EPTBlizzard has deployed the 5.0.16 patch for StarCraft II, with the controversial starting working count change and other balance tweaks from the PTR intact. The ladder maps were also rotated.
5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)
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Waxangel
United States33636 Posts
Blizzard has deployed the 5.0.16 patch for StarCraft II, with the controversial starting working count change and other balance tweaks from the PTR intact. The ladder maps were also rotated.
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Vindicare605
United States16123 Posts
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Poopi
France12946 Posts
We keep getting the short hand of the stick | ||
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NeWHoriZonS
57 Posts
Literally everyone is saying this patch as a whole is a bad idea, from all races/kind of players This is genuinely the one patch that could break the game/split the community, it is so bad in so many ways it's insane We just threw 10 years of experience by the window for nothing Hopefully this is reverted VERY soon | ||
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Telephone
United States149 Posts
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doktordingerdonger
120 Posts
On June 23 2026 05:40 Vindicare605 wrote: LOL they have a whole ass PTR cycle for everything except a Random buff to Zerg that they push through with barely any time out of nowhere. Yup this is definitely the same balance team that pushed through the Cyclone Rework a couple cycles ago. bold of you to assume these balance changes arent straight out of chatgpt | ||
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arwinter
2 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
Stop speaking nonsense like zerg is op. I bet none of you even played ptr. | ||
BluemoonSC
SoCal8914 Posts
watching protoss build a zealot early-game is like watching paint dry. | ||
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Daloze
9 Posts
if you can't accept big changes to make sc2 exciting again, just accept game being done | ||
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5536 Posts
And the changes at first glance, and based on what good players are saying are not balanced. I am excitedly hopping on as we speak but I really don't have high hopes. | ||
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TeamMamba
234 Posts
Im convinced most of you complainers has never played the game | ||
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HelpMeGetBetter
United States766 Posts
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THERIDDLER
Canada131 Posts
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5536 Posts
On June 23 2026 09:22 THERIDDLER wrote: The fact that the 90% of the community which all consists of protoss players are crying should tell you how unironically good this patch is. Nice math bruh. | ||
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tigera6
3498 Posts
On June 23 2026 09:01 TeamMamba wrote: lol at all the whining about one Zerg buff. Zergs has been getting nerfs after nerfs for years (the Serral nerf effect) Im convinced most of you complainers has never played the game So you didnt happen to watch another ZvZ Final in the weekly tournament last night, right? 2 tournament in a row with the PTR where we have ZvZ Final and that is without Serral/Rogue. Yep, sounds like its you who dont have damn clue. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
On June 23 2026 11:44 tigera6 wrote: So you didnt happen to watch another ZvZ Final in the weekly tournament last night, right? 2 tournament in a row with the PTR where we have ZvZ Final and that is without Serral/Rogue. Yep, sounds like its you who dont have damn clue. No LOL it sounds like you have no clue. Everything on ptr for Zerg got nerfed. It's not that patch. Compared to PTR 2, queen nerfed, overlord speed nerfed, hatchery nerf, creep nerfed, larva rate nerfed. It's not that insane state you saw bruv. | ||
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Waxangel
United States33636 Posts
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mathphyswithvic
12 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17631 Posts
"90% of the players are Protoss. the other half are Terran and Zerg." , Yogi Berra , 1955 | ||
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THERIDDLER
Canada131 Posts
90% protoss 5% T 5% Z math is hard for little protoss jimmies | ||
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tigera6
3498 Posts
On June 23 2026 12:21 CicadaSC wrote: No LOL it sounds like you have no clue. Everything on ptr for Zerg got nerfed. It's not that patch. Compared to PTR 2, queen nerfed, overlord speed nerfed, hatchery nerf, creep nerfed, larva rate nerfed. It's not that insane state you saw bruv. They were nerfed from the previous PTR2 but still a buff from the original PTR with the 8 workers change, whats so hard to understand about that? Edit: And definitely a buff from the previous patch. Basically Hatch is more expensive but get more production, cheaper Carapace upgrade, better spell without research, un-nerf of the Viper. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
On June 23 2026 12:48 Waxangel wrote: I tend to take a wait and see approach to these kinds of things, but the Larva stuff seems like it might be an immediate issue from the limited competitions we've had thus far. Again, the larva change is not what we saw in those limited competitions... They nerfed it from the PTR 2 version. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
On June 23 2026 14:10 tigera6 wrote: They were nerfed from the previous PTR2 but still a buff from the original PTR with the 8 workers change, whats so hard to understand about that? Edit: And definitely a buff from the previous patch. Basically Hatch is more expensive but get more production, cheaper Carapace upgrade, better spell without research, un-nerf of the Viper. Maybe 1 buff to larva (weaker than PTR2) when you make hatchery cost more, creep spread slower, and overlord scouting slower isn't so bad? Especially if protoss can stabilize and normalize a build their production seems increased as well. Just saying. I would not be pitchforking just yet. We all agree it's a giant change and patch. That means it will take time for people to figure things out and a meta to settle. So people losing their minds? Especially when most Zerg changes on ptr 2 got either reverted or nerfed is... bizarre. | ||
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Poopi
France12946 Posts
On June 23 2026 09:01 TeamMamba wrote: lol at all the whining about one Zerg buff. Zergs has been getting nerfs after nerfs for years (the Serral nerf effect) Im convinced most of you complainers has never played the game Zerg kept winning after multiple nerfs, hinting at how stronger than it needed it was for most of LotV  As for the larva thing, they went from like 10.7s live to 9s in PTR2 to a random 9.5s in a hotfix, so probably still too strong + the 8 workers thing was silly and it showed pretty fast Terrible showing to not listen to any feedback and just push live for no reason | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
On June 23 2026 14:37 Poopi wrote: Zerg kept winning after multiple nerfs, hinting at how stronger than it needed it was for most of LotV As for the larva thing, they went from like 10.7s live to 9s in PTR2 to a random 9.5s in a hotfix, so probably still too strong + the 8 workers thing was silly and it showed pretty fast Terrible showing to not listen to any feedback and just push live for no reason I mean... your argument is valid but a counterpoint would be Serral factor. Put Serral on any race and I bet he would be just as dominant, similar to how clem is arguably same level with his Protoss. I think the player pool is small enough we can unironically talk about "skill issue" in the same conversation as balance. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10374 Posts
Besides stuff like reverting the overlord speed closer to where it was before LotV etc. to match the reduced worker start. | ||
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THERIDDLER
Canada131 Posts
On June 23 2026 14:59 CicadaSC wrote: I mean... your argument is valid but a counterpoint would be Serral factor. Put Serral on any race and I bet he would be just as dominant, similar to how clem is arguably same level with his Protoss. I think the player pool is small enough we can unironically talk about "skill issue" in the same conversation as balance. The funny thing is that in reality it actually is never "just serral". He has never won a single premier tournament as the only zerg in the ro8 (unlike maru, rogue, life etc) and has never off successfully off raced in a premier tournament (unlike reynor and clem). | ||
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Poopi
France12946 Posts
On June 23 2026 14:59 CicadaSC wrote: I mean... your argument is valid but a counterpoint would be Serral factor. Put Serral on any race and I bet he would be just as dominant, similar to how clem is arguably same level with his Protoss. I think the player pool is small enough we can unironically talk about "skill issue" in the same conversation as balance. There is no Serral factor though, he does great when zerg does good, and while he is/was (depending on how active the scene still is) good in most eras, he didn’t carry his whole race (nor did he need to anyways) unlike Maru for terran, and Zest for protoss | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27026 Posts
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tigera6
3498 Posts
On June 23 2026 14:27 CicadaSC wrote: Maybe 1 buff to larva (weaker than PTR2) when you make hatchery cost more, creep spread slower, and overlord scouting slower isn't so bad? Especially if protoss can stabilize and normalize a build their production seems increased as well. Just saying. I would not be pitchforking just yet. We all agree it's a giant change and patch. That means it will take time for people to figure things out and a meta to settle. So people losing their minds? Especially when most Zerg changes on ptr 2 got either reverted or nerfed is... bizarre. Thats like saying lets nerf Terran by making Bunker/Turret 25 mineral more expensive, giving Zerg less scouting speed and vision is a good thing, but that doesnt make up for the buff they got elsewhere. Imagine saying reducing Terran upgrade cost, make EMP higher range, give free Widow Mines upgrade, but lets reduce Medivac speed by 0.05, and reduce sensor tower range by 1, and see how that goes with people. With these change, Terran (and possibly Protoss) best chance it simply all-inning before Zerg can fully expand, because Zerg now can defend heavy pressure WHILE macro-ing up to good Drone count. Terran can be up 2 upgrade but doesnt mean shit because Zerg will get 90+ worker and keep making units. Its not worth it to go completely crazy over this, but its hasnt looked good base on what we have seen so far. All I know is that if both side play macro the same way before the patch change, Zerg will be in a BETTER position than before. | ||
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Psz
Hungary57 Posts
Let me outline how a fair and productive patching process should look like if the goal is to maintain a playable version of the game instead of pleasing a few voices that are a bit too loud. Step 1: would be transparency, and people taking responsibility instead of staying unknown or distancing themselves from their contribution. Step 2: would be a community-voted balance team, preferably involving no (active) pro players or casters, who would openly discuss the rationale for changes and communicate the exact timeline of the implementation process. Step 3: would be leaving sufficient time for pros and the community to test changes through PTR tournaments (we had plenty) and atleast 2 weeks of testing for each iteration. Step 4: would be collecting and responding to feedback (we've had plenty of feedback, but zero response) to ensure that pro players, casters, and community as a whole is atleast somewhat happy with the changes. The current patch – however long it will remain in its current form – has already caused irreparable damage to the game and will continue to do so until it remains live, disregarding the efforts of tournament organizers and the unanimous opinion of pro players and casters, or the community speaking up against it. Whoever pushed this patch live or contributed to the process in any form – leaving less than 48 hours for the latest (ghost) iteration, while the community equivocally rejected most of the changes – should not be allowed to touch the balance ever again. | ||
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Creager
Germany1942 Posts
On June 23 2026 16:15 WombaT wrote: Why go so ambitious and whack it out early? Exactly my thoughts, sitting here pretty flabbergasted. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27026 Posts
On June 23 2026 20:49 Psz wrote: The patching history of StarCraft II has always been questionable, but it turned into pure chaos at this point, the culmination of which is this abomination of nonsense. Let me outline how a fair and productive patching process should look like if the goal is to maintain a playable version of the game instead of pleasing a few voices that are a bit too loud. Step 1: would be transparency, and people taking responsibility instead of staying unknown or distancing themselves from their contribution. Step 2: would be a community-voted balance team, preferably involving no (active) pro players or casters, who would openly discuss the rationale for changes and communicate the exact timeline of the implementation process. Step 3: would be leaving sufficient time for pros and the community to test changes through PTR tournaments (we had plenty) and atleast 2 weeks of testing for each iteration. Step 4: would be collecting and responding to feedback (we've had plenty of feedback, but zero response) to ensure that pro players, casters, and community as a whole is atleast somewhat happy with the changes. The current patch – however long it will remain in its current form – has already caused irreparable damage to the game and will continue to do so until it remains live, disregarding the efforts of tournament organizers and the unanimous opinion of pro players and casters, or the community speaking up against it. Whoever pushed this patch live or contributed to the process in any form – leaving less than 48 hours for the latest (ghost) iteration, while the community equivocally rejected most of the changes – should not be allowed to touch the balance ever again. Largely agreed but who would be on this community voted balance team? And given the tenor of various forums I can’t say I would trust the community to vote in the best candidates possible. There’s zero issue for me personally in having the pros, or casters do their thing in contributing. The problem (seemingly) comes that there’s nobody at the Blizzard end who can parse what feedback they’re getting, sift out bias etc. Which goes back to the transparency problem, because we don’t really know, it’s almost like a black box. For example almost all open feedback I saw from (publicly known council members, across multiple factions) was negative towards the reactored cyclone change a few patches ago. Almost all of it. But they implemented it anyway, so who’s making that call? What’s the process? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27026 Posts
On June 23 2026 21:45 Creager wrote: Exactly my thoughts, sitting here pretty flabbergasted. It takes a lot to gast my flabber these days, but I don’t know wtf is driving pushing this live. Some larva rate change may be necessary as an adjustment with the eco shift, but it seems their first pass was way overtuned, and the second appears merely overtuned. We still haven’t really figured out the new gateway tweaks collectively yet, and they’ve only just moved research back to core. A tweak (at least some kind of actual gateway/warpgate tradeoff) I’ve wanted to see for over a decade incidentally, in some form. And there’s blatant bugs, there’s bad patch notes that don’t reflect reality, the new ‘pick up nearby units’ ability doesn’t have a properly labelled tooltip or a default hotkey We’re used to the latter (cyclone bug) for the last few cycles, which logically makes sense with the conception of ‘the StarCraft intern’ doing things, but this patch showed a lot more ambition, so my assumption was there were a few more resources being dedicated. And I’m worried that if this patch is a complete disaster that we’ll never see anything more radical (in whatever form) being attempted again. Deeply confuddling | ||
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zelevin
United States318 Posts
As a Diamond 1 terran, this patch feels like so much fun. It reminds me of coming home from school in 2012, having no idea what i'm doing, and having a ton of fun just figuring it out. I've had a lot of fun trying to make old WoL builds work, like barracks expand into 4 barracks combat shield push vs zerg. 2 base play doesn't feel like a defacto all in any more. I love that zerg isn't on 4 bases at 5 minutes. I'm having a great time with this 8 worker start! | ||
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SC-Shield
Bulgaria859 Posts
On June 23 2026 07:44 Daloze wrote: people crying here are the reason why this game is dead if you can't accept big changes to make sc2 exciting again, just accept game being done The game is done. No one wants to play hard 1vs1 games anymore, RTS days are gone. :D The only people left playing are 30+ years old players. There are barely any new players. | ||
Mizenhauer
United States1937 Posts
On June 24 2026 00:35 SC-Shield wrote: The game is done. No one wants to play hard 1vs1 games anymore, RTS days are gone. :D The only people left playing are 30+ years old players. There are barely any new players. BW same thing and not dead. Their pro scenes are extremely stagnant, but not dead at all. | ||
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TelecoM
United States10757 Posts
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Agh
United States1058 Posts
ZvX matchups are going to devolve into snoozefests late game, even more so with the elongated early. Watching a mothership over archons immortals and ht with random air sure is going to be exciting. Zergs accumulating massive banks and trading for the 3rd planetary. TvP gets a more balanced late game at the cost of stagnant early with aggressive options feeling much more committed. It just goes back to maps determining the script rather than players being able to execute their own ideas. Just a worse product to watch, and much more boring to play. Doesn't add variety, just restricts it by going back to flowcharts which isn't interesting to anyone above diamond. | ||
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PoulsenB
Poland7740 Posts
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WGT-Baal
France3496 Posts
On June 24 2026 03:00 PoulsenB wrote: A big change like this actually makes me want to play again after literally over a decade of not touching the game. Same here! Let s go~ | ||
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SC-Shield
Bulgaria859 Posts
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Poopi
France12946 Posts
The good thing though with that many crazy changes is that it can bring old players back (it won’t be « new » players), and if they start listening to feedback and patch a bit more the dynamic could be good Or they could just leave us with a semi broken game we didn’t ask for a whole year we’ll see Doing this just before big tournaments in MoG2 and Douyu cup is disrespectful to organizers, players and viewers though | ||
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TelecoM
United States10757 Posts
On June 24 2026 03:00 PoulsenB wrote: A big change like this actually makes me want to play again after literally over a decade of not touching the game. Same! I just played a bunch and had a pretty fun time, the economy change is amazing actually. | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3496 Posts
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geokilla
Canada8249 Posts
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TelecoM
United States10757 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1942 Posts
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TelecoM
United States10757 Posts
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FataLe
New Zealand4548 Posts
On June 24 2026 09:38 geokilla wrote: I wonder what's going to be worse. Broodlord-Infestor, or the Zerg cabal dominating every single matchup in this latest patch. At least with Broodlord-Infestor, there were timings that Protoss and Terran could hit before it became auto-lose. 1/1/1 push in TvP I believe was worse and there wasn't really a response ever found (unlike say, soul-train) If I recall correctly. I vaguely remember that push being stopped a single time and it was because the T derped on their bunkers. Too long ago to remember for me though and totally not relevant to this discussion | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7255 Posts
Dunno if it's just me but you can't play Protoss without WG tech. Offense, defense ... it just doesn't work. | ||
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mathphyswithvic
12 Posts
On June 24 2026 17:30 Harris1st wrote: I am okay'ish with the worker change. I'm not okay with the warpgate change and the crazy zerg buffs. That just kills Protoss for me. Dunno if it's just me but you can't play Protoss without WG tech. Offense, defense ... it just doesn't work. get used to it. play it like terran. warp gate will become late game tech, same as with nydus for zerg. also in pvz protoss will need new opener, either twilight forge or something that is not stargate based but is multi gate based to hold third and max out zerg armies in early/mid game. just to be clear, get warp gate research upgrade, but do not upgrade gates unless you are late game. | ||
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