For the longest time, Guardians in Destiny 2's competitive modes have had an ability to fear - the Hunter's Spectral Blades. Added in the Forsaken expansion release, the combat talent first found life as a meme-ability, weak and unusable.

Why was the ability so annoying? Simply put, the Spectral Blades ability allows a Hunter to disappear into a "veil of shadows", equipped with "a pair of deadly void blades", according to the ability description. First released in a weak state, the ability copped a 'super buff' a few months after launch, the dual-wielding addition to the Hunters' collection began to warp the game.

Bungie's first updates focused on the ability's power. Increased lunge distance, and a decrease in the amount of energy lost with light melee attacks both were implemented to give the flailing ability a boost. Then, just for spice, Bungie added a "small amount" of damage resistance to the stealth state. The three addons combined blew the ability into the must-have choice heading into Crucible.

Now, the Sandbox Team has detailed what their upcoming nerfs will look to do, and how they're planning on bringing Spectral Blades in line with the rest of the available Guardians' arsenals.

"As you’re all aware, Spectral Blades has been running amok in the Crucible," a representative from the Sandbox Team said in the most recently released This Week at Bungie. "The two main issues are the length of the Super, especially combined with Gwisin Vest, and the survivability of the player while it is active."

To combat those issues, the team applied a damage reduction. Out-of-stealth damage has dropped from 60% to 52%, while in-stealth damage has dropped from 62% to 54.4%.

"Previously, this Super had the highest damage reduction of all the roaming Supers, either in stealth or not," the team's representative explained. "This change reduces Spectral Blades to have the lowest DR of all the roaming Supers while stealth is not active and to be in line with the low end while stealth is active.

"With stealth, vision through walls, and fast, shifty movement, this Super ability actually has a lot of built-in survivability. This means a lower DR will demand better planning and positioning to survive for multiple kills, which lines up well with the fantasy of the path."

The duration of the Super also copped a hit. The length out of stealth dropped from 17.5 seconds to 14.5, while the no-attack stealth option is lowered 3.1 seconds to 23.5. Light melee cost has also been whacked with an increased 50% cost during the ability.

The changes have a simple goal from the balance team - they want to increase the time a Hunter spends planning their attacks from stealth, but not add to the power of the stealth if they forgo that choice.

"We want you to feel like you have time to plan in stealth with the understanding that you need to be deliberate and swift with your strikes," the team explained.

"Additionally, we increased the cost of the light melee attack. It may seem like a lot on paper, but previously it was almost nothing. Now you need to think just a little bit before spamming away. We didn’t want to make it cost too much, as it’s the only way to chase people down, but it did need to have at least a small visible cost to make it more of a choice."

No date has been confirmed by Bungie about when these changes would be rolled out, or whether they would stay in their current state. Follow @destinytrack and @everin_oce for the latest updates on when the changes will drop.