5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)

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.

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

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.

On June 23 2026 09:39 jimminy_kriket wrote:

Nice math bruh.

On June 23 2026 09:39 jimminy_kriket wrote:

Nice math bruh.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

On June 23 2026 16:15 WombaT wrote:
Why go so ambitious and whack it out early?

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.

On June 23 2026 21:45 Creager wrote:


Exactly my thoughts, sitting here pretty flabbergasted.

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

On June 25 2026 01:52 Legan wrote:
Looking at the patch, Protoss seems to be missing the supposed buffs for gateway units that should make up for Warpgate changes. However, I don't know if there is a clear vision of how they should be buffed and what Protoss gameplay should look like in future. This could be really bad, as the changes seem to have been made mostly in response to community feedback. Is Blizzard going to wait months for the community to propose a plan, or do they have people with their own vision for the future? If they have their own vision, they absolutely should explain it to the community. I doubt there will be a clear, shared vision on how Gateway units should work in the future.

On June 25 2026 05:59 TeamMamba wrote:
Played 50 games or so and I find Toss is literally unplayable at higher levels. Terran and Zerg literally wreck toss from beginning till end.

Worker change is dumb adds nothing of value. Wrap gate change is even dumber.

How’s my fellow toss experience on this new patch?

On June 25 2026 17:04 Harris1st wrote:


Been playing Protoss for the last half a year or so mostly high Diamond/ low Masters level. The worst part about the WG change is how it fucks with your "muscle memory"
Zero fun is to be had.
Going back to Terran or Zerg

On June 26 2026 11:13 mathphyswithvic wrote:
Above all, I agree with some prior posts, the worst worst worst thing is that protoss does not feel like playing protoss anymore.

With warpgate we had muscle memory very different than zerg or terran.

Now protoss is just another terran. Production cycle is identical, you have to cycle your gates same as a terran cycles it's rax, to keep up production.

This is complete garbage and feels very unfair, we had muscle memory, ok you take that away, why you only take protoss muscle memory away and not other races too?
Very unfair.

On June 26 2026 22:50 TeamMamba wrote:


Not to mention Protoss gateway units are still trash compared to Terran and Zerg. If they were going to nerf toss wrap gate they had to at least give a small buff on the gateway units at the minimum.

The fast wrap in pylon would have been interesting. Could have create a few new timing attack However the wrap gate change instantly made it useless.

On June 27 2026 02:19 Slydie wrote:


Remember TvP was widely considered broken in the previous patch. That was NOT representative of how things should be.

It is only fair that P suffers a bit now.

New ways to win will be found!

On June 27 2026 06:31 TeamMamba wrote:


Na previous patch tvp was balanced. Not fun but balanced

It’s wasn’t like Terrans were beating the toss they should beat and toss were beating Terrans that they should beat

It wasn’t like creator / Showtime was owning it up.

Overall just too much changes for toss. We already had to adapt to the storm change. Now have to deal with this new wrap gate garbage and 8 workers.

On June 27 2026 11:31 TelecoM wrote:
I am loving the game how it starts with less workers, they just need to tweak balance again, the less workers the better in my opinion.

On June 27 2026 06:57 Slydie wrote:


Can you get a good Terran player to say that?

Both UThermal and BigGabe were furious about the state of TvP, feeling they had to work WAY harder for their ladder wins than their protoss counterparts. Their best chance was to play purely defensively, and even that was very hard.

I don't know about uthermal but I know heromarine only uses two army hotkeys which costs him a lot of engagements that Terran is actually favored in. Otherwise his navigation of the game is amongst the best.

On June 29 2026 01:53 BluemoonSC wrote:
Unfortunately a known issue and im not hopeful that someone will be quick enough to hotfix it.

Def cost me a game, especially because it was a depot for our wall in.

Also while we are talking 2v2, did taking the gold base on Sludge City creep up the close natural when this was in the pool however many years ago? Really annoying.

On June 29 2026 07:08 BluemoonSC wrote:

How long was the cyclone bugged for? :>

On June 30 2026 08:08 CicadaSC wrote:
I think it is now safe to say that although there was worry, things are turning out to be more balanced than a lot of people thought. I think just a slight number tweak here and there and this will be a really good patch. I'm loving it.

On June 26 2026 11:13 mathphyswithvic wrote:
Above all, I agree with some prior posts, the worst worst worst thing is that protoss does not feel like playing protoss anymore.

With warpgate we had muscle memory very different than zerg or terran.

Now protoss is just another terran. Production cycle is identical, you have to cycle your gates same as a terran cycles it's rax, to keep up production.

This is complete garbage and feels very unfair, we had muscle memory, ok you take that away, why you only take protoss muscle memory away and not other races too?
Very unfair.

On June 30 2026 10:40 sidasf wrote:


Based on what? The game is more broken than it's been since the swarmhost era. Not only that the races have been broken and made so lame. This is awful.



Outstanding, very well said. They've destroyed the uniqueness of SC2.

On June 30 2026 15:28 CicadaSC wrote:
Just played against a GM terran with my protoss. I won't say who for obvious reasons but he was saying at match start how OP protoss is right now. I was surprised because people typing on forums seem to think the other thing. I won the game pretty handily got up to 5 bases and into carriers. So I check his profile after the game to see what his winrate is vs Toss... It is by far his lowest, it was 46% win compared to other matchups were ~65 and 80% win. So... I know that is small sample size, but at the same time I really do think people may be jumping the gun when they haven't figured out how to play Toss on the new patch.

Like in my last post, look at Maxpax, had a pretty par for the course run in yesterdays Wardi TV Mondays.

Maxpax is someone who is great at build orders and refining them. A lot of other players follow the meta, and are still trying to make olds builds work in the current patch. Not Maxpax though. Maxpax creates his own meta around him like when he was the only one doing 1g expand every game pvp, whether there was a high ground natural or not. In any matchup, maxpaxs builds and timings are always crisp. So I think he will be a good indicator on the state of Toss after you give him more time. Even right now, patch is still new and he's figuring things out and succeeding where other players aren't.

On July 17 2026 03:18 Kreuger wrote:
Looks like we got an update today, atleast its coming

On July 17 2026 03:37 Agh wrote:


I see people joking that CC's only cost 300 minerals now.

I'm not even surprised at this point