I am at the person that Alla's site says sells the iron feather shoulders pattern and the pattern is not on her. I have run into this senario before trying to buy the pattern to make myself a ball to play with. Does anyone know how this works. Is it a random thing where if you keep checking her supplies it will pop? Is it on a timer from the last pattern bought? Are their prerequisists required like skill level (currently 287 leatherworking)? Or is it one of those mystery formulas that the game makers don't give out hence just keep checking and eventually get lucky???

If you look on Allak or Thott, you'll see some items have a number next to them (1), (2), etc... that means the vendor only has that number of items, and you'll have to wait a while (how long depends on the item) before it shows up for sale again.

It is a bit of a pain, but checking during off-hours can help (late night, early morning).

:texla: thanks for the answer. I figured it might be something like that. One last question then, does it reset after a patch. So if I am looking for such would right after a path be a good time to hustle on over and see??

From my experiences with Alch recipies, it is on a random timer even after a patch. I've read posts stating restock timers of anywhere from 2 to 8 hrs (real life time) once a "Limited Supply (1)" item or similar has been purchased. There is no way I would dedicate personal time to figuring out the exact time, so I suggest doing what I do and just check back at periodic intervals. You can however check the AH as some players like to vendor the recipies, but of course at inflated prices. :mad:

Oh man, yeah, AH resellers are evil.

I try not to use Thottbot, or any out of game cheats, and the rare recipes can be really hard to track down. You can go past a vendor many times, see no special recipes, and still not know whether they might have one the next time you visit. It would help me enormously if they still showed their special wares but with a (0) to show you couldn't buy.

That would take away some of the excitement at finding special recipes but it would remove more of the drudgery of checking every vendor you ever go past to see if they've got a recipe you've missed.