Yeh WHM being 'the most played' should not discount it from getting actual growth, and I'm not sure who's suggesting that but it sure as heck isn't me, for one. WHM should get more than 11111111 and it'd be ludicrous to suggest this isnt the case. The problem is, what can we give to WHM, when the majority of the playerbase value only damage? I'm sure there's plenty of RDM players in Savage who would happily throw Magick Barrier away to get even 1% more damage, and VerRaise for another 1%. And we can't just give WHM 'more damage than AST' because AST players will ask the justified question 'why play AST, which takes so much more effort, only to get outDPS'd by WHM?' Which is why I think, as long as WHM's within a certain performance of AST (2% at 99th would be acceptable to me), it's ok. We'll never get it perfectly matched vs AST because comp differences, crit variance, etc.

Perhaps the solution lies with something like what I proposed, and hear me out on this. SCH and SGE don't want to cast GCD shields. AST doesn't want to with Neutral Sect either. WHM doesn't even HAVE GCD shields. WHM's current 'identity' according to some is 'safety healer in prog', pointing to things like J-Waves, Aionogonia/Dominion, etc, and Cure 3. SO, if we had a way to apply shields as WHM, as I posed by making it a Lily spender, WHM would have the advantage of being the only healer that can add 'damage neutral GCD shields'. They'd be weaker than the Barrier Healer's shields, and gated by Lilies, so the Barrier Healers would still have more ready access to GCD shielding, similar to how Barrier Healers can apply Regens with a CD, but Pures can apply it via GCD. This way, WHM could add to RDPS by cutting a damage-losing GCD from the SCH or SGE, changing it to a damage neutral Lily spend, refunded by Misery. Contrast this to AST, who, if they wanted to shield, it'd require a 2min CD and losing a Malefic to apply the shield. Thus, WHM would have it's 'safety' identity strengthened, and given a clear advantage over not just AST, but also SCH and SGE. Couple all this with the other stuff I suggested, and WHM would have multiple ways to keep it's DPS up even during downtime. Is 'can keep up it's DPS during downtime' an identity?

'Oh this just makes the damage bigger for all the healers EXCEPT WHM', it's raising the RDPS of the group. The fact it'd be attributed to the not-WHM healer is none of my concern. If it were such a massive concern, FFLogs would implement a formula to siphon the gained damage from the non-WHM to the WHM for the GCD they gained because of WHM saving them that GCD. If they can implement formulae to decide 'actually the adds in P3S don't count to your parse' or 'actually the double damage buff in final phase of P8 doesn't count', there's a formula that would work for this.