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Many materials within Conan Exiles offer protection against hostile forces, but few are as desirable as Hardened Leather. A cornerstone of high-leveled armor, Hardened Leather is an essential resource in the late game of Conan Exiles, aiding your survival against the beasts that inhabit the lands.
Today we’ll learn all there is to know about Conan Exiles Hardened Leather, crafting it for ourselves, and using it to aid our survival. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What is Hardened Leather?
Hardened Leather is a piece of hide tanned into Leather and treated to grant improved protection. The treating process is quite expensive, though the resulting product will offer enhanced defense compared to regular Leather.
Hardened Leather is classed as a mid-grade ingredient and can stack up to 100 pieces in an inventory slot. It also weighs 0.25 units, making each full stack weigh 25 units. It’s not massively heavy, though a few stacks could become cumbersome.
What is Hardened Leather Used for?
Conan Exiles Hardened Leather is used primarily for manufacturing various Level 60 armor sets. This includes Epic versions of different medium and heavy armors, including Cimmerian Steel, Aquilonian Infantry, Barachan Reiver, and many more.
It’s also used in making a few different saddles, along with the two end-game upgrades of the Tannery. Hardened Leather is a highly valued resource due to its use in end-game armors, as a raw resource and a component in the padding required to create the armors.
Why is Hardened Leather Important?
To put it simply, Hardened Leather is crucial in manufacturing many different armors, primarily Level 60 variants. Outside of Light armor, which uses Perfected Silk, almost any other craftable armor set will require the use of Hardened Leather.
Alternatively, you could use a Legendary armor set, which cannot be crafted but does require a specialized kit to repair. Keep in mind that Legendary armor is much harder to find and often does not come in full-stylized sets.
Alongside its use as a raw resource in making various armors, Hardened Leather is also used in padding. Perfected Medium Padding and Perfected Heavy Padding require a quantity of Hardened Leather. This serves to increase the overall amount you’ll need.
At character level 60, you’ll have reached the level cap. At this point, you’re likely either tackling some of the challenging dungeons or engaging in PvP combat.
Whether you’re fighting enemy clans or tackling The Black Keep, the extra defense and bonus attributes you’ll get from a good armor set are invaluable. While it’s not mandatory, crafting Level 60 armors will make your life much easier, making it clear why Hardened Leather is so important for the end game.
Where is Hardened Leather Found?
Unfortunately, you cannot simply harvest Hardened Leather from a creature. Rather, you’ll have to gather hide, tan it into workable Leather, and then treat it further to create Hardened Leather. Due to the use of Oil and Alchemical bases, this treatment process can be expensive, and you should plan to deduct precisely how much of each resource you need.
How do I Craft Hardened Leather?
As mentioned previously, Hardened Leather is expensive to craft. It’s made at the Tanner’s Table and requires the following ingredients:
- Five pieces of Leather
- Two pieces of thick Leather
- Two pots of Alchemical Base
- Five units of Oil
Creating Hardened Leather isn’t incredibly expensive, but it is a cost worth considering. The Oil and Alchemical Base requirements stand out the most, as both are incredibly desirable resources. Oil is one of the best fuel sources in the game, and towards the end game, you’ll likely want to transition from Coal to Oil in your furnaces for better time efficiency.
Alchemical Base is a notoriously valuable ingredient too. It’s used in a variety of things, including the Map Room, various potions, and even some of the new workstations added with the Age of Sorcery update. Despite its numerous uses, the sources of gold and silver remain scarce, making this resource particularly troublesome to gather, especially on populated servers.
Thick and regular Leather is fortunately easy to attain. You’ve likely already done it countless times when you eventually hit Level 60, and thus gathering these resources should be the easiest part of preparing to craft Hardened Leather.
Prerequisites
To unlock the ability to create Hardened Leather, you’ll first need to learn the Exile Epics feat. Exile Epics is available at Level 60 and costs 13 Feat Points to attain. It’s an end-game unlock and requires the maximum character level to learn. This feat is also required for crafting many of the armor sets that you’d use Hardened Leather for.
You’ll also need to gather a good quantity of bark for your Tanner’s Bench. What’s the best way to gather bark? Simply hit a tree with a pick. It’s preferable to target dead trees, like those in the tundra, but any tree will provide bark.
The bark is used to fuel the tanning process within Tanner’s Bench. As you likely already know, tanning hides produces tar as a byproduct, something which is invaluable to have for other crafting endeavors.
Leather & Thick Leather
The first two requirements are regular and thick Leather. The regular hide can be taken from beasts, including elk, deer, and even humans. You can also strip down alternative hides like reptiles to provide regular hide.
Thick Leather requires elephant hide, rhino hide, bear pelt, or thick hide. You can gather these hides from many larger beasts, though I recommend slaying the rhinos and elephants found in the Savannah. This is a great place to farm all sorts of hides. You could look in other areas, but I always head straight to the Savannah, it’s just a great location.
Once you’ve gathered the hides, take them back to your base. Place them into your Tannery with bark to tan them into the respective type of Leather. This is quite a slow process, so it’s best to do this task first and let the hides tan as you gather other resources.
Alchemical Base
Alchemical Base is an incredibly valuable resource created using the following:
- Two Silver Dust
- One Gold Dust
- Two Ichor
Silver Dust and Gold Dust are attained by grinding down Gold and Silver bars or coins to produce dust. The best place to gather these resources is the underwater chests of Buccaneer Bay in the northeast of The Exiled Lands. On The Isle of Siptah, you can gather Gold and Silver by harvesting the small rocks located around the Elder Vaults across the map.
Ichor is best attained by slaying and harvesting spiders or scorpions, both of which can grant a large amount of Ichor in a short period. This is an ingredient used in a lot of crafting recipes, so you likely already have a preferred route to gather this sticky substance.
Once you’ve gathered those resources, take them to a Firebowl Cauldron and craft your Alchemical Base. Again, you’ll need two Silver dust, one Gold dust, and two Ichor, though the cost can be reduced in upgraded cauldrons. This will produce one Alchemical Base, which crafts in 20 seconds.
Oil
Oil is another highly sought-after resource within Conan Exiles. It can be slowly but passively manufactured by crushing all manner of seeds and fish within the Fluid Press. It can also be made using one bark and one Ichor at an Alchemist’s Bench, though you will need a Tier 3 alchemist to do so.
If you don’t have access to a Tier 3 Alchemist, the passive approach is best. I advise setting this up early so you can slowly gather oil as you work towards other goals. Once you have acquired a sufficient amount of oil, you can begin to make Hardened Leather.
Creating Hardened Leather
Now that you have your resources, it’s time to begin crafting your Hardened Leather. Unfortunately, unlike other resources, the crafting of Hardened Leather cannot be improved by using upgraded workstations. Hardened Leather must be created at the Tanner’s Table, for which no improved variant exists.
This is both a blessing and a burden, as while the crafting cost can’t be improved, it does make your calculations much easier. The cost reduction from improved stations can complicate the mathematics of how many resources you need to gather, so having an unchanging cost does make that process smoother.
What can I make with Hardened Leather?
As mentioned earlier, Conan Exiles Hardened Leather is a cornerstone of crafting Level 60 armor. It’s also used in crafting Perfected Heavy Padding and Perfected Medium Padding. Both of these resources are required for many different armors. Below is a list of all of the armors and other items you can craft using Hardened Leather.
Workbenches
- Plant-Based Tannery
- Precision Tannery
Saddles
- Argossean Cavalry Saddle
- Kordavan Tack and Saddle
- Nemedian Cavalry Saddle
- Rhino Cavalry Saddle
- Savage Cavalry Saddle
- Turan Cavalry Saddle
- Yamatai Cavalry Saddle
Resources
- Perfected Medium Padding
- Perfected Heavy Padding
Armor Sets
- Cimmerian Steel
- Stygian Invader
- Aquilonian (Base Game)
- Aquilonian Infantry
- Argossean Gladiator
- The aspect of the Demon
- The aspect of the Drowned
- The aspect of the Fiend
- The aspect of the Goblinoid
- The aspect of the Wolf
- Barachan Reiver
- Bear Shaman
- Black Knight
- Black Privateer
- Chestguard of the Wolf
- Chieftain
- Cimmerian Fur
- Dune Hunter
- Durable Heavy
- Durable Medium
- Fins of the Drowned
- Fists of the Drowned
- Frost Giant
- Gladiator
- Hands of the Goblinoid
- Khayne’s Armor
- Khitan Captain
- King’s Guard
- Medium Armor (Base Game)
- Nemedian Infantry
- Night Stalker
- Pictish Brave
- Poitain Campaign
- Primeval Armor
- Ravager Helmet
- Scavenger-fur
- Silent Legion Medium
- Slaveforged Sacrificial
- Stygian Commander
- Turanian Mercenary
- Vicious Armor
- Voidforged Dragon
- Voidforged Dragonbone
- Yamatai Demon
- Grey One Armor
Frequently Asked Questions – Conan Exiles Hardened Leather
The plight of manufacturing Hardened Leather garners many questions about the best ways to do so, along with alternative methods. Here are some of our most commonly asked questions, and the answers.
Question: Is it Possible to Receive Hardened Leather from Enemies?
Answer: It is indeed possible to get Hardened Leather as a drop from some enemies. However, like many other resources, it’s not a reliable source. Many human NPCs have a wide drop pool that offers a small number of resources. This drop pool is so wide that most desirable drops are too infrequently attained to make farming these enemies a reliable method.
Question: Is There any Way to Reduce the Crafting Cost of Hardened Leather?
Answer: Unfortunately not. In the gameplay of Conan Exiles, cost reductions for crafting recipes come from benches. Upgraded benches like the Alchemist, Blacksmith, Armorer, etc can sometimes reduce the cost of crafting recipes.
Hardened Leather has to be made at a Tanner’s Table, and unfortunately, there is no upgraded version of that bench. The Tanner’s Table that you craft in the early game is the same one you’ll use in the end game, and thus the recipe for Hardened Leather is fixed.
As I mentioned earlier, this is both a positive and a negative. You can’t improve the cost, but it does make calculating how much of each resource you’ll need much easier.
Question: I’m Struggling to find Hide on the Isle of Siptah, Where Should I go?
Answer: The Isle of Siptah’s wildlife is spread a little thin in certain areas, so it can be tough to find a consistent source of hide. Most of the beasts around the center of the map offer Thick Hide, which is a good option. If you gather a large amount of Thick Hide, you can strip down a portion of it into the regular hide, which you can then tan into regular leather.
This method should give you a sustainable supply of both regular and thick leather to use in crafting Hardened Leather later on.
Conclusion
Hardened Leather is an incredibly desirable resource within the world of Conan Exiles. Many players need it, and many struggle to acquire it regularly and sustainably. Today I’ve shown you how to make Hardened Leather and how to gather all of the resources you’ll need. Grab a skinning knife and your sharpest sword, it’s time to start farming. Best of luck, Exile!
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