I find it's better to up Hope. Out of about 80 games, there were only about 3 times when that 7 quanta actually made me lose because of inability to play upped Hope. The real advantage of upped Hope isn't the +1 damage reduction, at least not directly; it's that, since you need one less space for an RoL in order to block all the opponent's damage, you have one more space to play another Light Dragon, which is invaluable in pitched games against a healing FG.