This is my mage at the end of dungeon level 9. He's level 13, and he also has two potions of healing. Two challenges are active (badder bosses and swarm intelligence). The unidentified scroll is not "remove curse" (nor "identify"). There are no more spells nor potions in the level-6 shop. The scale armor has a curse of displacement. How would you continue?
Update: I thought this was an interesting scenario, with several different ways to proceed with no obvious winner. Thank you to all who posted ideas; I hadn't considered most of them! SPD is such a complex game.
As to what I did: since BB Tengu is a PITA, I decided to dump 3 SoU on the scale armor; in addition, I was lucky and got a glyph of affection. I used the other 3 SoU on the staff, leaving the magic missile wand imbued and relying on its magic charge ability to pump the lightning and prismatic light wands. It was a hard fight but Tengu was free at last!
Then I made it through the caves without too much trouble. This is the mage at the store in level 16. I still have two SoU which I will probably use on the staff. I'd like to attempt finishing the game with an imbued wand of primatic light, which I've never been able to do before. Suggestions welcome!
The chains and rof will help a ton. Personally, I don't like dumping upgrades into scale armor since you get more bang for your buck with plate, and now you need to decide if you are willing to stick with your scale for the rest of the run or not. At +5 it shouldn't become a problem until the last few floors/eye boss fight. I don't like prismatic in the staff since most of the benefit from prismatic is finding traps, secrets, and blinding ranged enemies, which don't happen often enough to justify getting 8+ charges of it at a time, so I would use lightning. Keeping magic missile is pointless rn, since it doesn't give you more wards or much damage with prismatic, and the extra lightning damage would be easier to get if you just put the lightning wand into the staff.
That makes sense. Regarding the armor, it was a gamble between the chain and the scale; the scale would help me a lot with Tengu but, as you say, maybe not be so useful in the demon halls. Having said that, I've finished runs with scale at +7 before (but without challenges).
I'm rethinking attempting the demon halls with a prismatic light staff since, as you suggest, it does not do a ton of damage. What I don't like about lightning is that it can only be used at range, and the succubs and reapers like to get close very quickly.
I agree lightning has it's drawbacks, but it's better than your other options right now. Obviously if you aren't in a desperate spot you could put off switching what's in your staff until you need to, and hope you find a better option