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.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Welcome back! Since yesterday's picture of Malygos was so awful, I decided to give up on his righteous beard and take a picture of his lightning breath instead. Yeah, see that up there? It hurts. It hurts a lot. Just trust me on that. Let's get into the Q&A now, eh?

Goorguy asked...

Why is it that tanks are always the group leaders? Why are we always expected to mark mobs? Every time I get in a group to tank for it I will always get thrown the leader. I don't really mind, but at least once I want to get in a group where someone else was willing to mark for me, instead of the other way around.

I admit, I'm not, which is new. When BC came along, while I leveled to 70, I always stopped to mine the Fel Iron nodes. Even on my initial tramp from 1-60 on my characters, I usually stop every few levels to make sure their chosen tradeskill is up to date. But this time, on my Death Knight, I'm not stopping for a thing.

It's a weird feeling. I'm conscientious about making sure my characters are well-rounded, making sure they have the skills to pay the bills, so to speak, first aid and cooking in addition to a set of well maintained trade skills, but on my Death Knight, I just can't bring myself to let up on the questing and grinding for professions, even if it means leaving piles of dead, unskinned Bog Lords in my wake.

Admittedly, this may have something to do with the fact that his trade skills start at level 1 while he's level 55. In the end, I'd rather level in Hellfire Peninsula instead of picking daisies in Elwynn. Can you blame me? Still, I promise at level 80 that I will make time to level up his Inscription.

While I have asked about this before, I thought I'd see if the responses were any different now that Wrath is underway. Are you taking breaks on the road to 80 to level your tradeskills? Why or why not?

One of the first things on your mind after stepping into Northrend will undoubtedly be the most convenient location of your profession trainers.

You gatherers are going to need the know-how to start hoarding items for fun and profit, and craftspeople will want to see what new items can soon be constructed. Besides, you won't want to be left behind in the server-wide race to the new level cap, 450.

This information might affect which starting zone you choose to explore first, so pass through the break to see what stops you should be making before you venture out to quest and conquer.

Screenshots may not be the cleanest way to present this list, but at least you won't have to worry about transcription errors, right? Here are some of the many trainable recipes we were able to find in Northrend. Remember that the Grand Master trainers are in Dalaran which you need to be level 74 to do the quest to enter. If you're not that level yet, make fast friends with a L74 Mage who has been up there and trained the Portal spell.

Also remember that some of these may have changed since beta. One thing that hasn't changed is that sweet, sweet ride, the Engineered Motorbike.

Off a question on professions we recently took in Ask A Beta Tester, it occurred to me that it would probably be helpful to provide players with a few ballpark figures on budgetary expectations for Northrend. Blizzard's been pretty frank about its desire to reduce ingame inflation, so it's reasonable to expect a number of compelling demands made on your e-wallet (especially if legions of grasping guild leaders worldwide get their wish and start taxing the living hell out of you). Bottom line? You're going to bleed gold out of your ears unless you exercise some financial restraint. But...whatever. Screaming over the ingame cost of everything keeps me from looking at my real-life stock portfolio. I need a drink.

PROFESSIONS: Your first few minutes on the continent, no matter where you land, are going to be pretty expensive if you train up your tradeskills immediately. Polar22 in the AABT comments provided an extremely helpful link to WarcraftEcon confirming that each major and minor trade skill, with the exception of First Aid, will cost 35g to level to Grand Master. First Aid is more expensive at 50g. So, assuming you train your two major tradeskills in addition to Fishing, Cooking, and First Aid, count on being out 190g in addition to whatever it will cost you to train new recipes. WarcraftEcon estimates the total damage for an average player will clock in around 400-500g for these initial recipes and the Grand Master skill-up. That sounds broadly accurate from my experience in the beta, so plan on toting 500g along if you want all of your professions trained up immediately. The bleed begins!

We're going to get right down to business this evening, folks. I was kind of heartened to see Willferal (our first questioner) ask about something that's bugged me for a while.

EDIT: several commenters have taken issue with the lack of a spoiler warning on this post when it went live at 9:00 pm EST. I genuinely apologize; it should have occurred to me to write one, and it's entirely my fault that one wasn't present. So consider this fair -- if belated -- warning that there's a significant, if general, spoiler in this AABT concerning an important quest chain in Wrath, and if you're trying to avoid spoilers completely, please do NOT read AABT. This column is nothing but a pile of spoilers compressed into a spoiled package and tied with a spoilery bow.

Willferal asks...

I know that in Wotlk, the players are fighting Malygos. But in TBC, Kalec/Tyri are blue dragons that help us, and Kalec is especially vital in his help to kill Kiljaeden. What's their role in Wrath?

I wish I knew. I never found any mention of Kalecgos while leveling, and Tyrygosa only got a brief mention at last year's BlizzCon. Tyrygosa's role in BC wasn't that extensive, but Kalecgos was all that and a box of crackers in Sunwell, so this is a little...mystifying. They both seem on passable (Tyrygosa) to good (Kalecgos) relations with the mortal races, so the involvement of their entire flight in Malygos' war would -- I hope -- concern them somewhat. I really hope Blizzard goes somewhere with this, but as of now I don't think you can expect to find anything in Northrend.

Professions have undergone a lot of changes since WoW began. Most recently, in Burning Crusade, crafting professions were typically a good way to obtain surprisingly high-quality items that you couldn't get any other way, such as Stormherald or the Frozen Shadoweave set. So far we haven't seen any evidence of directly parallel itemization in Wrath of the Lich King, and according to a couple of recent posts by Verimonde, we're not going to.

Specifically, Verimonde said that "There will not be a Stormherald type weapon 'high level crafter only,'" although there are, for instance, several BoE epic smithed weapons in Wrath. In his second post he explains the reasoning a little more: Blizzard didn't like that many people were picking professions based on what would make them the most powerful, as opposed to what they enjoyed.

As the beta winds down, Ask a Beta Tester becomes a little more infrequent, but as long as we have questions, we will answer. Let's start with Rob's question...

Are they planning to put in recipes for green items between 350-375 to make it easier to grind up professions? Or should i just suck it up and make (obsolete) blue/purple items to level up.

Many professions start with new recipes at 350 skill in Northrend, and some of them at 360. Nobody starts at 375. 360-375 is usually taken up by 'end-game' items so you won't have to grind those out to skill up before Northrend. I recommend checking Wowhead to see where your particular profession starts out.

Locke asked...

I know there's the Wrath Gate cinematic and so on, have you come across or know any other cinematic events like this, or was this the only one? I'm sure there has to be in game scripted events. Thanks.

More news from the MMO-Champion datamining of the latest Wrath of the Lich King beta patch – a few interesting, if not slightly meaningful, profession changes.

First in the Fishing department, casting times of items which attach to your fishing pole have been lowered from 5 seconds to 2 seconds. While this might not seem like a big deal, people who fish for a few hours a week for farming materials will now have a few minutes shaved off their daily grinding.

In the Alchemy department the Elixir of Shadow power, Elixir of Fire Power, and the Arcane Elixir all now last 1 hour, instead of 30 minutes.

Finally, the enchantments of Massacre (increase AP by 110), Greater Savagery (increase AP by 85), and Scouragebane (increase AP by 140 against Undead) have all been changed to apply to 2H weapons only. There have been some previous times in the beta where I've seen some folks running around with Massacre on both 1H weapons. Looks like that won't be an option anymore.

For those interested, the images are of potions from a Manaprincess giveaway we ran earlier this year.

When the realms come back up this afternoon, patch 3.0.2 will bring with it new talents, new skills, and a whole new profession: Inscription. This is one major Wrath feature we'll be getting early. The new profession will allow players to augment their spells with glyphs, which are ultimately made from herbs. The herb markets on some realms have already surged from people stocking up to power-level Inscription. I'll probably take advantage of the high prices to make a few gold, myself, and become a scribe later when it's cheaper.

But if you are interested in becoming one of the first scribes on your server (which could be quite lucrative), you may want to look at this power-leveling guide over at WoW Economist. It details exactly what you'll need to rush from 1 to 350, and what you can make to do it. In total, it looks like it should take about 72 stacks of assorted herbs, so I hope you're stocked up.

I ran into two common questions last night on the Dalaran coin post, so I thought I'd start off by answering those here. I apologize if we haven't yet gotten to everyone's questions; most of them, like Gurluas' question concerning The Missing Diplomat and the high elves in Northrend, we're just not 100% sure of the answer to yet, but I'll keep trying.

Keyra asks...

Just curious...the gold coins all have "Use: Throw this coin back into the Dalaran fountain", yet I've seen people commenting (as well as the author) that they'll carry the coin in their packs. What happens when/if you throw the coin back in?

When you toss a gold coin back into the fountain, you gain the "Lucky" buff for 2 minutes, increasing your chance to fish up any and all coins from the fountain (rather than fishing hooks or goldfish). You don't have to toss them back in if you don't want to, in which case they'll just occupy a bag slot like anything else, or you can sell them to a vendor (not for much). But most people throw the coin/s back in because fishing the coin up is enough to give you the Achievement for getting it. Particular coins would be carried solely for personal or sentimental reasons, i.e. I can definitely appreciate the irony and RP value of grimly hunting Arthas down like a dog while carrying a symbol of Sylvanas' wasted hopes.

Rexigar asks...

Question though, do we have to keep the coins for the achievement or does it count when we throw it back in?

It counts as of the moment you've fished it up. No matter what you do with it afterwards, the Achievement's yours. The same mechanic is true of everything else; once the game "knows" you've done something and an Achievement's gained, nothing can take it away.

There were a lot of profession changes in the latest LK beta build (8962). You've already seen what Inscription got, and if you're anything like me, you've salivated over the new Engineered motorcycles. But what else in this build is particularly interesting, for the other professions?

• Tailoring got some new flying carpets added, though I'm pretty sure the Ebonweave/Mooncloth/Spellfire are just cosmetic variants. No word yet on what they look like.
• Leatherworking got a ton of new BoE epics and blues. It looks like they're really trying to make it profitable to be a leatherworker, which will be nice to see.
• Each of the armor-crafting professions (tailoring, LW, blacksmithing) got some high-stamina frost-resist sets. Previously, similar (and similarly-named) sets were used for the Sapphiron fight in the old Naxxramas; I wonder if something similar will be going on in the new Naxx. I hope not, because kitting out your whole raid for one fight is an annoying gimmick.
• A few of the professions got recipes specifically to help them discover more recipes, like Northrend Alchemy Research and Northrend Inscription Research. An interesting approach to making the discovery system less frustrating.
• A new epic fishing pole! Still not quite as much +fishing as the Arcanite Fishing Pole, but nice for those who have trouble winning the contest, and the underwater breathing will be convenient.

There are also a bunch of new enchants and elixirs, but it's just your typical +AP, +crit, +int, etc.; hardly fascinating. I'm particularly excited about all the stuff LW is getting. That skill needed some love. See MMO-Champion for full listings of all the recipes; there's just too much for me to list here.

If you're the type of player that always wants to be prepared, this pre-Wrath/3.0 period is a pretty good time to get started on that. The big thing most of these types are concerned with is gold. It's more or less been proven to be true that even if you're completely broke going into Wrath, you'll be just fine in the end regardless. Still, gold is on a lot of people's minds looking towards the future.

Everyone has a different opinion of how much gold is 'enough' gold. I tend to hang out with players that are pretty big on min-maxing, the people that are always prepared, so my sense of what's 'enough' is a bit inflated. I'm sitting on roughly 10,000 gold right now, and I only recently started feeling like it was 'enough.' I'll be hemorrhaging gold at level 80 leveling professions and getting my gear up to par, so I'm sure most of that will be gone in no time. I could also get the gold very, very easily once I've hit level 80, and not have any issues. I just had that urge to be extra prepared that wasn't sated until I hit 5 digits. It actually wasn't too hard to get. I just farmed herbs here and there, and it just sort of accumulated.

How much gold do you think is enough gold, especially when we're heading into an expansion? Are you content to sit down in the single digits, and go out and run a daily quest if you need to repair your armor? Do you gather up as much gold as possible and sit on it?