I guess we will never know.

Ward of the Continuum has had its effect changed, the new effect is:

 

Kinetic Ward gains 5 additional stacks and parrying, deflecting, or resisting an attack while it is active increases defense chance by 1%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts for 20 seconds or until Kinetic Ward is reactivated.

I expect OP read the recent patch notes. This has been changed. They removed the ability to refresh and added that when we parry an attack we gain 1% defense which stacks 3 times for up to 20 seconds of when we refresh KW. Small but still useful.

What I had noticed is when I did gap close right before it ended it seemed I gained an entire second. Basically not worth it. I might have read my UI wrong but it does not matter now.