What are Orbs of Light in Destiny?

You won’t have to spend very long playing Destiny before you come across the mysterious ‘Orbs of Light’, you’ll probably first notice this when pulling off kills using your Super attack, with the message: “[Player Name] generated X Orbs of Light” showing up at the bottom of the screen, with X apparently matching the number of enemies killed when the Super was used.
So what are these things? You can’t see them when you’ve apparently made them yourself, and why would you need to know how many enemies you or another nearby player killed with a Super attack?
Well the answer isn’t explained too well in the game itself but Orbs of Light are actually a very powerful and desirably commodity, and knowing how to use them correctly could really allow you to dominate the battlefield when your squad is working together properly.

Generated whenever you make a kill using your Super, you’ll make a number of Orbs of Light appear matching the number of opponents killed.
You won’t be able to see Orbs of Light that you’ve generated yourself, but you will however be able to see, pickup, and use Orbs of Light that other players have generated.
When a player nearby you gets a kill with their Super attack, a number of orbs of light are thrown out onto the floor around them, just like ammo or an item would be dropped.
Walking over an Orb of Light will immediately pick up and use it. How does it use it? Well when collected Orbs of Light will add on a chunk of energy to your Super ability bar, meaning that if you collect a few of them you should get enough of a boost to be able to use your Super ability much sooner, if not straight away.

By making careful use of Orbs of Light and having a well coordinated fireteam, you can theoretically keep a chain of Special uses going for quite some time, or at the very least get some extra time to recover from a counter attack when you’ve just taken a command zone in Control PvP.
So make sure that you’re there waiting when another Guardian decides to throw down their Special, and you could be the next one getting that big multi-kill, turning the tide of a battle in the Crucible, or even giving you that bit extra damage you need to take down a boss when exploring the Destiny Universe.

Do you have any tips for using Orbs of Light? Let us know in the comments below!

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