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United States33646 Posts
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24289266/starcraft-ii-5-0-16-hotfix-patch-notes
We have made some adjustment based on feedback and player data over the last week. We will continue to monitor the patch and make further changes if necessary.
Economy
Default Geyser reduced from 2,500 vespene gas to 2,000.
Zerg
Larva Rate increased from 9.5 to 9.9.
Terran
Widow Mine Lock on time reduced from 1.07 seconds to 0.85 seconds.
Reaper build time increased from 32 to 34 seconds.
Protoss
Bile no longer instantly destroys force fields, instead it destroys 50% of its duration.
Adept Pre-warpgate buildtime increased from 30 to 33 seconds.
High Templar & Dark Templar Pre-warpgate Build time decreased from 43 to 40 seconds.
Mothership shields reduced from 350 to 200.
Mothership health increased from 350 to 400.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the Infestor's weapon used the incorrect base and +3 weapon attack icon.
Fixed an issue where new Archon sounds were initialized incorrectly and would play too loudly.
Fixed an issue where Queen, Hatchery, Lair, and Hive produce and kill score experience was calculated incorrectly.
Fixed an issue where structure ownership in team games could be adjusted by the loss of the builder.
Fixed an issue where Stasis Wards had a selection priority equivalent to units.
Fixed an issue where pylons still displayed a warp conduit indicator.
Fixed an issue where mule repair autocast mechanism was briefly unintentionally visible.
Fixed an issue where Swarmhost range radius actors would appear at unintended times.
Fixed an issue where acquire behaviour on interceptors under the effect of neural parasite behaved unintentionally.
Fixed an issue where an opaque variation of a mineral field unit held an outdated number of minerals.
Fixed issues with how range was calculated for Warp Prism 'Load Nearby'.
Fixed an issue where 'Load Nearby' did not have a default hotkey set.
Reverted Queen inject shuffle adjustment.
Archon merge completion assets are now disabled if the player is using the low 'effects' graphics option.
Fixed issues with Steady Targeting tooltip descriptions in various languages.
Fixed issues with Storm tooltip descriptions in various languages.
Fixed issues with Microbial Shroud tooltip descriptions in various languages.
Fixed issues with Load Nearby tooltip descriptions in various languages.
Queens will now spawn facing their origin hatchery.
Units produced out of gateways have been given a visual spawn indicator.
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How do we feel about the forcefield bile change? That is most interesting to me... Are we bringing back 2 base soul train boys?
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honestly happy to see forcefield being brought back into the game. I've missed seeing that spell.
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United States33646 Posts
Will have to see how it plays out, but moderately concerned about making Sentry-based all-ins strong again. Force Fields were a very cool concept, but in practice it made the game way too uninteractive (especially for low-tech Zerg) during WoL.
Yeah, it was cool to see the perfectly microed Immortal-Sentry all-in the first dozen times, but past a certain point it ceased to be interesting StarCraft II as one side was seriously lacking in agency.
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I don't think ownership bug is fixed, I played a game after the new patch and it still happened.
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Nice to see the new iteration so fast. However, they seem quite ambitious, even though they have yet to explain their vision for the future.
Has there ever been data on how win rates change over match length? The warpgate and worker start changes probably had little effect on games beyond the first 10 minutes. Once you get a similar economic state to the previous one, there probably wasn't much difference. Even warpgate changes aren't that big when you have enough of them to replenish your army with one warp-in wave.
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Great force field idea and good changes to make Z less dominant.
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a 20% widow mine buff is what they decided on for terran? interesting.
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It seems that cannon rush is gone. It's such an iconic part of SC that it should be viable at least a little. Makes for fun watch when it's in pro games once in a while, too
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Bisutopia19368 Posts
I always thought forcefield should have HP. This gets us closer at least.
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Wtf are these hotfixes? Mothership too strong? Why the WM change? Reapers too strong? Reapers were always that duration even with 6 worker start...
Bile changing its interaction vs FF is interesting but feel this isn't the right change
Reducing it by 50%, does that mean that if you use 2 it reduces it by another 50%?
So even if you use multiple biles, the FF could still last 1-2 seconds, which is long enough to kill off a lot of stuck units
But i guess Ravager was introduced in LotV with 12 worker start, so I can see if it might be too strong vs a lower economy.
With 12 worker start I always felt that 1 Bile should only be able to take out 1 FF. Often times it would land between 2 FF and hit both of them.
If 1 Bile can only take out 1 FF, it means you can stack FF if you really want to commit.
MS seems it'll be so weak now. Should have tried 300 HP 300 Shield first...
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"Bile no longer instantly destroys force fields, instead it destroys 50% of its duration."
So how does this work now? 2 biles destroy a ff? Or every new bile is halving the remaining duration?
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Lmao. Protoss still screwed with the Warpgate nerf.
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On July 01 2026 08:23 kajtarp wrote:
"Bile no longer instantly destroys force fields, instead it destroys 50% of its duration."
So how does this work now? 2 biles destroy a ff? Or every new bile is halving the remaining duration?
Two biles destroy a FF.
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Czech Republic12131 Posts
Buffing one of the most hated units is like thinking that bringing the HOTS swarmost would be a really great idea.
Also I still dont get the idea that Protoss have shields and yet you barely can interact with those shields because only so few units have any reasonable shields. Like... cmon
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They decided to buff Widow Mines? lol. So they overdo it with Zerg buffs and their answer is to make Widow Mines the bane of their existence again lol. This balance team dude.
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On July 01 2026 08:09 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Wtf are these hotfixes? Mothership too strong? Why the WM change? Reapers too strong? Reapers were always that duration even with 6 worker start...
Bile changing its interaction vs FF is interesting but feel this isn't the right change
Reducing it by 50%, does that mean that if you use 2 it reduces it by another 50%?
So even if you use multiple biles, the FF could still last 1-2 seconds, which is long enough to kill off a lot of stuck units
But i guess Ravager was introduced in LotV with 12 worker start, so I can see if it might be too strong vs a lower economy.
With 12 worker start I always felt that 1 Bile should only be able to take out 1 FF. Often times it would land between 2 FF and hit both of them.
If 1 Bile can only take out 1 FF, it means you can stack FF if you really want to commit.
MS seems it'll be so weak now. Should have tried 300 HP 300 Shield first...
Everything makes sense to me except for the widow mine change. I also would have done 2250 for gas.
Maps are big enough that the adept and reaper change wasn't really needed but it was most likely put in so people didn't feel obliged to cut that same 2 seconds on starting a worker since starting econ is clunky unless you hit a godly split at the start.
Larva change already diminished the ravager rush ling flood on its own so touching bile was probably not necessary.
Mothership was arguably too powerful in PvZ so a nerf was warranted. Losing 15% health is a more desirable trade-off over letting it be abducted again.
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Please never let the mothership be abducted again. Or if they do, make it so that the distance it travels while being abducted depends on the amount of vipers doing the abducting. This would help bring the trade-off closer to even. Like if you want to one-shot the mothership like before, you'd need to risk 4 vipers for that. Also that brings it closer to "lore friendly" because how do you pull a floating city?!?
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Do Terrans really need a buff? Are they really that bad?
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France12972 Posts
On July 01 2026 22:26 BlackEyed wrote:
Do Terrans really need a buff? Are they really that bad?
Imo terran wasn’t that bad inherently; just the low eco at the start of the game hindered them more than P/Z because of chronoboost + larva
But they are hot fixing problems causer by the 8 worker start instead of simply reverting that change, so obviously it looks weird
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On July 01 2026 23:15 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2026 22:26 BlackEyed wrote:
Do Terrans really need a buff? Are they really that bad? Imo terran wasn’t that bad inherently; just the low eco at the start of the game hindered them more than P/Z because of chronoboost + larva But they are hot fixing problems causer by the 8 worker start instead of simply reverting that change, so obviously it looks weird
I still want to see some greedier openers from terrans, i feel like they are underutilized as no toss so far has been going for more than 3 gates and blink and a 4 gate shouldnt hit as hard anymore because of the needed investment.
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This post will have two points of discussion:
1) I will talk about the last year or so about the balancing and decisions done to the game.
2) I will give my thoughts on how to improve the game in a way i think most players might agree to.
Part 1
It saddens me what has and is done to the game. All these forceful changes that creates tons of new problem.
All for what?
To to shake up the game?, to make it fun or maybe to bring back some excitement and new/old player?
I dont know about you but I am enjoying the wold cup atm. A game that is still played by the same rules and has done so for many many years. AND is still super entertaining. Chess. same structure, different openings but it´s all figured out. And still very entertaining!
We have become people with the constant need of an adrenaline dump. New thing! More thing! I wish we could find beauty in what is. Broowar is a great example of that.
Starcrafts problem is not in its stale state. Its the lack of an audience. As much as I love RTS, is is not a popular genre.
What audience is left is being disregarded.
I don´t buy in to the stuff that "BLIZZARD" or "THE INTERM" has dropped a new patch!!!! first time in years!
I don´t really want to speculate bacasue I could be wrong, but it seems highly unlikely that a single person makes all these decisions.
I think it´s a way of protecting those who do. No one takes responsability.
If you don´t want to get flamed or get any kind of feedback. DO NOT take any part of the decisions for the game. It is that simple.
Balancing should consist of maximum ONE maybe two people. One main, (the one that makes the calls) and the other who´s there to clarify the vision. May i add and stress that they should be qualified!!!!
In short: You have one trainer in a football team, one movie director, one choreographer, and so on. If you had 30 people making a movie it would be a total disater. Different visions. Different camera work. Different storytelling ect. You get the point. And that leaves us here!
There are some high level talented dancer out there. Amazing to watch! They have mastered to control every muscle in their body as close to perfection as they can. A choreographer masters the creative mind. It is a completely different skill set. Not related at all. It easy to be fooled and believe it goes hand in hand.
Just because you are a really good player does not make you a good choreographer. Does it makes sense? You could be, but since the balance council took over, non has proven that.
When you balance the game: dont take our toys away. Only take away those just given becasue they break something. Dont take away something we had for 16 years. Dont nerf every single thing that is not likeable. Let us have more options not less. This is the first time i´ll step back from the game and hope the balance gets reverted AT LEAST to previous one, but if i could wish, to where blizzard officially made their last patch to the game.
This is my way speaking out.
Part 2
I rather have Starcraft 2 as it was.
That being said:
We could make a pool with (lets say) 30 units. 10 terran 10 zerg and 10 protoss. These units could be from the starcraft 1 and from the campaign (models do already exist). Once a year (or whatever time is decided) we create a system that randomizes and picks 3 units from each faction from the pool. We would have a total of 9 units. 3 terran, 3 zerg and 3 protoss. Once a year ( or whatever time is decided) we reroll those units and we get new ones.
The combinations would be endless. The game and strategies would always vary. Sounds like fun to me.
You could always create new units. The pool of units could go up from 30 to 90 or more.
I know that co op has a system like that. The weekly challanges. It randomly picks 3 rules from a bunch of options it has, and make every week feel different.
I dont know if you can create a system and code it in to the game. But, I think there is ways of doing it regardless.
I remember when a couple of casters and progamers played a starcraft 2 and 1 mod as a showmatch. it looked so fun.
I think this idea has potential. I think this is something the majority of players can get behind.
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Nice first post? Did you literally use ChatGPT to write this? And did you really make an ALT account for this post? lol
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I was agreeing with him in the beginning. I was already of the opinion that sc2 is dying of a thousand cuts, and now it's ever so much more evident.
I literally hate every change done so far, barring the 8- worker start.
You want sentries, why are we then removing a 5th of all gas from the game? - don't you think this gas change is making herO all zealot style much more powerful, so why were we doing the WG nerfs?
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Love how his first point is that we shouldn't change anything because Football and Chess haven't changed anything (not true btw, Football changes its rules quite often, just not in big flashy ways) and his second point is that we should change absolutely everything.
And for the love of god, stop bringing Broodwar into the discussion. If you want to play or watch Broodwar, just play and watch Broodwar, it is not that hard...
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On July 01 2026 12:08 Agh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2026 08:09 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Wtf are these hotfixes? Mothership too strong? Why the WM change? Reapers too strong? Reapers were always that duration even with 6 worker start...
Bile changing its interaction vs FF is interesting but feel this isn't the right change
Reducing it by 50%, does that mean that if you use 2 it reduces it by another 50%?
So even if you use multiple biles, the FF could still last 1-2 seconds, which is long enough to kill off a lot of stuck units
But i guess Ravager was introduced in LotV with 12 worker start, so I can see if it might be too strong vs a lower economy.
With 12 worker start I always felt that 1 Bile should only be able to take out 1 FF. Often times it would land between 2 FF and hit both of them.
If 1 Bile can only take out 1 FF, it means you can stack FF if you really want to commit.
MS seems it'll be so weak now. Should have tried 300 HP 300 Shield first... Everything makes sense to me except for the widow mine change. I also would have done 2250 for gas. Maps are big enough that the adept and reaper change wasn't really needed but it was most likely put in so people didn't feel obliged to cut that same 2 seconds on starting a worker since starting econ is clunky unless you hit a godly split at the start. Larva change already diminished the ravager rush ling flood on its own so touching bile was probably not necessary. Mothership was arguably too powerful in PvZ so a nerf was warranted. Losing 15% health is a more desirable trade-off over letting it be abducted again.
That's true, 600 total HP/shield is still fine as long as it's not abductable.
Didn't know that the starting econ was clunky, if the reaper build time being 2 sec slower helps with that then that's cool.
I feel like getting MS around 8 minutes is quite soon. It should be more like a lategame unit. Maybe they could have just increased the buildtime by another 30 seconds or something, since now that you can get tech units like MS sooner while the opponent doesn't have as huge of an economy to deal with it.
The balance team doing things like randomly increasing vespene geysers from 2250 to 2500, and now the other way to 2000 is pretty concerning though. Along with the other changes, but that one makes it the clearest that they are inexperienced and don't know what they're doing. But if they're down to keep a close eye on the game like this and see how feedback is and make frequent changes, that's fine too.
But it is nice that they only have 2000 now since yeah they did have a lot of gas and mined out much later than minerals.
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I think the ghost buff to snipe so it can't be cancelled with damage is so huge that I am hesitant to want to see widow mine buffed too... I rather Zerg get nerfed more than see them do this.
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On July 02 2026 12:37 CicadaSC wrote:
I think the ghost buff to snipe so it can't be cancelled with damage is so huge that I am hesitant to want to see widow mine buffed too... I rather Zerg get nerfed more than see them do this.
Ghosts cost 50% more supply, snipe costs 50% more energy, and Ghosts have less 25 hp (this is a 150/125/3 unit that now gets three shot by banelings). At best this iteration of the Ghost is a sidegrade.
Mines have already taken a substantial splash radius nerf, so giving them a bit of consistency back in exchange seems fine. I don't see why we need to be so hyper cautious with Terran buffs, given that we're living in a world where pushing the ridiculous larvae buff to live with no testing is apparently a-ok.
If it's too much, Blizzard can revert it or tune it down.
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It's so quiet here for such a big change to the game. Does no one want to talk about balance?
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United Kingdom20340 Posts
On July 03 2026 07:55 CicadaSC wrote:
It's so quiet here for such a big change to the game. Does no one want to talk about balance?
According to SC-Shield https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/645616-5016-hotfix-june-30-balance-bug-fixes#6 the gamebreaking bug that i immediately ran into with buildings being removed from your control and given to other players isn't fixed yet; i don't really want to bother until it is.
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On July 01 2026 08:02 BisuDagger wrote:
I always thought forcefield should have HP. This gets us closer at least.
this would be so busted, imagine army attacking forcefields instead of protoss army. it would be insane, like give dummy units hp for free to tank shots. 1000 sentries already beat 1000 mutas because of guardian shield, now forcefields will soak shots too?
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United Kingdom20340 Posts
On July 03 2026 13:40 mathphyswithvic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2026 08:02 BisuDagger wrote:
I always thought forcefield should have HP. This gets us closer at least. this would be so busted, imagine army attacking forcefields instead of protoss army. it would be insane, like give dummy units hp for free to tank shots. 1000 sentries already beat 1000 mutas because of guardian shield, now forcefields will soak shots too?
Mutas are 60% faster and can fly ;D
Doesn't feel like sentries have been very effective in combat since HOTS in general. Bile breaking FF was better than the lack of agency in WOL but it's so accessible as a t1.5 unit that more than a couple of sentries often seems like a waste of time. It takes minutes for them to build up energy before they can do their job well and that's a lot of time for them to be scouted and countered with reactive ravager morphs (offensively or defensively). 2 biles per FF makes it at least not so easy/cheap.
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On July 03 2026 14:20 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2026 13:40 mathphyswithvic wrote:On July 01 2026 08:02 BisuDagger wrote:
I always thought forcefield should have HP. This gets us closer at least. this would be so busted, imagine army attacking forcefields instead of protoss army. it would be insane, like give dummy units hp for free to tank shots. 1000 sentries already beat 1000 mutas because of guardian shield, now forcefields will soak shots too? Mutas are 60% faster and can fly ;D Doesn't feel like sentries have been very effective in combat since HOTS in general. Bile breaking FF was better than the lack of agency in WOL but it's so accessible as a t1.5 unit that more than a couple of sentries often seems like a waste of time. It takes minutes for them to build up energy before they can do their job well and that's a lot of time for them to be scouted and countered with reactive ravager morphs (offensively or defensively). 2 biles per FF makes it at least not so easy/cheap.
I mean, first you compare flying but they cost 50 resources less.
then while I agree that they may not be powerful, if you got some extra apm, you will have a semi map hack secounting 24/7 with halluc, atleast on paper
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On July 01 2026 09:19 deacon.frost wrote:
Buffing one of the most hated units is like thinking that bringing the HOTS swarmost would be a really great idea.
Also I still dont get the idea that Protoss have shields and yet you barely can interact with those shields because only so few units have any reasonable shields. Like... cmon
I mean shields are fucking useless in one matchup post midgame. In every other matchup massed blink stalkers and oracles are a thing, so I think shields already are pretty important there.
You could change oracle HP to be mostly shields, but that'd prolly make it too strong.
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On July 03 2026 14:25 mathphyswithvic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2026 14:20 Cyro wrote:On July 03 2026 13:40 mathphyswithvic wrote:On July 01 2026 08:02 BisuDagger wrote:
I always thought forcefield should have HP. This gets us closer at least. this would be so busted, imagine army attacking forcefields instead of protoss army. it would be insane, like give dummy units hp for free to tank shots. 1000 sentries already beat 1000 mutas because of guardian shield, now forcefields will soak shots too? Mutas are 60% faster and can fly ;D Doesn't feel like sentries have been very effective in combat since HOTS in general. Bile breaking FF was better than the lack of agency in WOL but it's so accessible as a t1.5 unit that more than a couple of sentries often seems like a waste of time. It takes minutes for them to build up energy before they can do their job well and that's a lot of time for them to be scouted and countered with reactive ravager morphs (offensively or defensively). 2 biles per FF makes it at least not so easy/cheap. I mean, first you compare flying but they cost 50 resources less. then while I agree that they may not be powerful, if you got some extra apm, you will have a semi map hack secounting 24/7 with halluc, atleast on paper
I strongly doubt that the sentries win against Mutas if the mutas are microed.
Also sentry is about the best unit you can have vs Mutas except for splash and they are usually worthless if massed and slow and a ground unit. By cost mutas should lose against about everything because they can attack everything and are air units.
I still think the hp change would make FF really shitty against T, so I'm kinda against that. Like the current change better.
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EPT
