There is no right or wrong answer, I that depends if you prefer giving your group something extra or want something more for yourself, personally I would go for the int buff.
Yep, a skill with two reasonably balanced morphs that make you weigh several factors in choosing your preferred one. I personally prefer Empowered because 6 seconds is just too short for me. I ran Hardened back when it was long.
In pve it's best to take hardened. Shields don't last longer than 6s anyway when you're getting hammered on by OP trial trash etc anyway so a bigger shield is the better option.
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Personally I use Empowered Ward, because I play sorcerer healer and sorcerer team support is limited in compare to Templar or DK, Empowered brings small Magicka regeneration buff to team but recent changes to Aura make sorcerer support even less desirable, hope they make some good synergy for Sorcerers someday.
But in any other ways Hardened ward is better option, so consider it instead of empowered one.
With high enough magicka like a necropotence build, it becomes pointless not running empowering for the extra regen, 10sec duration....for PvE that is.
Edited by greylox on February 12, 2017 10:57PM
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