The one line in the patch note reads at follows...
"Gave Minthara proper Drow armour - changed from ringmail to leather."
So it's possible they just subbed in whatever regular Drow leather armor is supposed to look like (the sort we'll be eventually looting on the regular), so that she wouldn't continue to look so awful in the interim?
As a companion that would be pretty impressive, she'd be able to hold her own for sure. As an opponent at least she'd be hammering harder, whatever her chosen equipment loadout. Then she'd have a lot of options, and some serious multiclassing potential on offer eventually, depending on which attributes the player chooses to boost for her. She could take a Class in basically anything other than Wizard, and still hold her own on the front line. Again more like a Shar-Teel. She could take a few levels in something else, and be a more flexible companion that way. Or just an ass kicking all around Tank Cleric with a truly Evil core spread lol.
That just feels like something a desirable Evil BG companion would have in their stats. The reward for being such a heartless villain in our Evil playthrough, is that we get an objectively stronger Cleric than Shadowheart along for the ride. A bloodthristy cleric with an inside track on the Absolute plot line, so she can serve as a narrative vehicle there. A cleric who Lae'zel doesn't hate with a passion.
People have asked for some reward along the Evil path, a true reward, and Minthara as such a strong companion with good Stats could be exactly such a reward!
A bit better than a PC could achieve with the point buy, but not so ridiculous that she overshadows them entirely. Just enough STR and DEX to be hard. Enough Con to be beefy. Very high in her Prime Attribute WIS at 18 so she is an ideal Cleric, and still pretty damn high in CHA to boot, matching her role as a Priestess of the Absolute.
