is a big game-changer that promises lots of opportunity and competition. The market will vary wildly between established and new servers, so keep assess your server carefully.
Supply Factors
- Fewer hides seems to be dropping, especially at low levels. This might be a side-effect of the changes to stackable mob loot.
- Lots of new players mean lots of new competitors
Demand Factors
- Leather is used in great quantities by Tailors to master each tier. Not all tailors process their own hides into leather. Expect leather to sell well on the Auction House and Trade channel.
- The demand curve follows the crafting mastery curve: more combines are needed for each crafting tier as you progress.
- For crafters trying to increase their reputation with their crafting guild, hides and leather are used in guild recipes starting at Tier 3.
- Mithril-reinforced Extraordinary Leather is used in some level 60 and level 65 crafted legendary item recipes.