Hey there, it's Pr3vy. I've been bombarded with questions about Bama lately, so I decided to whip up a quick doc. This should be a bit more organized than me rambling on for hours about Bama. Buckle up, because here comes a PoB dump and a wall of text. I'll do my best to keep updating this doc regularly.

Always check my channel for the newest BAMA builds: Pr3vie - YouTube

3.28 General Info

Mostly the same as 3.27
No known direct nerfs/buffs
Impossible to predict the impact of awakened/exceptional support changes (could be a nerf, could be a buff)
Poison and Lightning Bama remain the 2 dominant bama archetypes. They are fairly close in the endgame, though Poison is more chill to play. Lightning can get explosions via Inpulsas + Gravebinds AG.
Lioneye’s, depending on how it interacts with the clones, could be absolutely insane. If the effect applies to the clones, the scaling potential is enormous. Even if it doesn’t work on the clones themselves, it may still be strong enough to push non-transfigured BAMA builds back into relevance. On regular BAMA, the bow effectively doubles your maximum number of clones, taking you from roughly 20 to around 40. That alone is a massive increase in scaling and could significantly shift the build’s ceiling and fry your fps.
There are a lot of strong options available from coin corruptions/level 1 supports. If they are even semi-accessible, it could open up some interesting possibilities. For example Withering Touch for Poison would be especially impactful. It could enable virtually any ascendancy, since applying Wither is currently the most frustrating part to solve on Poison BAMA if you are not a Necro.

3.28 Leaguestart PoBs

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.
Regardless of whether you want to play Lightning or Poison in the endgame, you should start with Lightning and stick with it until you reach a mid-range budget, as it has the most accessible scaling.

3.28 Generic Lightning Necro Bama Starter (or Guardian)

PoB: https://pobb.in/mP3Xd-XxdsrW

Spectre buffs are disabled in the PoB so you can better evaluate the build’s baseline performance before acquiring them. If you’d like to see the setup with Spectres enabled, simply tick the “Enable Buffs” box in the Configuration tab.

During leveling and early mapping, use Wrath as your primary aura. Rush Replica Stampede boots as soon as possible and obtain your Combat Focus jewels through the vendor recipe — the boots are absolutely worth prioritizing.

Your highest priority upgrade is Spectres. Invest early into Perfect Spirit of Fortune, Perfect Blasphemer, and Perfect Primal Thunderbird. Once you have them set up, drop Wrath and switch to Haste instead.

When you can afford it, anoint Death Attunement on your amulet. Add a 4th Spectre. You can also anoint your boots. Use that flexibility to patch weaknesses in your gear. If you prefer a bit more defense, Ghost Dance is a viable option. With this pathing, you’re also right next to a leech cluster, making 5% instant leech a strong and accessible choice.

For bow and quiver crafting, use Wrath and Torment Essences on your bow and quiver.

Early Animate Guardian gear:

Dying Breath
Leer Cast

3.28 Medium budget Lightning Necro Bama

PoB: https://pobb.in/RldTjEXz165n

This PoB is a continuation of the league starter version. Same core setup and concept, just further refined and optimized.

The Animate Guardian has received several upgrades, including Legacy of the Fury boots and Kingmaker. The bow has been improved as well, now featuring a trigger craft for better quality of life. The build also incorporates a second curse, and Perfect Warlord has been added to round out the Spectre setup. Use this PoB as your baseline to farm currency and craft the necessary gear before transitioning into the uber endgame versions.

AG Explosions

I strongly recommend saving up early for Gravebind Gloves and Inpulsa’s Broken Heart body armour for your Animate Guardian. These upgrades will significantly boost your clear speed and improve your mapping efficiency.

3.28 Endgame PoBs

The following builds are made to suit my playstyle in terms of damage, tankiness and QoL. They are quite advanced. Adjust them to your own liking and obviously budget. New stuff and versions will be added when I have more info.

I dropped all the Awakened Supports. Damage will hopefully be higher with a few Exceptional Supports (fingers crossed). Removing the Awakened Supports had a substantial impact on Poison DPS. Poison BAMA relies heavily on multiple Awakened gems, and supports like Awakened Unbound Ailments are especially powerful. Lightning BAMA, on the other hand, barely felt the loss. Since it runs a double-clone 5-link setup and two of its strongest supports are already regular versions, the downgrade isn’t nearly as impactful.

3.28 Blood Magic Poison Necro BAMA

PoB: https://pobb.in/ovbSdWtS9BYl

PoB ver. 2: https://pobb.in/3KFaHRGLR4nc (+1 jewel & more dps)

(New 3.28) PoB vers. 3: https://pobb.in/0kKGskmDfFNm

New version: Breachlord Ascendancy to get Everlasting Sacrifice (requires 6 corrupted items). With very low ES and a single ES regen mod on one of your Abyss jewels, you can maintain Everlasting Sacrifice which easily caps maximum elemental resistances. This allows you to drop Utmost in favor of Defiance of Destiny, boosting your effective HP for mapping. It’s not strictly better than other versions, more of a sidegrade, but can offer a strong alternative depending on the content you want to farm.

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

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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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

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.
If you go the same route, slap a Conqueror Exalt on it and reroll the influence with harvest till you hit Elder influence.
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.
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!
Prefixes are done.
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).
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)

Start with a fractured Attack Speed Ivory Bow base (minimum ilvl 82). Or Spine Bow if you have the dex or an Elegant Hubris.
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!
Craft Prefix cannot be changed.
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.
Unveil Elemental Penetration with Attacks. 100% chance to get the right mod.
How to get Crit Chance on the Suffixes:

You have 2 ways:

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.
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.

Finish with Benchcraft and Harvest enchant.

Poison Quiver

First step, “Get Chaos Dot Multi and Dot Multi” together on a quiver: How To Craft The Best Quiver For CA, Toxic Rain or EA and how to craft a MF helmet - PoE

Or recomb both mods on to one quiver. (This feels better!)

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

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.
Replace Multimod with Cannot roll Attack Mods
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 Medium Budget Bama Necro

PoB: https://pobb.in/kAmXFlvrqM5k (just one example Edit: Go to options and tick the "opt-in to weekly beta test builds" option in PoB if you can’t open/import the build.)

Endurance Charges via Chest implicit and Enduring Cry to ramp up quicker. 1 or 2 endurance charge duration nodes are needed for 100% upkeep on your charges via the eldritch implicit. Single curse, because 2 is min/max nonsense to phase Ubers later. 3 mod jewels, 5 mod multi-mod bow, and other replacements. I basically stripped it down to the bones. Green Nightmare to help with Suppress. Purity to help with res and to get early ailment avoidance and to get your “chain” Pantheon online. Ideally you want 21/20 Spectre to res cap them easier. 21/0 works with Purity, Bone Rings and Commander. Gem Lvl 25 is the breakpoint to get your 4th Spectre. Perfect Spirit of Fortune + Perfect Blasphemer are your base damage, Perfect Guardian Turtle for pdr and Determination, and the last slot is up to you. You can use Perfect Forest Warrior for Onslaught or Perfect Primal Thunderbird for Grace and more defense as well as Lightning Exposure. If you feel you lack minion hp recovery, get the 5% heal on minion death mastery, instead of Convocation Cooldown.

The weakest minion in this config is AG with “only” ~85k life/35k energy shield. All the others have 100k+. I replaced some AG gear. Body armour and gloves are free. I recommend Gravebinds and Inpulsas for progression. This will add explosions for lightning bamas. With AG not dropping gear anymore, Kingmaker can be a great purchase early.
This sets you up perfectly for the min/maxed PoB. Upgrade piece by piece and adjust accordingly until you reach the final stage. As you upgrade the build it will get much faster and feel a lot nicer with more attack speed and more movement speed.

3.26 Poison Tides Pathfinder Version 1 (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/8iJzySWs3mUN

Poison Bama Pathfinder ~ no support minions/no offering/no blessing ~ 3.24 Path of Exile

(Chaos Prismatic Clones nuked in 3.25, basically half the damage. Phys to Ele nerfed.

My take on getting 90% max res without Melding, no Offering, Support Minions or Blessing. Made with B2B T17 in mind. Double six link clones. Use jewel implicits to finish capping ailment immunities.)

3.26 Poison Tides Pathfinder Version 2 (Bombarding + Prismatic):

https://pobb.in/sdZXgRlBxKtX

(Chaos Prismatic Clones nuked in 3.25, basically half the damage. Phys to Ele nerfed.

“Same” as the first, but with true 100% phys taken as elemental and less reliant on Timeless Jewel Seeds. Double six link clones. Use jewel implicits to finish capping ailment immunities.)

3.26 Blood Magic Lightning Bama Necro

PoB: https://pobb.in/DtzAdhQvxzLu

Crit Volatility Lightning Bama Necro using Spectres to fuel offense and defense via buffs and auras. Blood Magic solves mana and gives more HP. Slightly different version from 3.25 - added Utmost Amulet to push 90% max res. Use Juju until Utmost. The build lost ~18% damage (weapon Runecraft is gone). But we will gain some damage with Mercs (Dying Breath, Leercast, Intimidate, Exposure etc.).
Spectre/AG buffs are in the config. Perfect Blasphemer is both great and shit. It can feel bad when he isn’t using Smite on CD, but it feels great when he does. DPS is therefore “spiky”.
More active and button heavy than Poison Bama.

How the build plays: Spectre Lightning BAMA Necro ~ Path of Exile 3.25

Helmet and Body are recomb crafts.
Spectres: Perfect Spirit of Fortune, Perfect Guardian Turtle, Perfect Thunderbird, Perfect Blasphemer
Alternatives: Drop Perfect Thunderbird for Perfect Forest Warrior if you want Onslaught.

You can give AG or your Merc Inpulsa's Broken Heart + Gravebinds, if you want Explosions (see showcase).
You can give your Merc Perquils Toe and if he has a Wrath Aura, we could skip Spirit of Fortune.

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)