(replying here again because wall of text)
At this point, all that I think my character knows about the orbs is that they have something to do with life, which he discerned from the beam of purple light back on the ship. He's yet to actually absorb an orb dropped by an enemy, so all he knows about them is what he's seen happen to Soaras, Lisa, and Jensen in the first battle, as he's been too focused on not dying in this battle to analyze the more recent evolutions. While he did watch Lisa absorb one of them (at which point he noticed the connection to the thing on the ship), I don't know if he would've picked up on her stat increases. And he probably wasn't paying attention to Soaras or Jensen at the time (if I remember correctly, everything pretty well happened at once), so it's even less likely that he would've picked up on what happened to them.
Had everyone sat down for a minute and discussed that first battle, I've little doubt that Wyman would know to hit the orb with his hand to get more defense. But I honestly don't think he does (not to mention that I didn't pick up on the distinction OOC until just now), so my initial action of hitting the orc's orb with the staff stands.