Hi everyone.

I've been playing around with artificer builds lately. The ranged damage you get early on as an artificer (by level 6) is pretty insane compared to any other class/combo right now.

Thing is....after level 6 you don't really gain that much more currently.....which kinda blows.

If mechanics int bonus would stack with arti's int bonus...that would be an obvious choice right away.....sadly it does not currently at least.

I tried bard for the song buffs and CC abilities and that at least has some more long term use then artificer. I find post lvl 10 as an artificer pretty dull leveling up pretty much.

So I'm looking for ideas for as high DPS with ranged attacks as possible end game.

I'm thinking of going with a artificer/ranger next.......which will give me evasion as well.

I'm a bit in the air on the split so far. I know I want at least 11 ranger levels....but i'm not 100% sure where I want to leave my arti levels (at least 6 though).

7 arti levels are nice since it would give me flame turrent etc...and 9 artificer levels would give me the the 15% attack speed from the armor spell.

So I'm sort of looking at 11 ranger/9 artificer for now.

Few problems with that is I wouldn't really get flame turrent unless I go pure artificer initially (already going to take the first 6 as artificer probably) to 9.....and while 15% attack speed is a nice bonus...I'm not sure if it's really worth 3 more artificer levels. I would get a better pet though, an extra bonus feat....and a few other bonuses along the way.

I could also go with a few paladin levels for a nice boost to saves...going with ranger 11/arti 7 (or just 6) and the rest into paldin (2 or 3).

Another option is instead of paladin levels...take 2 fighter levels for the bonus feats. I think the large bonus to saving throws from the paldin levels might be better over all though as the fighter levels won't really add much more damage.

I'm avoiding sneak attack damage btw...as I don't consider it worth it in this case.

Anyway any ideas or advice on optimizing ranged damage would be appreciated. The ranger split would also allow me to use manyshot as well btw...but would not be the focus. Main focus is totally on repeating xbow damage since it can get so high and is very consistent.