So as a 962 power level with the season/artifact. I spent yesterday farming maybe 6-7 nightfalls at 980 level. Overall I think I got 4-5 ascendant shards, and about 10-12 ascendant prisms on top of 2 exotic pieces and some mods. Essentially that is equivalent to about 400-500 enhancement cores. Ontop of still being able to purchase cores from spider, still get them from banshee bounties, and the occasional but still frequent core from a dismantle. I think the economy for upgrading armor is actually easier now being that there are activities that you can directly get them. , But at the same time it feels like the increased cost to upgrade armor is so they could add a relatively meaningful way to do more activities (nightfalls) probably the way they intended a nightfall strike to be done. Nightfalls feel good again, the rewards for them feel good, and it makes you feel like upgrading armor won't actually be all that bad when you are at that point of actually needing to upgrade.