FFXIV is filled with so many dungeons, trials, and other duties that there are probably some you’ve forgotten all about. Khloe Aliapoh’s Wondrous Tails give you a reason to mix up your usual routine, or even to revisit some old content. Depending on how well you weave these tales of adventure into your journal, you’ll get to pick from many possible prizes each week.
Contents
How It Works
All you need to unlock Wondrous Tails is a level 60 character and access to Idyllshire, which occurs late in the Heavensward MSQ. Then you can pick up the sidequest ‘Keeping Up with the Aliapohs‘. Every week you can go see Khloe in Idyllshire to pick up a Wondrous Tails journal. She’ll ask you to fill out the journal with stories of your adventures and then return it to her. The way this is done is by completing duties from a list of options, semi-randomized each week. There are 16 duties listed on the lefthand side of the book, and you’ll need to complete 9 of them.
For each duty you complete, a seal will be added at random to the grid on the righthand side of the journal. Once 9 seals have been placed, their layout may or may not form a number of full lines on the grid. These are lines of four seals horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. It’s basically a bingo-style game to see how many rewards you win, but you’ll always win something. Turn in your completed journal by the listed deadline and you’ll get to select your prize(s).
Second Chance Points
Below your grid of duties is a Second Chance button, showing your remaining Second Chance Points. These are earned by completing a duty where any party member had a first time bonus. You’re capped at 9 points and you can spend these on Retries or Shuffles.
A Retry (1 point) means you cross off a duty you haven’t yet completed (at random) and reactivate a selected duty you’ve already completed that week. Basically this lets you get multiple seals from the same duty, and can be useful if you only have a few duties on the list you actually want to do. Retries can make your tasks more convenient if you play them right.
A Shuffle (2 points) can be used if you currently have between three and seven seals on the grid. It will rearrange the seals at random, so if your grid looks like you’re unlikely to complete any full lines, using one or more Shuffles can improve your shot at a bigger prize.
Ideally you want your seals to land in such a way that it’s possible to complete three lines. There are 24 possible patterns that result in the biggest prize, so if your seven seals land in a way that accommodates any of them, definitely keep them. In order to get three lines you’ll need one horizontal line, one vertical line, one diagonal line, and three points of intersection. It’s a long shot, but aiming for those combinations will still maximize your potential prizes.
Try not to let your Second Chance Points go to waste. If your seven seals aren’t placed well and you’re sitting on nine points, just Shuffle them. I usually stop if they arrange themselves in a guaranteed single line, or if they conform to one of the 24 three line patterns.
Rewards
Turning your completed (9 seal) journal in to Khloe will reward you with bonuses depending on the layout of your seals. There are four tiers of rewards based on how lucky you get, and you’ll receive one item of your choice from each tier you qualify for. For example, If your seals make two full lines then you’ll get to pick one item each from the ‘9 Seals’, ‘1 Line’, and ‘2 Lines’ lists. As long as you earn 9 seals you’ll win something from the first tier.
Note that you can turn in your completed journal during the following week after you accept it. If you do so, you can then accept the current week’s journal from Khloe immediately. I find this leniency to be really convenient if I get a bit lax about doing enough of my specific duties on a particular week. This allows players to catch up if they fall behind. You can always check the deadline of your journal at the top of your Wondrous Tails window. The deadline is at weekly reset time, which falls on Tuesdays.
There are actually two versions of Khloe’s Wondrous Tails journal. There’s one for players who have reached at least level 80, and one for those who haven’t. This is because reward options get added, which include high level equipment, high level materia, and the two endgame tomestones: Phantasmagoria and Allegory.
Experience
In addition to the other 9 Seals rewards, you’ll always be awarded half of your current level’s worth of experience for the Job you turn the journal in on. This is a significant amount, so I recommend trying not to hand it in while you’re on a max level job. You’ll get more benefit the higher level your Job is though, because half a bar is easy to get at low levels, but not so easy in those last 10 levels.
9 Seals Rewards
500 Tomestones of Poetics – This could save you a decent amount of time running roulettes. Poetics are currently especially valuable because of the Shadowbringers Relic Weapons. 1000 Poetics is enough to get one weapon.
Timeworn Map – These can be sold for varying amounts of gil (often greater than the Allagan piece) or used to participate in Treasure Hunting parties for the chance at more loot.
Allagan Platinum Piece (10,000 gil) – This is a good amount of gil for low effort, and can actually be used to buy some of the other stuff in this category (materia, crafting materials). It’s like getting cash instead of a gift card.
100 Tomestones of Phantasmagoria – It might be worth it if there’s no Allagan piece being offered. You can buy a few endgame crafting materials to sell, or some i460-470 Deepshadow equipment if that glamour catches your eye.
3 Mhachi Demimatter (noncombat materia V) – While this isn’t the worst option, you can also buy materia for gil. It could be worth it depending on your server’s market, and if you’re trying to cheaply overmeld your crafters or gatherers.
6 Mhachi Matter (combat materia V) = Definitely the most useless option. Grade V materia is kind of pointless for overmelding combat gear when the game throws grade VIIs at you.
1 Line Rewards
Dress-up Thancred (minion)
Wind-up Estinien (minion)
Wind-up Khloe (minion)
Khloe’s Bronze Certificate of Commendation – Trade this for a couple of endgame materia tokens to use or sell on the marketboard.
MGP Gold Card (30,000 MGP) – If you’ve got your eye on a mount or outfit from the Gold Saucer, every bit of MGP helps get you there. This is like completing many successful GATEs all at once.
50 Tomestones of Allegory – Not worth it at all. You can easily reach your weekly cap in other ways, so this will probably be worth absolutely nothing.
2 Line Rewards
Wind-up Zhloe (minion)
Stuffed Khloe (tabletop)
500 Tomestones of Phantasmagoria – If you’re interested in playing the marketboard, this pile of tomestones can buy a lot of crafting materials to sell. Personally I would go for the certificate or MGP card below because they’re simpler to deal with.
Khloe’s Silver Certificate of Commendation – This nets you several tokens to exchange for grade VII or VIII materia.
2 MGP Platinum Cards (100,000 MGP total) – This will go a long way towards that item you’ve got your eye on at the Gold Saucer prize counter.
3 Line Rewards
3 Khloe’s Silver Certificates of Commendation – You can exchange these for a mix of noncombat and combat materia, or go all in on whichever one you need a lot of.
Khloe’s Gold Certificate of Commendation – You can grab a bunch of expensive endgame materia with this certificate. Especially valuable are the Stellacrystals and Planicrystals which you’ll trade for noncombat materia.
20 MGP Platinum Cards (1,000,000 MGP total) – Save yourself a LOT of time by picking up this stack of cards. You’ll be well on your way to owning the biggest cosmetic prizes available at the Gold Saucer.
Some weeks you may need to go out of your way to tackle your assigned duties. Is it worth it? Well, that depends on what you could reap as your reward. There are always three options in every tier, so there’s a very high chance you’ll get something of use to you, no matter your goals in the game.
Duty Completion Tips
Try to get as many unique duties finished before using any retries. Retries use up valuable second chance points, which could instead be put towards reshuffles to maximize your chances at higher tier rewards. Considering you only need to complete 9 out of 16 entries, it’s totally possible to finish your journal for the week without retrying any duties.
If you are going to use a retry, you should still try to check off any quick and easy duties first. If your retry crosses something simple off the list before you do it yourself, you’ve basically wasted a retry. If something’s very quick and easy (like a level 50 extreme trial), or you know you’re going to get to it at some point during the week (like a level 80 dungeon), make sure it’s crossed off before retrying another duty.
Dungeons (Levelling) – These top row duties are broken into expansion categories, so 1-49 might be on your list, or 51-59, etc. If you have a Job you’re currently levelling up, you can try to get lucky throughout the week with Levelling Roulettes. Otherwise, to complete this quickly, queue for one or more dungeons in your category’s range directly, and do so on a Tank or Healer during your server’s prime time.
You’re less likely to have a bad group if you cover one of these important roles, and if you pick the lower end of the range (because people are less likely to be undergeared). For example if I’m trying to cross off 61-69 Dungeons, I might switch to my Warrior and queue for the level 61, 63, and 65 dungeons.
You could also queue up for many of these dungeons solo. NPC party members are available by using the Trust system (level 71-79 dungeons) or by leading your Squadron in a Command Mission.
Dungeons (50, 60, 70) – These categories and the levelling categories will make up three of your top row duties every week. The same advice applies as the levelling dungeons above. You could do your Level 50/60/70 Roulette throughout the week and hope you land in the appropriate duties. Or, you might just do a multi-queue as a Tank or Healer for several dungeons that fall in your assigned category.
Dungeons (80) – I believe this is always included in your journal, since I check it off every week (sometimes more than once). This is probably the best duty to use retries on in a pinch, since you know you’re going to complete it if you do the Expert Roulette or the Level 80 Dungeon Roulette. This is super time efficient; it’s basically a free seal since most players do these roulettes anyway. Just try to complete some other easy duties before you spend a retry.
Alliance Raids – These duties can take either a bit of luck or a bit of patience if you’re intent on checking them off in your journal. Choosing a Job at a low enough level can ensure you only qualify for the level 50 Alliance Raids for example, but it doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the one out of three you’re looking for. I usually still try to get this done via roulettes because the bonus experience and tomestones are useful anyway.
If you are going to queue for the Alliance Raid Roulette, it’s possible to manipulate your available raids by lowering your average item level. If you needed to get World of Darkness, you could lower your item level to below 175 so you no longer meet the requirements for the level 60 set of Alliance Raids. The way this is usually done is by unequipping items to lower the average item level, then equipping them again after the duty pops. Remember that this will never guarantee you get the duty you want, it will only skew you down towards the lower level ones.
Your alternative is to queue for the raid directly, which may take some time, especially if it’s a level 70 raid. Try to queue during prime time and pick an in need role, which for Alliance Raids is usually Healer or DPS.
The Binding Coil of Bahamut – There’s always one of these turns in your journal, and to be honest I always skip it. While you can unsync and outlevel the content, some of it is just weird and not straightforward (Turn 3 anyone?) Not all of it can be done solo anyway, and you’d have to find a group in the Party Finder. Not worth the time in my opinion.
Normal Raids – There will be two of these duties each week; one level 60 raid and one level 70. It’s unlikely that you’ll get these specific duties in your Normal Raid Roulette, because the pool is so large. Try switching to a role that’s frequently in need for raids, such as Tank or Healer. Then queue up for both your listed raids at once. Normal raids are already short duties, and this will considerably speed up the longest part – the queue.
Deep Dungeons – This square will be either a Treasure Hunting dungeon (your choice of Aquapolis, Lyhe Ghiah, etc.) or Palace of the Dead / Heaven on High. A run of PotD or HoH is really quick, and can give a DPS Job some experience without waiting in a long queue. Lyhe Ghiah can actually get you a lot of seals in a short time if you join a Treasure Hunting party and use retries. It’s not the best use of second chance points, but it’s an option.
Extreme Trials (Lv. 50) – There will be three of these in your journal every week, and all can be soloed pretty easily if you have a Job at max level.
Extreme Trials (Lv. 60/70) – There will be two of these in your journal every week. They usually require a visit to Party Finder to find other players who are farming mounts, so these are often skipped over.
PvP – Every week you’ll have a PvP seal, and it will be Frontline, Rival Wings, or The Feast. I usually skip it, but if it’s Frontline then I might just queue for the daily bonus at prime time and pick up some Wolf Marks. If PvP is your passion this might be an easy seal for your journal every week.
Summary
The seals I always grab every week (because they’re the most time efficient) are the Level 80 Dungeon, Level 60 and 70 Normal Raids, and all three Level 50 Extreme Trials. This accounts for 6/9 seals, and the other three I get from a combination of dungeons and alliance raids from roulettes, or a Treasure Hunting dungeon if I see a Party Finder listing on the weekend. I rarely need to spend a retry, but if I do it’s on the Level 80 Dungeon.
While I was levelling, I used to think that Wondrous Tails took way too much time. It turns out I just didn’t know how to go about it efficiently, and just how useful some of the rewards could be, even for high level players. I hope you’ve learned a bit more about how to get the most out of these weekly journals. Let me know in the comments, what are your go-to duties to cross off the list?