After beating Yog, I curse infused my staff for the ascent. With Wonderous Resin, it was kind of fun. It would only zap random things. Kinda hard to do damage, but once in a while it would smack someone for 95 damage, or ooze everyone. Mostly, I used melee. I got lots and lots of challenge arenas.
One time it zapped corrosion, toxic gas, and corrosion all in a row in the same room versus 6 ghouls. Super effective!
Later on, I planted a sunseed to heal as soon as I ascended some stairs. It didn't take long for an enemy to poke their head into the room, so I zapped him. Randomly got the stasis effect! When it ended, I was fully healed and there were 4 enemies in the room with 3 more just outside. That was a fight for my life! Especially since enemy evasion is so damned high on the ascent.
Oh, and I also got the stasis effect during the final phase of Dwarf King... ☹️
Thankfully, I was using Disintegration on my staff at the time and could hit the King from across the room.
How do you get +23 upgrades?
You don't always get a +3 wand from the wandmaker, so you just use whatever upgraded wand you have.
Steps 1 and 2 add only a single upgrade and a lot of challenge. You could instead imbue an upgraded wand as soon as you get it, then start using scrolls of upgrade. Or even use one upgrade scroll immediately while waiting for the wand, since imbuing an upgraded wand—that's higher level than the staff—retains a single upgrade from the staff and adds the wand's level.
Or get a +21 staff by using two reforges before imbuing the wand then curse infuse for a +25 (:
But then you need 3 copies of the same wand