Cohorts and Leaders - What Class Allows Cohorts to Keep Up?

[unseenmage]

Artificer leader plus Factotum cohort? Wizard leader and Artificer cohort? Truenamer leader and Truenamer cohort?

What two classes provide the best access to power between a character with the Leadership feat and a Cohort who has to stay two levels behind?
(I am not asking about nor am I interested in Leadership-chaining.)

My guess is that Artificer cohorts are the best as they have access to spells beyond their ken anyway.


Also very interested in which combinations folk hereabouts feel are balanced just right, which ones leave the leader paling in comparison to the cohort etc.
Leadership/Cohort balance b class; lets break it down.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Bard cohorts are amazing. A 2nd level bard can add +3d6 fire damage to everyone's attacks. At 6th level it goes to +7d6, and at 8th it goes to +9d6. Give him a level of Sorcerer with the Dragonblood Sorcerer 1 sub level to change that to sonic damage, and he or someone else can use Creaking Cacophony to give opponents vulnerability to sonic damage, plus he can use a Wand of Wings of Cover to protect teammates. On top of that, they can throw out Haste and other buffs so your other casters don't need to, and they can spend that extra set of actions another body provides to case fight-winning spells like Glitterdust. Plus there's the efficiency that Healing Hymn adds, along with all the utility spells you can have him pick.