doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I agree that featless vs feated games should probably have different baselines. However, establishing one baseline for each would be helpful regardless of class, because then you have a simple benchmark to compare against when you're evaluating any given build focused on sustained damage.
Saying that Wizards don't do much damage but do other useful things is missing the point here a bit, IMO. The question is, what is the amount of damage you need to be doing for it to be a worthwhile contribution on its own. Wizards or Bards have better ways to contribute, so why would they even try to match the damage benchmark?
Anyway, for a featless game I think Hex + Agonizing Blast or Champion fighter with a Greatsword and GWF Style would be decent benchmarks (they're very close).
For a feated game, a longbow-wielding Champion with the Sharpshooter feat would probably be a decent benchmark.
In either case, if you're matching or exceeding the damage of the benchmark, you can probably feel good about having contributed nothing but damage.
As another user mentioned, using the Fighter is neat because you can also have a simple benchmark for evaluating Nova damage, which is just the Action Surge damage (double the benchmark, essentially)
This exactly. If you're dealing at or above Champion-built-for-damage, you're doing enough damage that you don't need to be shoring up other things in order to "pull your weight". That makes it a good baseline.