BAMA PoB Guide 3.27: Endgame Builds for Path of Exile

BAMA PoB Guide 3.27: Endgame Builds for Path of Exile

Table of Contents

• 3.27 General Info
• 3.27 Leaguestart PoBs (WIP)
• 3.27 Generic Lightning Necro Bama Starter (or Guardian)
• 3.27 Endgame PoBs (WIP)
• Introduction
• Blessed Rebirth?
• Poison
• Adorned
• Mirror Tier Helmet
• Why is the clone number set to 9 in PoBs?
• Prismatic Clones
• Elemental vs Poison Bama
• Crafting Recipes
• Old POBs
• Phrecia Ascendancies

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3.27 General Info

• Fresh Meat unusable for BAMA now.
• Crit BAMA lost around 50–60% of its damage — still decent, but no longer mind-blowing.
• The accuracy changes don’t matter much overall. Poison and right/top side builds benefit the most. For late game, some form of CI Necro and Flask Pathfinder might be the best options.
• Pathing top/right we could use 3 cluster jewels or Voices to recover the lost damage.
• Poison BAMA in late game remains solid — you won’t notice much difference in regular content. However, early league progression might feel nerfed. It’s still smoother to start with Lightning and then reroll or respec later. With a few tweaks we can achieve the same damage as the last 2 leagues on Poison Bama.
• Expect a more spammy playstyle on Poison Necro. For Pathfinder, nothing changes much; you already needed to spam to maintain Mirage Archer uptime.
• Crit BAMA will feel a bit more chill now — no need to stress about Fresh Meat uptime anymore.
• Guardian’s Blessing is a bit more annoying now due to the duration nerfs.
• On the bright side, the new Foulborn unique bows and quivers could open up powerful new setups.

3.27 Leaguestart PoBs (WIP)

Level with another skill until Lab. Decide if you want to farm Lab or buy the skill gem. You also need to decide whether you want to farm Normal Lab or Merc Lab. Either way, you could be stuck for hours farming. On the other hand you will have enough currency and other trans gems to trade and simply buy the transfigured gems you need. You have decent chances though, because you want one of two gems, either Mirror Arrow or Blink Arrow of Bombarding. You can vendor them together with an Alteration orb to get the other version. Get some flat damage on your bow/quiver and use Wrath/Added Lightning Damage Support and you should have no trouble.

3.27 Generic Lightning Necro Bama Starter (or Guardian)

PoB: https://pobb.in/qeoG4Uvr5HUf

Spectre buffs are disabled in the PoB. Use Wrath Aura during leveling and early mapping. Rush Replica Stampete Boots and get Combat Focus Jewels via vendor recipe. Spectres are your highest priority. Invest early in Perfect Spirit of Fortune, Perfect Blasphemer and Perfect Primal Thunderbird. Once you have them, drop your Wrath Aura and use Haste. Anoint Death Attunement on your amulet when you have the funds. You can anoint your boots too. Use it to fill gaps in your gear. Ghost Dance can also be grabbed if you want. You are also next to a leech cluster - 5% instant leech is an option with this pathing. Use Wrath and Torment Essences for Bow and Quiver.

AG gear: Dying Breath, Leercast, Windscream Boots, corrupted gloves with Elemental Weakness.

Medium-Budget PoB: https://pobb.in/8hEJ5XjIRPp-

(If you want to go further. Use this to farm up for the endgame versions - either lightning or poison)

3.27 Endgame PoBs (WIP)

The following builds are made to suit my playstyle in terms of damage, tankiness and QoL. Adjust them to your own liking and obviously budget. New stuff (Grafts, Uniques…) will be added when I have more info.

3.27 Poison Necro BAMA

PoB: https://pobb.in/XyuVyXtF3-r5

PoB ver. 2: https://pobb.in/Mti3z0ExehqC (+1 jewel & more dps)

Dropped all the “fluff” jewels that did not add damage like Rational Doctrine. Same as 3.26 and 3.25. Damage will be the same as last leagues. Add Grafts as you see fit.

Spectres: Perfect Guardian Turtle, Perfect Warlord, Perfect Forest Warrior and Spectral Leader.

3.27 Poison BAMA Pathfinder (damage version)

PoB: https://pobb.in/nsexL3XQ5u0s

Dropped Forest Tiger. 3 Spectres total - Perfect Warlord, Perfect Forest Warrior and Spectral Leader. Lost ~1k Life (~6k hp, down from 7k+). Result = almost same damage as my 3.26 build with Merc!!! Overkill and wasted unless you want to farm Ubers all the time. For context, ~8m PoB dps per RoA arrow is needed for a Poison Bama to phase Ubers - this build has double that.

Here is what ~8m dps per RoA arrow looks like on Ubers:

https://youtu.be/2OpECXv1rRE?si=q6kPlRempvHfV57_

3.27 Poison BAMA Pathfinder (tankier version)

PoB: https://pobb.in/eU-UvpELeb4p

4 Spectre setup. Uses jewels to get to 90% res and gets 1k+ extra Life. This is more well-rounded.

3.27 Lightning Necro BAMA

PoB: https://pobb.in/IVAuHYARjpaZ

The Blood Magic PoB still works. ~130m dps is more than enough. I will explore some other options. I added a “possible” Shaper Bow in the PoB, which could push the dps even higher with Power Charges. Plague Bringer isn’t super reliable on bosses, but it will be a nice boost during mapping. I added Brittle ground for bossing. I dropped the Rational Doctrine I had in prior versions. The jewel might be quite expensive in this league. Use a good Watchers Eye or Abyss Jewel instead. Stormshroud is also an option if you want “cheaper” boots.

Graft Skills you want: “The Great Avalanche” and either “Wreathed in Light” or “Heart of Flame”

Introduction

What is BAMA?

'BAMA', short for 'Blink and Mirror Arrow,' revolves around utilizing the Blink Arrow and/or Mirror Arrow skills. These skills summon temporary clones of the player character equipped with a copy of the player's bow and quiver. They are treated as minions.

Blink Arrow allows the player to teleport to a targeted location and summon a stationary clone at the player's location. Mirror Arrow, on the other hand, summons a stationary clone at the targeted location but does not move the player. Both clones persist for a duration and will automatically attack nearby enemies with a ranged bow auto attack.

Previously, BAMA builds utilized both Blink and Mirror Arrow, each in separate six-linked setups. This strategy aimed to amplify damage output and mitigate the challenges posed by the skills' cooldowns and short base clone duration of three seconds. Since the regular gem versions lacked a minion limit, players strived to summon as many clones as possible, hence the use of both gems and the origin of the name.

However, with the introduction of Patch 3.23 'Affliction', Transfigured gems became available, introducing Bombarding Clones and Prismatic Clones versions for Blink and Mirror Arrow, respectively. Bombarding Clones emerged as the favored option due to their overall strength, versatility and ease of gearing. Unlike their regular counterparts, Transfigured Clone gems have a minion cap of 3 but boast a long minion duration of 20 seconds and have their own special skills, whereas the Clones from the regular gems use only auto attacks. The Bombarding Clones for example, use a Rain of Arrows skill, which enhances clearing and the single target capabilities beyond their base version.

The transition to a single clone setup stemmed from various factors, including the challenge of building around Prismatic clones due to Elemental hit behavior and the overall power of Bombarding Clones. Although not adhering to the traditional BA and MA setup, the name persists as players can still interchange between transfigured versions of Mirror Arrow or Blink Arrow based on preference. Some build variants still use both clones for damage.

Fresh Meat: (Outdated. Fresh Meat is no longer an option)

The Transfigured gems, boasting a long base duration of 20 seconds and a cap of only three stationary minions, present a unique opportunity. Due to their immobility and inability to be Convocated, there's a constant need to resummon new clones while moving through maps. This makes the Bombarding and Prismatic transfigured gems particularly great for the use of Fresh Meat.

Old BAMA builds already scaled Skill Effect Duration and incorporated cooldown reduction, making it seamlessly easy to integrate Fresh Meat into the build. The best part about this is that the gameplay remains the same. While other minions such as Animate Weapon have a lengthy duration too and could make use of Fresh Meat, the Support Gem will significantly alter the gameplay dynamics in rather frustrating ways if you want to maximize buff uptime.

If you're doing a hit damage-focused Bama build, crit is your go-to. That means Fresh Meat is a must-have and by far your strongest Support gem. We must aim for at least a 40 second duration on the Clones to achieve a ~4 second Wakened Fury buff. You'll also want to reduce the Clone cooldown to about 1-1.2 seconds (base cooldown is 3 seconds). This ensures permanent Fresh Meat uptime on all 3 of your Clones and gives you a bit of breathing space before having to refresh the Clones.

Every Ascendancy except Necro should grab or anoint Enduring Bond and pick up one Skill Effect wheel on the tree when building crit to hit that ~40 seconds clone duration. Necro gets away with just Enduring Bond + Mistress, but should prioritize Unholy Might over Mistress when going chaos crit. When going elemental, Necro can save 4 skill points on the tree, which can be used for more damage or better pathing.

Playstyle:

The clones you summon are stationary and cannot be convocated. Think of them as totems.

Consequently, you must continuously summon new clones as you navigate through the map.

This holds true for all BAMA builds. Distinctions exist between Fresh Meat BAMA builds and those centered around Poison or non-critical versions. I recommend delving into the Fresh Meat section for a deeper understanding.

Assuming you have, let me outline the playstyle. You must consistently summon clones off cooldown to ensure permanent uptime of Fresh Meat. Since Fresh Meat is 70-100% more damage on crit-builds, failing to do so, will result in a huge sudden drop off in damage. With the clones lasting 40 seconds in my builds and a target cooldown of 1-1.2 seconds, and depending on your own attack speed, there is not much room to F around if you want all 3 clones to have the Fresh Meat buff. Your aim is going to be to fit all other actions, like offering, cursing etc. within these cooldown windows. Increasing the clone duration extends the Wakened Fury buff duration, affording more breathing room. However, the opportunity cost of investing in more duration beyond what I have already taken may outweigh its benefits. In the end it’s a matter of getting good and used to it.

Conversely, Poison BAMA builds don’t use Fresh Meat, eliminating the need to refresh clones off-cooldown almost entirely. This can mean diminished minion healing from sources like the minion mastery or Life from Death. Nevertheless, the option to summon more clones for additional healing remains available if needed. Rational Doctrine Jewel or Pathfinders Master Surgeon can be used to solve support minion recovery. In an ideal scenario, you simply deploy your clones as a poison BAMA, which last for approximately 20-40 seconds, depending on skill effect investment and then simply run circles around bosses, only keeping up buffs/debuffs and dodging. Poison has a less demanding playstyle overall. If you are familiar with Poison Artillery Ballista, this is about the same but with a different coat of paint.

Overall BAMA builds are packed with buttons to press, especially in the late game. With Guardian's Sentinel, there's an extra button every 40 seconds. In the Crit versions, you'll be juggling two curses, which can be linked to Arcanist Brand if you want, but that might mean sacrificing another useful socket. Molten Shell can be linked to Cwdt. You might also be running a Guardian's Blessing Aura, which is 2 buttons to keep up if you fail to maintain it, otherwise it's one if you get good. Plus, there's self-casting Desecrate and an Offering every 15 seconds, along with a movement skill like Flame Dash or Frostblink. There is room to add minor automation and add more sockets with a second Unset Ring or even Hungry Loop and dropping the Bone Rings entirely, but be ready to play a quite active build.

I also might bring back Convocation, adding even more to your button-mashing duties. Especially with Left-Click casting gone.

Blessed Rebirth?

Since 3.23, I've shelved Blessed Rebirth in my BAMA builds. Prior to 3.23, the strategy revolved around summoning as many clones as possible using Ashes and Phantasmal gems. Within 6-8 seconds, you could summon up to 20-25 clones. However, the risk of bosses wiping them out with AoE, even partially, was detrimental to DPS. That's where Blessed Rebirth came in handy, ensuring a consistent uptime on 18-20 clones during boss encounters.

With the introduction of the transfigured clone gems in 3.23, this strategy became outdated. Now, there's a cap of 3 clones for Bombarding/Prismatic clones, with a shorter ramp-up time and easier clone maintenance.

While these clones may appear squishy, their HP in PoB doesn't tell the full story. Unknown to many players, the clones naturally take 80% less damage, a 'nerf' implemented in patch 1.3.1 to counter a potent Minion Instability build using Mirror Arrow as trigger. This build exploited the clones' mechanic to mimic the player's low-life state, instantly triggering Minion Instability when summoned and causing devastating ignites through old double-dipping.

1.3.1d

'Reduced the life of Mirror Arrow and Blink Arrow clones by around 80%. The clones now take 80% less damage to match their previous survivability.'

This damage reduction makes the transfigured gems prime targets for Guardian's Blessing, as they take very little damage from it. And due to their substantial damage reduction, extra energy shield from Discipline or flat life healing from Vitality or Pathfinder's Master Surgeon (+ Minion Life Flask) become significantly more impactful. You still want to cap Resistances for your clones.

Poison:

Poison truly excels in damage output when using Adorned to efficiently cap your poison chance and stack damage. The Covenant body armour is an option that provides massive damage but compromises your defenses. Currently, two approaches stand out: crafting a rare elder bow or investing heavily in a quiver and using Widowhail. I personally prefer the latter, as crafting the perfect poison bow is extremely expensive, while Widowhail offers a substantial health boost.

Poison builds require more auras, such as Malevolence, compared to other approaches like Crit Lightning builds. Fresh Meat, in general, is tough competition in terms of damage scaling. However, Poison can easily drop the Offering, which doesn’t add much value, thus saving two sockets. It also doesn’t need to scale crit or feel compelled to take Fearsome Force, nor does it need to scale duration for the Fresh Meat buff. This flexibility allows the poison-based archetype to use various ascendancies and unique skill trees, allowing you to even ignore the left side of the skill tree entirely.

While poison won't compete for the highest damage among BAMAs due to dot caps, the poison approach can still phase Ubers. Additionally, it offers tankier builds with fewer active buttons and buffs to maintain, along with more automation and utility baked into the build.

Adorned:

Pretty much every BAMA build aimed for Adorned in the endgame. It was hands down the highest damage option for most Bama builds, except for a Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage Bama which doesn’t need it. It's still good, despite the nerf but can also be skipped in favor of rare Ghastly jewels if you like to have more hp. The damage difference isn’t as crazy post nerf. Assuming a 90-94% Adorned, you can get about ~4% more damage per jewel socket, at the expense of life and attack speed.

Mirror Tier Helmet:

Using a double influenced helmet is totally doable now. Thanks to Trans gems and the move from a double clone setup to a single clone setup, it's more than viable. Bombarding Clones also get a boost from Concentrated Effect for even more damage. Aim for a helmet with +2 to all Minion Gems, Minion Damage Support, Concentrated Effect, Hypothermia, 30% more Elemental Damage, and 4% Crit Chance for socketed Attack Gems. For rich people only. The mana cost becomes horrendous though. Pathing to EB seems like a must.

Why is the clone number set to 9 in PoBs?

Bombarding Clones hit about 3 times on a small hitbox enemy per Rain of Arrows. So, 3 clones hitting 3 times per Rain of Arrows for a total of 9 hits. That's why the PoBs are set to 9 clones, because PoB only shows the hit dps of a single arrow hit. With Concentrated Effect and/or against bigger hitboxes (Maven Brain), you can expect even more hits.

Prismatic Clones:

Prismatic Clones use a minion version of Elemental hit, that unlike the player version, has no base damage. The clone's Elemental Hit converts 100% of its physical damage to one of three elements: Fire, Cold, or Lightning and boasts a massive damage effectiveness. Similar to the player Elemental Hit, it follows the alternating element principle, meaning it exclusively deals damage of the chosen element, with no effect from non-selected elements. Prismatic Clones can no longer deal Chaos damage, as of Patch 3.25. The behavior of the clone’s Elemental hit can be influenced by Combat Focus jewels, following the same rules as regular Elemental Hit. Prismatic Clones in PoB (currently, 28.03) calculate total damage by utilizing all damage types simultaneously, unlike how the gem behaves in-game. To effectively leverage Prismatic Clones, you need to build around a single element. Prismatic Clones can be used to full effect in pure Lightning/Fire/Cold setups. They cannot fully replace Bombarding Clones, as their clear is horrendous, but they can enhance or even elevate your single target damage to new levels. To make them clear or at the very least make them help with clear, you will need to incorporate various projectile behaviors like Pierce/Chain/Fork/Return, supported by LMP/GMP. They are mostly a single target skill sharing a 6-link with Bombarding Clones or using two separate 6-links like classical BAMAs.

Elemental vs Poison Bama:

Elemental BAMA has a lot more buttons to press and a more demanding playstyle. You will have to refresh 2 clone skills every 3 - 4 seconds to keep the Fresh Meat buff up. You will have to self cast Desecrate + Offering + 2 Curses or find a way to fit Arcanist Brand. Elemental BAMA has a higher damage ceiling, but can be reliant on some temporary buffs like Blasphemer Spectre’s Smite in the Lightning version.

Poison BAMA has only 1 curse and 1 clone skill in the endgame rotation. The clone does not need to be refreshed constantly. Playstyle is to drop 3 clones on the boss, curse and run circles. The Dot damage is capped, but you can go beyond it for Ubers. It's tankier than Elemental BAMAs, because it has more free skill points and more flexible corruptions. But poison is also more reliant on the Adorned Jewel if you want to go beyond the regular Dot cap. If phasing Ubers is not your goal, you can ignore Adorned. Normally Poison BAMA is quite hard to leaguestart, Despite the PoB 'damage difference', time to kill on Ubers can still be quite close, surprisingly. Poison just seems very consistent. The clear on Elemental BAMA is better and you have some strong tech like Gravebinds + Inpulsas on AG to double down.

Crafting Recipes

(Work in progress. In the meantime, you can look through the descriptions of my bama videos. I pretty much always include a bow crafting recipe or recipes for key rare items.)

!!!!

Always check my recipes with a Crafting Emulator first before trying in-game.

I can make mistakes too. Also check the crafting cost.

Adjust the mod tiers based on your available budget.

T2-T3s are fine.

!!!

Craft of Exile

Elder Poison Bow

1. Thicket Bow (minimum ilvl 83) with the multicraft Heist enchant. It’s not necessary but makes it easier and cheaper. I paid 8 div for the base in Affliction.

2. If you go the same route, slap a Conqueror Exalt on it and reroll the influence with harvest till you hit Elder influence.

3. With an Elder Bow acquired - Feared Essence Spam until you hit T1-T2 Poison Dot Multi. Yolo annul the third Prefix if you have one. You need one open Prefix and one open Suffix.

4. Welcome to the annoying part (Resistant changes in 3.26 make this a bit easier). Craft Prefix cannot be changed and reforge chaos with Harvest and hope you get flat chaos on the Prefix. There is only one chaos mod left on the Suffixes that can fuck us. Worst case you get a chaos Suffix and the Prefix gets filled up with something else. In this case yolo annul, if brick go back to Essence spam. Good luck to you!

5. Prefixes are done.

6. If you have the multicraft Heist enchant, craft Prefix cannot be changed and use an Aisling Orb. Block with a (Frenzy/Endurance/Power) Charge mod bench craft, and dig for minion attack speed, local attack speed, chaos dot multi (or trigger if you want that).

7. Finish the bow with 2 benchcrafted mods. Override the Heist enchant with Harvest Attack Speed enchant.

If you don’t have a bow base with the multicraft Heist enchant:

● Once your Prefixes are done (same steps as above), craft Prefix cannot be changed and reforge speed and pray that you don’t brick. Projectile Speed has the higher weighting so prepare for tears. Repeat this step until you hit a decent attack speed roll, either Elder mod or regular. Craft Prefix cannot be changed and Aisling Orb for a 50/50. Look for Minion Attack Speed, Chaos Dot Multi (or Trigger if you need it). Benchcraft the last mod.

Flat Mono Lightning/Fire/Cold Bow (Ele builds, Volatility, Replica Covenant)

1. Start with a fractured Attack Speed Ivory Bow base (minimum ilvl 82). Or Spine Bow if you have the dex or an Elegant Hubris.

2. Essence of Fear Spam until you hit T1-T2 Lightning (or Fire for Sabotage Miner Bama or Cold for Replica Covenant). Yolo Annul if your Prefixes get filled up. You want only your desired flat damage element and Essence Minion Damage with one open Prefix and at least two open Suffixes!

3. Craft Prefix cannot be changed.

4. Use a Veiled Exalted Orb and pray it hits the open Prefix. If not, craft Prefix cannot be changed again and scour down and return to step 3 and repeat until you get a veiled Prefix.

5. Unveil Elemental Penetration with Attacks. 100% chance to get the right mod.

6. How to get Crit Chance on the Suffixes:

a. You have 2 ways:

i. Prefixes cannot be changed + Reforge Crit. This one is cheaper but can brick your bow. I do this most of the time and pray. I am not responsible for your bricked bows.

ii. Or, the safe but expensive way: Prefixes cannot be changed into Harvest Add/Remove Crit. Didn’t hit it? Prefixes cannot be changed + Scour. Repeat.

7. Finish with Benchcraft and Harvest enchant.

Poison Quiver

First step, 'Get Chaos Dot Multi and Dot Multi' together on a quiver:

Or recomb both mods on to one quiver.

Once you have your Suffixes done with an open Suffix and Prefix:

1. Craft Multimod + Suffix Cannot be Changed and Harvest Reforge Chaos. As long as you don’t get 3 prefix attack mods you won’t brick. Flat Added Chaos has only 1 tier so that’s easy, but you might get other attack mods alongside it. Repeat until you have only flat chaos or flat chaos + a non-attack mod.

2. Replace Multimod with Cannot roll Attack Mods

3. Do the usual Exalt + Annul + Metacraft - Spam until T1/T2 Life and % damage with Bow Attacks.

Old POBs

(old leagues/nerfed/discontinued/no longer working)

3.26 Blood Magic Volatility Lightning Necro

PoB: https://pobb.in/qwvt5qqK634R

Wrath for leveling and early flat damage, also consider using Added Lightning Damage Support. Get a Merc and give him Perquils Toe (keep hunting for Wrath/Smite Mercs if available). Add Ritual Spectres as you get access to them, in order of importance and affordability: 1. Perfect Spirit of Fortune (maybe skip if Merc can fill that role) + 2. Perfect Guardian Turtle + 3. Perfect Blasphemer or Perfect Warlord + 4. Perfect Thunderbird or Perfect Forest Warrior (or Perfect Blasphemer)

Perfect Warlord if not expensive should be used until you get other sources of Endurance Charges.

Early Bow and Quiver crafting with Essences and Rog.

Get some mana sustain early while leveling. Specc out of any mana nodes when you can reach and sustain Blood Magic. Combat Focus Jewels are needed to fully enable Prismatic Clones and they will be your biggest upgrade early on and can be selfcrafted with a Vendor Recipe.

3.26 Mana Ancient Skull Lightning Necro without Spectres/AG:

PoB: https://pobb.in/wJ8P7Hij-FNE

Manabased leaguestart version of a generic Volatility Bama Necro without Spectres/AG. This build uses Ancient Skull for an early boost in damage. The clones take reduced damage from the Whispers. Prismatic Clones are used as Guardian Blessing/Feeding Frenzy Bot. Because of that we can skip Combat Focus jewels but you could also run them if you want and use Prismatic Clones for damage. If you stick with the PoB you can run 3 x 50% Auras and Precision. Currently I am running Wrath + Determination + Grace. Determination can be replaced with Haste or Purity of Elements. The Merc will fill the role of the AG, as he wont be impacted by the Ancient Skull degen. Equip him with Perquils Toe for lucky damage, Leercast and Dying Breath (the items are in the config). If he dies too much, run Perquils yourself. Add Manaforged + Ensnaring when you have free sockets for some extra damage on bosses. While leveling rush Avatar of the Hunt and unspec it when you can reach Hunters Gambit. Continue filling out the tree. Use mana flasks during the campaign to help with sustain. Plaguebringer or Bone Barrier, your call.

This build gives you ~4 - 5m dps on a 5 - link with lvl 19 gems without any quality with generic rares. It is a bit inflated because PoB wrongly calculates the Prismatic clones dps. I set the PoB to 1 Prismatic Clone because they will only deal lightning damage 1/3 of the time. This should better reflect the actual full dps of the build.

The main challenge will be transitioning out of Ancient Skull. This version isn’t actually better than the Blood Magic version. Just different and maybe slightly easier to build. It starts out stronger in both single target and clear. But the Blood Magic version is set up in a way that will give you more options for progress in the midgame but requires Spectres/AG. You can run this Ancient Skull setup until you can afford to add Spectres/AG, your gems are at least lvl 19 and you have some better spell supp gear or Green Nightmare. You can easily play like this until your mid 90s. The end goal is still BM/Spectres/AG - it’s just too efficient.

3.26 Mana Ancient Skull Lightning Guardian:

PoB: https://pobb.in/r7cHdo06Vr3S

Manabased leaguestart version of a generic Volatility Bama Guardian without Spectres/AG. This build uses Ancient Skull for an early boost in damage. The clones take reduced damage from the Whispers. However, Sentinel can easily die when he crits (~30% chance to trigger the degen on hit). This might feel super annoying. The best case would be your clones killing everything before Sentinel even gets the chance to touch anything. The 5% minion heal on death Mastery should keep the Sentinel alive though as long as you keep your clone rotation up. I think the 'tradeoff' is worth it early on for the massive and cheap damage increase.

Prismatic Clones are used as Guardian Blessing/Feeding Frenzy Bot. Because of that we can skip Combat Focus jewels but you could also add them if you want and use Prismatic Clones for damage. If you stick with the PoB you can run 3 x 50% Auras and Precision. Currently I am running Haste + Determination (or Grace) + Purity. The Merc will fill the role of the AG, as he wont be impacted by the Ancient Skull degen. Equip him with Perquils Toe for lucky damage, Leercast and Dying Breath (the items are in the config). If he dies too much, run Perquils yourself. Add Manaforged + Ensnaring when you have free sockets for some extra damage on bosses.

While leveling rush Avatar of the Hunt and unspec it when you can reach Hunters Gambit. Continue filling out the tree. Use mana flasks during the campaign to help with sustain.

I added an endgame PoB for Guardian.

3.26 Blood Magic Poison Bama Necro (multiple versions!):

The 3.25 original: https://pobb.in/88wAOlA0lmCE

No changes were needed. Poison Bama Necro using Widowhail + a crafted Dot Multi Vile Quiver to push damage and hp at the same time. Poison is the tankiest BAMA variant you can play right now. The build is also simple to play: one clone, one curse, and one movement skill. Desecrate is only there to enable Plaguebringer in boss rooms—just place it once and you’re done. Predator is a swap-in for single-target due to its higher multiplier, while Awakened Chaos Damage Support is perfect for mindless mapping. Everything else is automated. Spectres provide defense, qol, and speed. Add Merc gear as you see fit.

How the build plays: Poison BAMA Necro Tank ~ Endgame Showcase~ Path of Exile 3.25

Spectres: Perfect Guardian Turtle, Perfect Forest Tiger, Perfect Forest Warrior, Spectral Leader

However: My gear was very good in 3.25 (6 mod jewels with res etc.). Skill Points, res and mod slots are very tight. I did a few adjustments and came up with a few more versions. See below:

Juju Tank version: https://pobb.in/e1hvjfk3xBZn

Juju instead of Utmost. 1 more Spectre (Perfect Warlord) instead of Grand Spectrums for Endurance Charges. Dropped Desecrate and Plaguebringer. Magic Cobalt jewels to reach 90% res without Utmost. Result same damage, even higher tankiness. Still tight and expensive though.

!!! Recommended version with Utmost: https://pobb.in/s4DKUX-HLHPk

Restructured the original and added eldritch implicits to help with max res (similar to the Juju version). The goal was to ease the gearing a bit. As a result I dropped Voices, Impossible Escape, Grand Spectrums and the Utmost Amulet works with 5% max res instead of needing 6% to cap. This should reduce the cost of the build by a lot. The max hit is ~10% lower but damage remains the same, even slightly higher. Rational Doctrine is a flex jewel, you can run more damage or Light of Meaning to help with Chaos Res. I was also able to free up skill points for the new Runecraft Masteries and even more can be made available if you need them. Voices can still be added.

3.26 Blood Magic Lightning Bama Guardian

PoB: https://pobb.in/NkMP1L9Hcw54 (Merc Perquils Toe required)

About the same as Necro - why Blood Magic again? I’ve tested a lot in PoB, including updating older Guardian PoBs, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t match the balance of offense and defense of my other variants. My builds are always carefully tuned to find that balance - it's just how I like to design them. So when I say I couldn’t come up with anything better, I mean better for me specifically based on what I played last.

You can lean more into offense or defense depending on your style, use other tech or gear like Diadem, Doomfletch etc. - this is just what feels right to me. This Guardian build is for those that want to start Guardian, happen to like the Bama playstyle and want to continue min/maxing it and don’t want to reroll a Necro but also don’t want to feel too bad about not having a Necro. Poison Bama isn’t 'viable' on Guardian, just keep that in mind.

What I tried:

• Skipping support minions and using Ancient Skull - felt... meh.
• Skipping Blood Magic and going mana-based (or using Diadem) - lost too much efficiency.
• Revisiting Vow + Divine Flesh - less defense for more work
• Heavy aura stacking with the new 50% reservation efficiency node + Purities - didn’t feel stronger than the 'standard' setup.

So I am back to: Blood Magic + Spectre/AG. There are a few differences though.

Guardian Blood Magic vs. Necro Blood Magic - Key Differences:

• Clone Duration (for Fresh Meat): Guardian needs to invest 4 points into skill effect duration to get comfortable clone uptime for Fresh Meat. Necro gets it via Mistress of Sacrifice. However, Necro also needs 4 points just to get out of the starting area, while Guardian only needs 3 - so Guardian has 3 passive points less to play with in the end. I dropped the Profane Chemistry cluster to free those 3 points up.
• Damage Scaling:

Guardian gets decent damage via its own Wrath aura, so I was okay sacrificing the Slum Lord on Profane Chemistry that you get from Elegant Hubris. I even replaced the second Slum Lord (at Avatar of the Hunt) with 80% increased minion life, to help support minion survivability. This makes the hunt for an usable timeless jewel seed quite easy and cheap.

• Minion Survivability:

This is where Necro shines, no doubt about it. Necro is significantly better at keeping minions alive. That said, AG no longer drops gear on death, and the ritual spectres I’m using are cheap anyway. It should work out on Guardian and hopefully the Axiom Warden I added is enough. We had the same issue in Phrecia with Shadow (Servant) and it worked fine for the most part.

• Spectres:

Guardian brings Wrath, and the Merc will get Perquil’s for lucky hits. This lets us skip the Perfect Spirit of Fortune Spectre and instead run something else. Turtle, Bird, Forest Warrior, and Blasphemer would be my call - offering a nice blend of offense, defense, and QoL.

• 1 more button:

Guardian has Sentinel - so that's one more button to press on an already busy build. Luckily you have good duration scaling, so it's only 1 more button press every ~50ish seconds.

Gear & Utility Notes

• Resistances were tight without Commander of Darkness, so I added a Grand Spectrum with resists. Feels kinda whatever. You could just Tattoo some extra resists instead and put the Crit Multi Spectrum back in. Depends on your gear tbh. Like so: https://pobb.in/KAiK6UJbcIrP
• Rational Doctrine is flexible - can be dropped since it’s an endgame luxury.
• Before Utmost Amulet: use Jinxed Juju. For spell suppression use Green Nightmare, drop Rational Doctrine. You can stay on Juju permanently if you don’t care about 90% max res.
• Guardian needs Minion Res on the Bone Ring(s). Either implicits or suffix.

Guardian vs Necro:

Guardian can lose a lot of offensive value if you find a Merc with Wrath. Assuming Mercs are good, Necro could pull ahead and will have much better minion survivability for juiced content. Everything Guardian offers offensively, Necro can/could get via Spectres or Mercs. Guardian perfectly fits the 2–4 Voidstone Bama niche.

One big advantage however for endgame: Guardian ends up tankier (slightly less life but better mitigation), benefiting from his Sentinel and some block. And that block can also work wonders for your support minions and the merc.

In an ideal world (for Guardian) where the Necro players are all competing for the same timeless jewel seeds while he is happy with just 1 Axiom Warden, Guardian could easily end up dealing higher damage than the Necro bois while also having the tankiness of the Poison Bama Necros.

The tradeoff: your minions are less tanky, and you're essentially forced to run Perquil’s on the Merc to make this comparison favorable.

If we are being totally honest the final differences are so small, unless you are hyper min/maxing and juicing you won't even notice it. The main differences will be how you approach gearing:

• Necro can transition very early into Spectres/AG and will have an easier time with resists. The main early gearing goal will be to find flat damage for your clones. Necro will run a Wrath aura early on.
• Guardian has his base damage covered, but will have a harder time getting his resists up, very likely that you will run Purity of Elements for some time. Support Minions have to be delayed a bit until you have their res covered and the gems are higher level.

Anyway, biggest downside that both Guardian and the Necro version share: passive points are tight as f* if you want to fit everything. If the new Runecraft Masteries end up being worth it for Bama, we’ll have to give up either life, damage, or a jewel slot to free up passive points.Tradeoffs, as always. And get your levels up because you are going to need them.

3.26 Poison BAMA Pathfinder

POB: https://pobb.in/h7zM9j1bgXDV

(Merc gear is deactivated in the PoB for 3.27 purposes, Cold and Lightning Res overcapped for Eater Altars.)

Spectres: Perfect Warlord, Perfect Forest Warrior, Perfect Forest Tiger, Spectral Leader

(If you like more minion defense, drop some life and get a second minion hp cluster with Dread March.)

Poison BAMA but Pathfinder, like in 3.24. Advanced and expensive. Only 'weakness' is heavy phys damage, but still manageable. Uber-Dot-cap with ~8k hp and huge max-hits, yeah it's amazing. Can go even harder on the min/max (Synth Rings with % Life or max Endus or a mirrored Bone Ring, better Corrupts on Covenant, Implicits on Jewels, rare 'bricked' Stranglegasp etc.). Timeless Jewel is also possible. If you find a 'better' source for Wither you could drop the mana route and go EB. Rare Crafted bow is also possible (see crafting recipes) and still leaves you with ~7k hp if you want ~15% more damage.

Showcase: Poison Bama Pathfinder ~WIP [PoE 3.26]

(Update) New min/max PoB: https://pobb.in/Pg_czth2eSa4

3.25 and older

Bloodmagic Spectre Lightning Volat Bama

https://pobb.in/gm-BdXSKbjfl

Showcase: Spectre Lightning BAMA Necro ~ Path of Exile 3.25

Bloodmagic Poison Widowhail Bama with Support Spectres:

https://pobb.in/92HvID3C0BBj (Utmost Vers.)

https://pobb.in/2L9onDYl_q7q (Juju Vers.)

Showcase: Poison BAMA Necro Tank ~ Endgame Showcase~ Path of Exile 3.25

Doomfletch Crit Necro:

https://pobb.in/FmyomJLGEb0z (Guardians Blessing)

https://pobb.in/XUPG7gmVaAXH (No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem)

Volat Lightning Crit Necro (rare crafted Bow):

https://pobb.in/JpWIOHPscZKc (No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem)

The OG Affliction Volat Bama Ver. 1:

https://pobb.in/7eRc8pzkB2o4 (Guardians Blessing)

https://pobb.in/LBkD135-2OGz (No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem)

https://pobb.in/DpcTSmNaGlaD (Example: No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem, + 2 Combat Focus and Prismatic Clones)

The OG Affliction Volat Bama Ver. 2:

https://pobb.in/nQr5hKGEOOQB (Guardians Blessing)

Chaos Conversion Crit Bama:

https://pobb.in/sYASDHkl4Rf0 (Guardians Blessing)

https://pobb.in/lymnm7_mPwzg (No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem)

Tri Ele Guardian:

https://pobb.in/ReU8RCSsdWJQ (Guardians Blessing)

https://pobb.in/jq5L0UJQ14cB (No Blessing, Enlighten 4 Diadem)

Pyroclast Bama

https://pobb.in/pI1hnkMqMqbD

(dead)

Poison Necro with Widowhail + Warcry Version 1 (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/s2vrPrQ9M671

(dead)

A new Poison Bama ~ 7/7 Ubers ~ Path of Exile 3.24

Poison Necro with Widowhail + Warcry Version 2 (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/ml9UOaDAi-l0

(dead)

Voltaxic Chaos Crit Necro Mageblood Version (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/hLjL2Mf9OpAQ

(dead)

Voltaxic BAMA Necro ~ Path of Exile 3.24

Voltaxic BAMA Final Update ~ Path of Exile 3.24

Voltaxic Chaos Crit Necro Mageblood Version (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/hLjL2Mf9OpAQ

(dead)

Voltaxic BAMA Guardian

PoB: https://pobb.in/NkMP1L9Hcw54

Phrecia Ascendancies

Phrecia Shadow Starter 1: https://pobb.in/aP3umXYwP8Yh

Phrecia Shadow Starter 2 (BM transition): https://pobb.in/nCjKjc73E4pN

Phrecia Shadow (base version): https://pobb.in/VA5XYRt6B0GH

Phrecia Shadow (crafted bow/highest damage): https://pobb.in/F3EaqcWEnLPQ

Phrecia Shadow (lower budget): https://pobb.in/2dN2jBhNTVad

Phrecia Shadow (tanky version): https://pobb.in/VCWXfvBh9Gd￾Phrecia Shadow (Utmost, my 3.25 Necro as Shadow): https://pobb.in/GiR2FwtkGaYm

Phrecia Paladin: https://pobb.in/3BjQ7MsHDrho

Notes: This dump includes a lot of build variants and links to PoB configurations, often labeled with 3.25/3.26/3.27 versions, and discussions of minion mechanics, clone durations, and gear choices. The content covers general info, leaguestart strategies, endgame PoB options for Poison and Lightning paths, and a wide array of crafting recipes and old builds for reference.