Exotics should deal more damage than legendaries. If a weapon has an element associated with its damage it should do less damage than an exotic with pure kinetic damage.
How you obtain an exotic is a different matter that is much complicated tha Xurn v Earn debate!
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Acutely I had a theory on that on that once. I got a Legendary sniper rifle with a build that gave it the exact stats of Ice Breaker. While the Legendary 6800 my Ice Breaker did 7500. They both had the same range and impact and Ice Breaker still did more.