Got on to play tonight and XBox couldn't load friends list.
Finally got connected with friends for Nightfall and slogged through the non-burn tedium for what seemed forever.
Finally killed that shrieking ho-bag and got 11 ascendant shards.
Afterwards, We ran Crota on normal, took less time and was actually enjoyable. I still didn't get anything worth having (one other guy did get a Truth), but those 11 nightfall shards just felt like a punch in the fruit stand. I'm sure I'm not alone, but that sucked.