Tony Vargas
Legend
I think I'm beginning to see the problem. You are not valuing at-will weapon attacks as highly as 5e seems to have, based on the designs in the PH.Having extra attack, by itself, wouldn’t put them on the same footing as a 1/2 caster warrior. It would put them on equal footing with a cleric with cantrips.
And based on simplistic DPR calculations:
A cantrip does 1d of damage, at 5th, 2d.
A weapon attack does 1d+modifier, and extra attack does that twice.
AFAIK, clerics don't have a facile way of getting at stat modifier added to their cantrip damage, so, if one were to invest in a high weapon attack stat, it'd be doing pretty close to double the average damage of a cantrip.Now, I'm not saying any of the above is "right" per se, but it does seem like 5e class & sub-class designs are handled that way. At-will damage-grinding is highly valued, because it's multiplied out by the many rounds of the prescribed 6-8 encounter day.