Here's the thing about HDR.
Probably, imo, most people shooting HDR are shooting it unnecessarily because they don't understand what they're really doing. By that I mean, you shoot HDR only when the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the capability of the camera to capture. What you don't do is shoot HDR just because you see a good scene and want to create a "wow" image.
With that said, it becomes obvious you only need to shoot enough images to cover the entire dynamic range of the scene, with caveats. For the best quality you don't want to extend that dynamic range with more than one stop per image, and for economy of shootings sake more than one stop per image enters the 'point of marginal returns' realm.
So, let's say you have a nine stop scene and your camera can only capture 7 stops, then you'll shoot that one 7 stop image, then go up one stop with another image, and up again (or down depending on where you choose to start) for another. If you're trying to compensate for 2 stops, you shoot three images. 3 stops, 4 images. 4 stops, 5 images.
I'm assuming you know how to read your scene?