Garena pushed the August 13 patch to ROV with nine heroes touched and one full rework. It is a short list on paper. The Sinestrea rework alone makes it the most interesting patch since June.
Sinestrea gets her old identity back
Sinestrea's blood ritual moves out of the recall slot and into the active item slot. That is the change that matters most and it is the one people will skim past. She now halves her own current HP to enter a charging state, goes untargetable, slows everything near her by 15%, then explodes for a 0.5 second stun and splits her HP evenly with every enemy hero caught in the blast.
That is the old Sinestrea. Anyone who dropped her when the HP halving mechanic went away should pick her back up this week.
The rest of the kit follows. Melee Blood Ghost went from 250 (+50/Lv) (+0.65AD) to 275 (+55/Lv) (+0.7AD), so her close range trading is straightforwardly better. Ranged Blood Ghost is the more interesting one. Flat 200% damage becomes 100% plus 10% of the target's missing HP, capped at 500 against non-heroes. She trades poke for execute. If you were using ranged form to clear waves you will feel that cap. If you were using it to finish low HP targets you gained a lot.
Blood Samsara now gives 30% life steal in ranged state and fires three arrows per attack at 100%, 30% and 30% damage. Only the first arrow triggers attack special effects, so do not build crit expecting three procs off one attack.
Thane and Dextra are the real winners
Thane's Excalibur now heals him for 25% of the damage it deals, and base damage went from 400 (+150/Lv) to 480 (+240/Lv) on top of the same 8% max HP scaling. The per level jump is the part worth noticing. At a maxed ult that is a much bigger number than the patch note makes it look. Thane has spent months as a hero who stands there eating damage through a long wind up and gets nothing back if he lands it. Now a landed ult is also a heal.
Dextra's passive caps at 12 stacks instead of 16, but each stack is worth more, 4% to 8% scaling every 3 levels instead of 3% to 6% every 4. She reaches full value faster, which is the whole point. Her ultimate also drops 10 seconds of cooldown and converts at 30% instead of 20%.
Tachi, Krixi and Bolt Baron got smaller numbers. Krixi's Mischief damage reduction moving from 40% to 50% is the one that will actually show up in games, since her wave clear and her multi target damage both improve off it.
Arthur, Alice and Butterfly take the cuts
Arthur's Holy Guard shield changes from 5% to 10% max HP into a flat 150 (+30/Lv) plus 4% max HP. Early game he keeps roughly what he had. Late game, sitting on real HP totals, the shield is clearly smaller. That is the stated intent and it is a fair nerf.
Alice loses shield value and picks up a second of cooldown. She has been the default support pick for a while, so a light trim is reasonable. She is still good.
Butterfly is the one to watch. Both Whirlwind and Sword Propel go from a flat 6 second cooldown to 7(-0.2/Lv). At max level she ends up roughly where she started. In the first ten minutes she is noticeably slower, and Butterfly's whole case is that she snowballs early. Expect her to slide.
Bug fixes that matter
Two of these are not cosmetic. Gildur and Ormarr could not be picked under the Support role on the selection screen, and that is fixed. Paine: Serpent's Oath skill 2 was behaving badly and is also fixed. The rest are visual: Hayate, Liliana, Lauriel, Zanis vision effects, and a few skin display issues.
What this means for the meta
Support is where this patch lands hardest. Alice comes down, Krixi goes up, and the Gildur and Ormarr fix means both are finally selectable in the role. That changes what the support pool looks like more than any single number here.
Sinestrea is the pick to learn this week. She is not a safe hero, and the HP split punishes bad timing hard, but her ceiling is high again and most of the ladder has not played against her in this form.
Thane moves from situational to genuinely good. Arthur is still fine, just less oppressive in the late game. Butterfly is the loser of the patch.