MAJOR UPDATE: I found them! The Cosmic Wings finally dropped after 10 seasons of futility and frustration.
So I’ve gone to the various guides on maxroll and icyveins. I’ve look at reddit threads. And nobody – I mean NOBODY – actually has a decent guide to farming those bloody rainbow goblins.
My biggest complaint is zone lists. For example maxroll says to farm the City of Caldeum. Um, the way point? The city you can walk to from the Hidden Camp? Both? Icy Veins says the Caldeum sewers. Again, which sewer? The one from the waypoint on the way to Belial? The one inside the city map from the camp? They don’t say.
And on and on… some guides say farm completely different zones. Some say only farm this part of a zone. Nobody is consistent. This kind of Skinner’s Box approach to the entire game design is maddening. Why can’t Blizzard just publish a list of locations that spawn rainbow goblins? Why is it left to the community to piece together random information and to do it so badly as to make it basically worthless?
Part of the frustration is that even with team ups I’m closing in on 200 dead goblins in the past week and not a single rainbow one. Yeah, RNG… I get it… but the combination of bad information and lousy RNG led to this… pointless as it may be.
Just do small maps with a high chance of having a goblin:
WP to Belial
WP to Skeleton King
Pandemonium levels 1 and 2 (pretty sure on both) can spawn 2 goblins
so, basically pick the maps you like running quickly, and make your own route.
You are doing it all wrong. You are trying to get the Cosmic Wings. Here is the correct way to farm for them:
(tin foil hat on)
Blizz knows how badly you want them, so they adjust the drop rate for you to zero. You have to not want to get it, then you will get it. Want proof? Here is undeniable proof:
I have several friends who have done 1000+ runs and no wings. I on the other hand, got mine on the first try. One friend suggested farming for rainbows in separate games and inviting to speed up their search. I told them I was not interested, but finally caved in. I made a game and just ran bounties. They made a few games and found a rainbow. Invited me, and BAM, Princess Lillian.
What you call the tin foil hat is actually the Skinner’s Box that I’m talking about. When there is no obvious correlation between actions and results humans (and other species) are really good at coming up with all sorts of bizarre rationalizations to explain the apparent disconnect.
And, just to shoot your theory down, maybe 30% of the rainbows I’ve run were stumbled on while just playing and not actively hunting for them. Pub games, etc. So, no, not wanting to find them hasn’t done the trick.
LOL… those gifts… man, I spent weeks farming those accursed gifts and never got the wings. I’m half-convinced Blizzard set a flag on my account so that I’ll never get the Cosmic Wings to drop no matter what. I’m willing to bet that if I kill Lillian they still won’t drop.
but when you went into the portal, were you hoping to get the wings? Did you have your tin foil hat on to make sure Blizz couldn’t read your mind?
They are both different.
Skinner’s Box deals with positive/negative reinforcement when a subject performs a certain task. So, performing certain tasks have a direct reward or punishment involved.
Tin foil hat conspiracy theory is that the government or some other entity is reading our minds and gathering information to be used for their own nefarious purposes. By wearing a tin foil hat, the subject is able to block this mind reading.
BTW, when I roll my “tin foil hat on/off”, I am making fun of this line of thinking.
I wouldn’t say “fun” but I’m making the best of a bad situation. Leveled my SSF toon from p1400 to 1450 and my public from p950 to p1100. Just farming goblins (and a few visions if they pop near the end of a map). Not GR farming, just killing mobs in the overworld.
I keep running into them at Keep Depths and Towers. I think eventually you come across Rainbow goblins if you keep farming bounties and ignore any and all Fissures. Set the difficulty to something low and you won’t miss anything when you skip Fissures.
I got my wings several seasons ago when I was hunting the white transmogs that came out a long while back. Killed the RBG in Halls of Agony 3 while hunting the mob that drops Kalim’s Will.
Debated about going in or to just go on to the next zone for another transmog. Decided to take the Goblin and got the Wings.
So, my advice is try some reverse psychology and hunt for other things.
Barring that, you could add Halls of Agony 3 to your farming route.
That’s what I ended up doing. The routes that work best on my electric pony build are (editing this after a few days of trial & error)
TP to Leoric’s Manor clear Leoric’s Hunting Ground (50/50 goblin)
Head to down Northern Highlands (50/50 goblin)
If Khazra Den quest in Southern Highlands TP (50% for 1-3 goblins)
Cathedral 1 to Leoric’s Passage (almost always a goblin there)
Continue to Cathedral 2 (~30% for 3 goblins total)
Royal Crypt (Skeleton King) (~60% for goblin)
East Ancient Waterway (both floors) (~60% for one or more)
West Ancient Waterway (both floors) (same)
If Caverns of Frost quest do it (50% for 1-3 goblins, possible Gibbering)
Bridge of Rakkis (~60% for goblin)
Tower of the Damned (both floors) (~50% of one or more)
Tower of the Cursed (both floors) (same)
Arreat Core (~60% of goblin)
Garden of Hope 1st Tier (~60% of goblin)
Pandemonium Fortress Level 1 (~50% of 2 goblins)
Pandemonium Fortress Level 2 (~50% of 2 goblins)
Apart from the water ways and Pandemonium the rest of the levels are basically “ride as fast as possible and let the lightning do all the work” There’s no navigation, no decisions, just go-go-go. If I do all 16 areas it takes about 20 minutes and I find about 8-9 goblins each time. That’s 20+ goblins an hour, roughly 2-3 hours of farming for each rainbow playing solo. Avoid boss fights. When you get the goblin TP to next area.
I managed to get 7 Rainbow Goblins to drop today. Of course no wings… back at again tomorrow. Note – 7 rainbows but only 6 Whimseys… once I got two rainbows in the same floor of Pandemonium. But that was an outlier of a day. Nothing close to it since.
the fact is the best guide i found was on some shady forums
but its really simple when you are smart enough to understand what you’re reading on reddit or here at least.
Theres ONE location thats best for farming, thats all, act 1 khazara den, usualy first floor only, sometimes both floors.
Use the fastest build possible, play on normal difficulty even. I used UE demon hunter with custom max runspeed build.
“infinite dash zero dps” monk is somewhat viable too, its wayy faster but lower attack range so its not that great actually.
Warning speedrunning might cause epilepsy attacks.
Dont ever stop to pickup anything or fight,
Look at chat combat log to see if you accidentally attacked princess unique monster on rainbow map.
Run rainbow map untill you find any unique monster, if its not princess, exit to menu and make new game.
it gives at least 5 rainbow goblins per hour if youre “not that fast”.
say that gives 1000 - 1500 rainbow goblins in 200-300 hours… and the chance to spawn princess unique monster is 0.5% so it ““should be”” somewhere within 200 goblins actually, but since its RNG… yep im saying on a good day you should be able to farm wings in 40 hours max but its RNG… so the average is actually 200-300 hours as far as i collected some data from runners
highly advise dont listen to others, just do this method
