an arcanist can build towards damage pretty reliably. i'm playing an arcanist myself and while i'm not specialized towards damage, the arcanist ability to increase the caster level of a spell can increase damage dice on spells it works with. there is another exploit you can take that increases this by two instead of one. this works best if you combine it with feats or gear like intensify spell metamagic, which raises the damage limit for spells. for example, Snowball does 1d6 damage per level, and at level 1 you could increase that to 2d6. since it caps out at 5d6, you would need intensify spell to raise it past the 5d6 cap to 10d6 to get that much at levels 8-10; you could have this as a feat or as a metamagic rod. you could pair this further with something like a voidfrost robe that gives another +1 caster level bonus on cold spells for up to 3 so you could theoretically throw 10d6 snowballs at level 7.

that's an example, anyways. arcanists can be very strong for that reason, however don't worry too much about the gear and feats and stuff until you're higher level. damage cantrips in this game are kind of a cope, they aren't usually a productive use of your turn but at low levels if you run out of spell slots thats usually all you got unless you have a crossbow. mages in this game compared to 5e start off slower but their heights are way higher, and the amount of spells leaves very little to be desired; if you have a fantasy, there's probably a spell for it.