Minor rant!
Have the spawn rate of rainbow goblins been reduced? I’m farming 5-6 hours a day and used to get at least 2-3 probably a day, some may say its lucky but I’m doing the route rotation proably every 10 minutes max.
Since the random season reset, I’m lucky if I can find 1 in 2-3 days. Anyone else noticed this?
I have found exactly one this season. And that was after the blip. With around a total of 80 hours this season. (I would have to check that)
Edit:
92 hours this season, between SC and HC.
I’ve only found 1 this season as well. Then again, I wasn’t actively “seeking” them and it’s possible I missed one or more.
I’ve only seen one as well, but given that I spent most of my time this season farming visions and not goblins, that could well be why (I only actively farm rainbow goblins very early on and once I have at least some death’s breath and/or marquise level gems, I don’t bother hunting for them anymore).
I don’t hunt for them at all anymore, since visions/fissures have been in the game. Sure, I will run them if they show up, since its a change of pace, but if I’m material hunting, the former is far superior.
You get a couple with goblins in them its even better. But that’s me. I mean they shortcut you from having to farm Rifts, from farming Bounties, etc.
Since the challenge cache needs to be saved for the altar, I usually simultaneously farm for visions and goblins until I have the marquise gems, either by leveling or combining gems as those are still useful early on, especially for resists. The rubies drop off significantly once you can craft LV 70 items (or even LV 60 items) with the alter boon that eliminates level requirements for gear, but unless you get lucky very early with death’s breaths, those rainbow goblins can be a timesaver if you find one.
Basically, early on I’ll go my usual goblin farming route and kill everything I can to level obviously, which will invariably result in visions. Early on it’s really, really hard to kill roomfuls of goblins, sadly (unless you have said high level gems to juice your damage enough to do so). Since the gems you get from gem goblins in visions are still tiered by level, I prioritize the green goblins at all costs for death’s breaths when in visions.
I’m still immensely grateful for visions though, since their being made permanent means the only time I have to run bounties is for the singular checkboxes for the season journey. Once those five boxes are ticked, I don’t touch anything except Kulle/Azmodan/Rakinoth bounties as those give weapon upgrades early on very frequently.
These days when starting up in a season, I farm the cube right away, then start running the locations for the staff parts. Every gaming session when I start a fresh map, I hit all the farming spots for the staff. So I look for the parts constantly, long before I need the thing.
This season I farmed it 3 times!
Once in HC, and twice in SC. And the second time was before the blip. I have video evidence here for both too:
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gblyKQnYxus - SC - Video as parts were found, timestamps included
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckT_CRHk5cY - HC
And I happened to put that staff in the character inventory for SC, so I had it when the blip was over. I have since finished the Altar again in the season, and I’m less than 200 paragon from matching what I had pre-blip.
Fun times. I have some GR grinding to do now in the last few days this weekend.
But I will keep an eye out for Rainbows…
Same here. I’ve only seen one this season. I used to farm them, and usually ran across quite a few of them each day, but not lately.
No, rng = rng. The spawn rate is low, so weird things happen
I have 150 hours in this season, the lion’s share has been running bounties/visions. Think I hit 2-3 before the blip (the vast majority of my 150 hours), and 1 post blip.
Turning the season on/off has no effect on rainbow goblin spawn rates. No conspiracy. Nothing to see here. Move along.
(puts tin foil hat on)
Now here is the truth about what is going on. Blizz uses Skynet level AI for D3. The goal of the AI is to jam you as hard as possible. The AI determines what you are looking for and adjusts the RNG to punish you. Want the GG? Its drop rate reduced to zero. Hunting Primals? They will no longer drop. Pushing the LBs? All the maps are now caves with bugs and hell witches and the only pylon you are going to get is speed.
There is only one way to defeat Blizz’s Skynet AI. It is 50 years in the future, super advanced. Once thing it doesn’t understand, though, is reverse psychology. Simply try to not get rainbow goblins, the AI will try to spite you and shower you with rainbow goblins.
Don’t belive me? Try it. Tin foil hat theory is the only truth in the universe.
(Tin foil hat off)
As I said, simple rng, nothing wrong here.
The best spots for farming fissures are not the best spots for farming rainbow goblins meaning you’re naturally going to see fewer of them. And with the dopamine hit of opening a fissure being reasonably frequent, it’s going to make rarer occurences seem even rarer.
Maybe more than 6 Rainbow Goblins in less 48h in regular season…
While I’m farmed Gibbering Gemstone.
I killed a Rainbow Goblin a couple of days ago. And while clearing Whimsydale I spawned a Vision Portal. So, I ran that too. 
I only had a couple of Rainbows this Season but they both spawned Visions.
Yeah, the one I had also spawned a vision/fissure. As did the single cow level that I got off of a goblin while farming staff parts. (that’s also included in that video above btw)
Rainbow goblins are notoriously hard to find. You literally have to kill everything in their favored spawn points. It also helps to get the difficulty above T1 and be lucky. I once found two on the same map a long time ago back in S6 in A5 The Pandemonium Fortress 1, two floors up from Malthael.
I’m not sure if you know this but that floor will spawn to goblins. What I’m saying is there’s a chance for goblins to spawn in any zone but that zone, if one goblin spawns, there will be a second one on that map every time.
Pretty cool for both of them to be rainbow’s, to bad that if you clear the first, the second one won’t have anything in it.
If you knew this, I apologize for coming off as a know-it-all, but also think it’s helpful information for anyone who happens to not know that little tidbit.
What happens is that only one instance of Whimsydale can appear in a single game. So, if you kill the first Rainbow Goblin, it spawns a Rainbow Portal. If you kill a second Rainbow Goblin, even if it’s on a different Map, it will not spawn a new Rainbow Portal. It will just drop the loot it normally does, but does not open a Portal.
If you kill a Rainbow Goblin, it’s best to finish what you’re currently working on as quick as possible. And then create another game (Leave Game and Start Game). That way, if you encounter another Rainbow Goblin, you’ll have another chance to farm Whimsydale.
I can finally say I got the wings after the long hard grind. Finally broken out of the RBG jail!!
I haven’t seen a rainbow gobby this season at all while not even hunting one. And I was as shocked as anyone when my first bounty in Act II yielded the chest with the liquid rainbow in it and the 2nd frost cavern got me the GG in adventure mode. Normally I would agree with the tinfoil hat theory but it’s been Bizarro World for me this season.
Thats just crazy enough to be potato 