The main flaw of the speed run, it make only one metric matter for success. That metric is damage. More damage means faster we can kill everything. Making a team with less damage but more survivability, crowd control, or anything else; is not important. Only damage and killing the monster ASAP is. Paladins and dragoons are hurt the most because they have strengths outside of damage. Why take a paladin with support skills, that doesn't increase our damage.

I've played many MMOs and team based game; I have never seen stacking this bad. The stacking for highest damage resists freedom of game play in ways I'm just shocked to see. I have never had such a push in a game to maximize damage. Like it or not, unless SE does something about it, this will hurt the game. The current system rewards stacking the highest damage classes for that fight. You even can change your class mid-raid to fit the fight.

I agree speed run do hurt this game and the paladin's class playability. The paladin has fantastic abilities and strengths, sadly they don't fit the mentality encouraged by making speed run the only way to get all the gear.