So I have been abysmally disappointed by the rate at which artifacts drop orbs. Their abilities seem to activate every once in a blue moon. If that blue moon just happens to coincide with the artifact's ability requirements. I recently tested the rate myself with an Arc Catalyst artifact (arc headshot kills can produce an orb). I pulled out my Hereafter with the intention of doming bad guys, blinding their pals, and dropping occasional orbs of light (I love you too, fireteam). But after blowing the heads off of dozens of enemies, it never dropped even a single orb. I switched to my arc machine gun to speed the process along, and was able to get ONE orb to drop after hosing the faces off of bad guys for about 20 minutes. I found the rate at which the effect activated to be about 1 out of 50, or two percent of the time. Bungie, please improve the rate at which artifacts drop orbs. They are currently almost worthless, just one more item that we have to grind to get a high light level on.