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Comment by 207575

Wait, we're teaching our poor orphans violence? /evil giggle

Comment by Quelion

it's a hard knock life for us
it's a hard knock life for us
instead of treated we get tricked

Comment by AxelF

Would Returning a dropped flag be possible if u lets say "drop" the flag by right clicking its buff and picking it up again?...of couse not when ur under attack by heaps of horde

Comment by 164509

For a rogue, the only hard one is returning the flag.

Comment by 164509

As a rogue, the only hard one is the assaulting an AB flag. Stealth to a base in AV and cap it with your orphan out. Easy. Stealth by flag and cap it when you get the chance, summoning your orphan before you do. Easy. To whoever said returning the WSG flag is the only hard one for rogues, I don't know why its hard to simply beat up the guy with the flag and click it when it drops.

Comment by 146819

Why does Blizzard keep doing this to us? We shouldn't HAVE to do PvP just to get something from an Achievement. Believe it or not, some of us either aren't good at PvP or just flat-out don't like it; forcing us to do it is just cruel.
Why not make it so that you only have to do so many of the Achievements to get the larger one, instead of having to do all of them? Like for Children's Week, you have to do 6/7 of the Achievements to complete For the Children.

Comment by kaze950

I really hope blizzard changes this achievement.

I can understand having to win a BG. But to have to actually return a fallen flag or capture a flag? Not to mention your other team mates will probably want the achievement as well. It will just lead to a lot of people %^&*ed off. Especially if you are in a lousy battlegroup.

Plus you might be playing a class that isn't preferable for capturing a flag.

Comment by 130619

Here's hoping that someone in the raid group doing these count... otherwise it's going to be one %^&*! of an achievement.

Comment by 66863

Step 1: Advertise in Trade or Guild (preferably the latter) that you are forming a School of Hard Knocks PvP raid
Step 2: Decide the order in which you would like to accomplish the prerequisites. Eg. EotS, WSG, AB, AV
Step 3: Get everyone to /roll to determine the order of who gets the prerequisites done for them. Eg. Person A rolls a 100 and gets their prereq done first in EotS. Repeat this process for the last BG just so the original top rollers have an incentive to stay (unless they managed to maintain their order by chance). Avoid rolling a one multiple times...
Step 4: *cue Monty Burns voice* Release the orphans!
Step 5: As a group, defend the person who is earning the prereq, let them obtain it, then move down the order of who's up next. Eg. EotS: Person A captures and returns the flag whilst the raid swarms around them in defence. Person B then goes, etc.
Step 6: Rinse and repeat for each BG. Where applicable, coax the opposing faction to instigate the process of accomplishing the objective. Eg. WSG - let them assault the flag then pounce to recover; AB - let them win a flag then assault, etc.
Step 7: Pray no one leaves and can follow simply instructions.

BGs that benefit the most from an organised raid are EotS, WSG.

If none of the above are achieveable due to ineptitude, selfishness, or the server decides to delete your character and eat your orphans...

/wrist

Comment by 168962

Hopefully the achievements act differently. If anyone remembers doing quests in Alterac Valley where you have to Assault a Tower, Capture a Graveyard, etc. you don't have to be the one that clicks the flag in the base or graveyard to get the credit, you just have to be around when it happens. This is how I hope these achievements work:

In EotS, you simply have to be at the base that your team mate with the flag decides to capture it at.
In Arathi Basin, you just have to be around when a team mate is assaulting a flag.
In Alterac Valley, you just have to be in the area of a Tower being assaulted by your team mate, and
In WSG you just have to help your offensive team grab your flag back from the enemy

Lets hope.

Comment by feles

I am trying to block that pain from my memory - I actually removed the keymapping form my shapeshifting abilities for the duration of battlegrounds because I kept shifting by habit.

Comment by 9646

The Purple Proto-drake is the casual, but long playing, 310% drake.

There are casual PvP and casual PvE players. If Blizzard really wanted to be a pain they could have made an achievement along the lines of:

Create an Orphan:
Win a ranked Arena game with a minimum rank of X.

X being just high enough to prove you just didn't create a team after never doing arena just to get the achievement.

Comment by chknnuggts

You may also want to create a macro to notify the opposing faction of your intentions.

/wait
/target Orphan
/point
/target last
/wait

They might stop killing you and and actually assist your team in completing the achievements - as long as you assist them.

WSG - have one person pick up their flag, then drop it in their flag room for one of them to return. Continue until their whole team gets the achievement. Odds are, they will do the same for you.
EoTS - each faction take a turn returning a flag. (Only 1 base controlled per faction)
AB/AV - assault a flag/tower, let them defend it, then let someone else assault. (If each person needs to assault)

Comment by Fraglimat

I just did the AV one, and we actually had a horde taking the tower flag back every time an ally took it, so that everyone there could get that part of the achievement done. Big thanks Kheal, didn't see which realm you were on.

Comment by Timmeh

I just got this. To those who are feeling demotivated:

I play on a PvE realm and completed it using purely PvE gear. I'm what you'd call an adequate PvPer, certainly not exceptional or even that good; the odd BG, but I don't like it enough to collect any PvP gear and have never played in a "serious" arena team. I had no outside help (and definitely no premade). It took me a little under 2 hours to complete the four objectives.

Some facts:

You must complete each one yourself, these will not mark as done if someone else completes them and your orphan is near.

Your orphan has to be out. No orphan, no achievement.

Your orphan despawns when you die and must be re-summoned with the whistle. Don't forget to resummon when you die (or cause it to despawn with range). Someone somewhere is going to complete the EotS objective and realise they forgot to get their orphan out, do not let it be you.

Don't plan on doing any regular PvP for the duration of this holiday, it's not going to happen.

So, tips.

WSG: This one's easy. If most people are off assaulting, I'd recommend sitting around your base somewhere hidden. If you don't feel confident you can bring down the enemy who picks it up by yourself, bring a friend to help. If everyone's sitting around your base trying to camp the achievement, you can either sit with them and likely have a very frustrating battleground or wander into midfield and play with the enemy for a bit until those with no concentration span in your base wander off. Either way, this one won't give you too much hassle.

AB: The second easiest. 12/15 on each team will probably rush for farm/stables and thanks to latency all believe they got there first so sit there for the duration of the 10 seconds. Those who realised they didn't get there first will go on to lumber mill (as the flags are positioned towards that side, people will aim for what they're closest to). I personally rushed GM at the start and found myself the only one there (I assume everyone else was still sitting at farm/stables). If this doesn't work for you, I'd suggest picking a fight for a flag you can see your side is going to win and sitting on the flag in the most protective gear you own right clicking until all the enemies die and stop poking you. Keep persisting, this one's not that hard, there are 5 bases and only 30 people, if the worst comes to the worst, within a couple of games, you'll find yourself alone at a base ripe for the capping at some point.

AV: Potentially the joint hardest. I say that, it would be the hardest if it weren't for the mechanics of the place. There are only 4 towers you can realistically hope to capture over the course of an AV, doing the maths, 40 people on your side in the BG, 90% of the people in it are going to go away disappointed. However, the faction rivalries seem to've fallen away for the purposes of this holiday. One person can capture the tower, an enemy can restore it, another person can capture it, enemy can restore it... this continues. I sat on a tower we'd captured, saw two incoming horde players, they attacked me, I /wait'd and /point'd at the orphan. They stopped attacking me, recaptured the tower, I captured it /bow'd and jumped off leaving them to do what they like with it. Chances are if you sit on a tower you'll meet some nice people like this. If you don't... you'll have to work real hard to get to one first, be under no illusions, this won't be easy (bring swiftness potions). A better idea is that, if you have a friend who plays the opposing faction in your battlegroup, you can probably arrange reclaiming and recapping a tower with them.

EotS: Oh god. 30 people, one flag. This one is a toughie. First thing I'd suggest is installing deadly boss mods (or any mod that'll show you the flag respawn timer). If you want a good chance of getting this one, you'll need a battleground in which your side is outplaying the enemy. Simple maths, the more times you get a chance to go for the flag, the more likely you are to capture it. If your team has full control of the center and are just waiting for the flag to spawn, an important fact is that the flag is clickable before the graphic appears. Hover your mouse over where the flag is going to be, watch the DBM (or whatever) timer; as soon as it runs down, right click. You won't see the flag for about a second and a half, but you'll be taking it. If your team is letting you down, try to stay out of the way a bit until it looks like your team is going to gain control of the center then run in and play the persistent right clicker as in AB. You then need to plan your escape and pray there aren't too many enemies in the way and that your team will help you.

Ultimately they're all doable; you'll need to have a reasonable idea of what you're doing, some luck and potentially a lot of patience. Even if you're a rubbish PvPer, you have a whole week, if a moderate PvPer such as myself can manage it in 2 hours, you can manage it in 7 days assuming you're prepared to invest the time. :)

Comment by Vath

Time of day is going to be key for getting this. It's about 2 am server time, and I just finished an EoTS where it was 15-4 horde. The EoTS was stupidly easy and that was the one I was worried the most about. If you guys are having trouble with any of these, give it a few days. You have until next Thursday. People are going to be looking to get you out of the way moreso than ever in these BG's now, and first/second day world events are always the worst for people zerging to get all the achievements. Let things cool down a bit if you have too and try again when there's less people going for the same thing.

Comment by Drulus

I'm doing the achievement right now, and I'm sorry to say that's not how it works.

AB: Have to cap a base yourself, doesn't count just standing close to one being capped.
AV: Have to cap a tower yourself, doesn't count just standing close to one being capped.
EotS: Have to cap the flag yourself, doesn't count just standing close to one being capped.
WSG: You have to be the one clicking on the flag to return it. Like when it appears <your name> has returned the <your faction> flag.

In Alterac Valley the achievement doesn't trigger by capping bases like Stonehearth, Frostwolf or Iceblood, only the 4 towers that each side have/can cap.

Good luck with your achievements!

Comment by enderfish001

I wanted to update this and unforunately at least in AV and EotS you don't get credit for being in the vicinity, you acually have to carry the flag in EotS and assault a tower personally in AV. I haven't done the other 2, but I'm guessing its the same rules :(

The EotS one is just going to be a pain because you will have to fight everyone off and get lucky with clicking the flag. As for AV, it seems that SH tower might be a kind of meeting point for horde and alliance to swap flag control. In the AV I did we just took turns with the horde and alliance capping the flag over and over and aside from a few griefers it went pretty well.

The way they've been reducing the metas recently there is a good chance this one might be taken out, or changed to requiring only 1 or 2 of the BGs, so if you can't get them all I'd recommend at least getting 2. Good luck.. BGs are gonna suck this week ><

Comment by 249055

I can tell ya right now that here is where ENGINEERING pays off! In Eots, line yourself up with the path to the flag when you start. Then put on your Rocket Boots Extreme and parachute cloak. When the game starts, pop your boots, jump off the edge, and pop your cloak. If you do it right you can float right to the flag and click off the buff and youll be the first to get the flag, about 5 seconds before everyone else gets there.

Comment by Djumen

39 EotS' and still counting, haven't even touched the flag. It's like the worst achievement ever to get..

Comment by 19839

Just did this achivement. Clarifying a few things.

Flag in EOTS.
You don't need the orphan out until you deliver the flag at the base.

Flag in WSG
You have to be the one the game recognizes as the flag returner after an enemy has dropped it while your orphan is out.

Arathi Basin cap
You need to have your orphan out when you click a flag in AB and the cast finishes. Doesn't matter if it's capped by the opposite side or not capped at all (gray)

Alterac Valley cap
You have to have your orphan out as you click the enemy's tower flag and finish the cast. You don't have to wait for it to belong to your faction. Remember the tower's in the enemy's base are also possible in the achivement.

Comment by 263428

Just incase anyone wants an idea how insane this is at the moment, i joined a WSG, extreme lag, disconected, some random errors when trying to log back in, several minutes later of trying to log back in, i find myself falling through nothing to my death.

complete server meltdown

Comment by Drudatz

absolutly worst archivement ever!
not possible at all....

Comment by 134522

I finished up all of mine pretty easily as a rogue (alliance) solo.

WSG: play as normal, travel in groups and zerg the efc.

AB: I usually run to lumber mill first as alliance, if unavailable, wait the game out and assault a base that the horde have taken already.

AV: Best to have a paladin come with you for crusader aura and run straight to RH, assault both east and west towers,

EotS: I found the easiest way to do this was wait on the opposing end the enemy comes out and burst them as quickly as possible, kill, take flag and sprint away.

Good luck everyone, these requirements are !@#$ty if you're not much of a PVPer. Just try and have fun and don't let others ruin it for you :)

Comment by 48190

This achivement is a mistake. Today I was in WSG - horde helped alliance, and alliance helped horde. Okay cute and nice, but AB, AV, EOTS is unplayable. And the whole week is going to be like that. Really, changing that it requires only one of these is a very nice idea.

Comment by 357392

most retarted achievement ever.

i hate PvP and wish there were servers without it. Now what does blizz do? Make me assault a tower in AV with like 20 other people trying the same and 20 retard alliance having fun killing me in my raid specc/gear.

Great fun, THANK YOU!

Comment by 15219

I started the morning of the first day and I got most of these done rather quickly, and i'm not the best PvPer, although I am geared for it. WSG is the worst one because of the turtle fest.

Draka-Horde, Disc Priest

Comment by Drudatz

Sorry but nomatter what u say this archivement is really the worst there is
especially when ur in a bg where u allways start ie in EotS 5 Horde vs 15 Allys
Just the worst Archi Blizz ever came up with...

Plus you see a lot ppl just doin the Archi in the BG and then do an /AFK....

Comment by 359845

Yes you have to be the one to "assault the tower" or "get the flag" I just spent 2 hours running around in BG's . They were a complete mess. 1 guy in WSG was "helping his horde friends" kept picking up the flag and dropping it for them to each get it, while the horde just kept taking our flag, lol. We all sat and waited for them to "help us" pff yeah right

Comment by 287357

Idk if its like this on other battlegroups, but as soon as Children's Week started the Allies and Horde reached a mutual consent to allow one tower/base to be constantly capped and recapped. In WSG both teams would constantly pick up, drop, and allow the opposing faction to return the flag. :D

Comment by 86602

I just managed to assault an Towerflag in AV with my orphan out and.... nothing.. did i missed something? i'm quite frustrated because i really suck in PvP

Comment by Sounder

You have to be the first one to click the flag and you have to complete the channel. If you did all the above, it's a glitch, but not a common one, just keep trying.

Comment by 313713

Just knocked this one out in about 2 hours or so.

AV was a real pain in the butt. Got lucky when a rogue recapped the Northern tower, and I killed him and capped back.

For EotS if you zerg the middle after getting a tower or two it's pretty easy. Hell, if you cap three towers you typically dominate the field already and you can farm out the flag caps amongst the team.

AB is a breeze, go for the Farm, or if you miss that one, just keep your eyes open, watch the momentum of the game and go for the recently recapped area when the attackers move on.

WSG, just hang back with the flag, or sit mid-field and pick off flag runners with a group. Either way you can all alternate flag pickups.

For hardcore PvPers this achievement sucks, as it really wrecks the BGs. And for carebears this may appear to suck, but honestly once you get in there you'll see this achievement isn't nearly as bad as a lot of people are making it out to be.

Good luck!

Comment by Cloudchaser

I can report that several times in WSG I was right next to a person that returned the flag and did not get credit. I had to be the one clicking the flag to return it to get the credit.

Edit: Here's a theory to test: Is it possible that you get credit if someone else performs the action who is in your pre-formed group and don't get credit when you're only in the battleground-assigned group?

Comment by Monsun

seriously why the hell i should bring a baby to a battle field! stupid achievement :(

Comment by 111622

There goes all hopes of getting a Violet Proto Drake...

Comment by silversg

I'm a Horde Hunter who just spent the last few hours doing this achievement. The hardest task (and the one that took the most attempts) was definitely assaulting a tower in Alterac Valley, just because of the number of other players all wanting to do the same thing. For Eye of the Storm and Warsong Gulch, I just hung around the flag and let others know what I was there for. Those of us there for the achievement all helped defend the flag, and took turns grabbing the flag (either to capture it in EotS or return it in WG). It helped in Warsong Gulch that a friendly Alliance player showed up who picked up and dropped the flag a few times so we could all return it and get credit. No such luck in Eye of the Storm; our group was in direct competition with the group of Alliance players who also wanted the achievement, so the flag base was constantly going back and forth between Alliance and Horde control as we fought over it.

For Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley, one of my favorite Beast Mastery talents came into play. Pathfinding allowed me to be the first to get to the Gold Mine (AB) and one of the towers close to the Alliance base (AV) so I could be the first to cap the flags. In Alterac Valley, nearly all of my fellow Hordies made a mad dash for one of the two Alliance towers near the middle of the map, since they're closer to our base, but I found myself with little to no competition in my attempts to get to one of the farthest towers near the Alliance base. You do have to get lucky and not be stopped by Alliance players or NPCs, but I did manage that easily after a couple tries. Since I came under fire from NPCs as soon as I entered the tower, I simply used Feign Death to drop aggro, and managed to stay out of their aggro radius when I went up the stairs and got to the flag. I capped it without interruption, which again, could take a couple tries depending on whether there are any Alliance players out to stop you.

I hope I've managed to help others get this achievement by sharing my experience. Good luck!

Comment by Baldulf

BTW, you do not get credit for *defending* a flag in AB; i.e., if you turn a contested flag back to your side, no good. It's gotta be an enemy flag, a neutral flag, or a flag going enemy that was previously neutral.

Comment by TheBestHunter

Definitely a hard achievement, but possible to do.

Just did it, like 40 minutes ago (23:50 Server Time) on 1/5/2009 (Woo)

Gz to all others, who got it :)

And gl to all those, trying to do it :)

Comment by 126192

Irritating achievement, but not as bad as the old Be Mine! achievement. You can either put together a premade for farming achievements, or hope to get lucky in a pug. I personally pugged all mine the first day before my guild could get a premade rolling. Expect everyone else to be going for the same achievements, and expect the "hardcore" bgers to complain the whole time about you caring more about your achievement than winning. EoTS was the worst since it was the holiday weekend and players on both sides were actually looking to win. None of them were particularly fun as a healer.

I understand that blizzard wants its players to experience all aspects of this game, but I wish they'd respect the wishes of those of us who were tired of battlegrounds before TBC was even released, and the livelihood of those who DO enjoy battlegrounds by not forcing people who don't enjoy battleground pvp into battlegrounds.

Comment by Turkey111

This achievement was by far the hardest to get. I got mine today but purely out of luck!
Here's what happened: So there's 40 Allys all running for the first tower in AV, some get side tracked by some Horde we collide with, other's didn't seem to care and just went for Galv. So there was about 5 or 6 of us all rushing for the tower with our orphans out when a Shaman/Druid runs to us and pops that spell that mass entangles (Forgive my lack of knowledge I have never played a Shaman or a Druid). So there everyone is entangled, everyone but me! So I carelessly run up the tower, AoE fear the archer mobs and get the tower. It honestly could not have worked out better :)

Comment by Saintbush

I must be bugged cause im not getting credit for the tower in AV and the response from a GM was we'll look into it

Comment by Kvasaari

I don't get what you all are whining. This achievement is easy to get, even for hc pve'er like myself. The only part which was semi-challenging was capturing an AV tower. It's just matter of luck if you're the first one to cap it. AB was the easiest, EotS second and WSG is again matter of luck.

This is one of the funniest meta-achievements there is. If you can't do this in 2 hours, either you or your server/faction sucks.

Comment by maruf42

Gawd! Your preparation makes my attempts sounds so naive. Well, in fact I did all of these going into each BG only once. As an Alliance, in AB I targetted Gold Mine as most of the people will be after Stable, Lumber Mill or Blacksmith, and got my task done in the first few second of the battle.

In AV, I keep my child out and as soon as the battle started I mounted and start running. I wasn't the first one in the group, but here is what I did, instead of targetting the first available Horde tower I run toward the last one, and at each tower I saw many people going in leaving me uncontested when I reach the tower I wanted to assult.

In EotS, as soon as the battle start I went to the flag respawn point, and get the flag, and run to the tower where most Allaince party members to capture it, as soon as we capture the tower, I capture the flag.

In WSG, well - its the tricky one. I was hiding in a corner of the room, waiting for some Horde to pick the flag, and as soon as some1 did, I start following him, hitting while one hand on mouse waiting for the flag to drop. Most Hordes were waiting in their area for the same achievement, so almost none was helping the flag carrier - makes my job easy, and as soon as the flag drops, I clicked, outclicking the other person with his child.

Well, I did them being a Warrior and not a Rogue.

Comment by xstaindx

If you don't do much BGs in AV: If you're horde capturing a bunker in AV will award you credit. Good Luck in the mad dash at the start.

Comment by 340386

"Assault a tower" is actually "Assault a bunker" in Hordes' case, and NOT "Defend a tower".

Comment by 339665

Managed this surprisingly easily for a non pvp'ing warlock.
The way I did AV was to run straight for Dun Baldur South from the off, let someone else go in first to pull the Alliance corporal, run up to flag and cap while out of LOS of the archers.

Comment by Wafs

I got this today, and AV was the hardest one by far.

I lucked out hardcore on this, the last tower had 4 hordies who weren't attacking us, and told us in horde speak not to kill (jumbled but still understandable). They just spam healed themselves if someone started attacking, anyway, they would let us capture with an orphan, and when we did so they would quickly change it back to horde, kept doing it for everyone , so I /thanked all of them :)

Comment by 360325

i got so fed up with the frustration of this dumb achievement and the abuse from other players that ive cancelled my account and quit wow altogether.

Comment by 255509

Oh man, I finally beat it. As someone who hardly ever does PvP and never even thought of setting foot in Battlegrounds, this achievement seemed impossible at first. By far, the easiest one was EotS - with everyone trying to get the flag, there were plenty of people who were nice meat shields. The hardest was WSG, especially since none of the horde on my server wanted to cooperate for the achievement. I was lucky in AV, because there was a hordie who just sat there recapping the tower so everyone could get the achievement who wanted it. I couldn't even tell you how i got AB. It seemed like that one was just really lucky!

So there's the experience of someone who has never done Battlegrounds before. If I could do it, so can you!

Comment by 55139

Thought I'd add my thoughts to this crappy PvP achievement! I'm a hunter, which helps. Some experience in AV, but that was all I had and I was absolutely dreading this whole damn achievement. By some miracle I have now completed it, so here are some top tips.......

1 - make a QQ rant post on a forum. Any forum. Preferably before you've put any serious effort in to doing the achievement. I did and the sarcastic replies I got really helped drive me to do this damn thing.

2 - don't plug away at the same BG too long - it will drive you nuts. Switch to a different one, have a break, have a kit-kat, before you explode.

3 - don't try AV first. It will make you hate everyone and/or cry.

4 - when you do get around to AV, head for the furthest towers. Most achievement seekers try the nearest first, then /afk when they fail. The players heading on down actually want to kill the opposition boss more often than not and leave a tower begging to be capped.

5 - don't know if it was just luck, but spamming my /wait macro at the big bad horde trying to stop me climbing his tower worked a treat.

6 - Eye of the Storm - turns out that grabbing the flag doesn't get you far if your side has no bases. Be patient. Quite often I could see we were about to get a flag to a base and most of the opposition had followed it there. Opposition then destroyed base in fit of vengeance, leaving someone like me free to grab the newly spawned flag and score lovely points by running it in the other direction to a different base (assuming there was one!).

POTENTIAL BUG - I got the flag, got the Storm Capper achievement, had orphan running behind me, didn't get the SoHK achievement. No reply to ticket yet, but I suspect I failed because orphan was too far behind. Even so, can't have been more than about 20 yards away. Had to do it all again.

7 - Don't forget to summon your orphan after each resurrection and before you try something like flag carrying.

8 - Don't give up!

9 - Think of all those other achievements you'll get and let it motivate you. I got 5 PvP ones doing this, including guaranteed achievements like Storm Capper. Still haven't won WSG though.....

10 - Don't just /afk when you've done the task. It's rude and lazy. Take the opportunity to feel self-righteous by sticking with the BG and wreaking bloody vengeance on all those who made you do AV 39 times today.

Comment by 360300

I know a few people on my server who have this title already and surprise, surprise they are palys and rogues. >.>

As a healing priest I find that this is probably going to wreck my chances at this title. The Hordies on my server aren't even remotely cooperative and my allys suck just as badly for not allowing the enemy to complete some of these achievements. There has been no truce in any of the battles I've done since this event started.

I've completed all the titles from Hallow's End through to Noblegarden and to be shut down this far in the 'What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been' ach it's horribly disappointing. The 'With a Little Helper from My Friends' achievement was easy compared to this PvP one. At least I had a chance to heal and still have kills count for me if I was in the proximity before the enemy noticed they had a healer to exterminate. Granted it took about 20 battlegrounds to accomplish but it was doable. Had that achievement said that I would personally have to have 50 killing blows while still in costume? Well.. I'd have given up right there. I get one or two killing blows per battle by accident if I'm VERY lucky and If I manage to DoT some enemy players. To do that over and over again and maintain that costume would have been just as bad as this achievement.

This nonsense of being ~the~ person to capture the objectives reeks of injustice to the squishier classes. I'm not a stanger to PvP and I'm not QQing that we have PvP requirements in some of the World Events but I really hope Bliz removes this from the requirements since they didn't rethink how this achievement could be accomplished by all the players.

Comment by Kabby

The word "tower" apparently translates to "bunker" in Orcish.

These are the towers that will count for this achievement in Alterac Valley:

Alliance Towers (Horde captures these):

Horde Towers (Alliance captures these):

Map locations are approximate.

Comment by 126192

10 - Don't just /afk when you've done the task. It's rude and lazy. Take the opportunity to feel self-righteous by sticking with the BG and wreaking bloody vengeance on all those who made you do AV 39 times today.

Haha, I did exactly that actually. I was in an EotS with us holding 3 bases, 1800something to 1500ish with us in the lead, and after I capped the flag for the achievement, I told everyone thanks and /afked. Such is the disdain I have for the BG system.

Comment by ithilyn

A lot of determination and no small amount of dumb luck got me this achievement. If you're having trouble, don't get discouraged, just keep trying. And if you run out of time, remember, there's always next year. It's not as far off as it seems.

Edited 7 years later to remove some of the QQing about the PvP component. It may be tough for non-PvPers but it's a satisfying part of the achievement once completed. And the sad thing is, I never use this drake, because it's pink. That's a little jab Blizzard put in there for those of us "remembering what we're fighting for" while, presumably, everyone else is off raiding and earning real drakes.

While the What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement is, overall, satisfying, and one I'll always be proud of, at this point, if you just want a cool drake, you'd be better off soloing Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10 player) and getting Reins of the Rusted Proto-Drake.

Comment by 358385

this one was quite easy did it a couple hours. The one i wished they would take out is the one in Utgarde... I haven't done an instance since sunken temple 2+ years ago. 3 attempts and 3 fails grouping sucks

Comment by jessika

I seem to be one of the lucky ones; a guildie and I did BGs all night to get this achievement, and a few BGs were preforms and didn't work out, but others the alliance were there to get their achievements just like we were, and they would actually help us out. Had a rogue in WSG repeatedly and intentionally pick up and drop the flag, just so we could all return it. And we, of course, returned the favor. EOTS, however, was a completely different story... >< My suggestion: Help out the opposite faction and they may just help you in return.

Comment by Mirre

Okay guys, I know it seems impossible at first but I just did it (finally). I am a priest, and I thought this was absolutely undoable. But here's how I did it - and believe me I was furious at Blizz for 2 days before suddenly figuring it out.

After about 7 games in EotS I got lucky and everyone was drawn away from the flag for a few seconds.
After about 20 tries in AV and getting super mad, I finally took a paladin (helps if they're a good pvper). His mount speed increase + his survivability saved me. We just ran straight up to the south tower at dun balder and I capped it while he distracted the NPCs.
The first AB I tried I just ran straight to mine, capped it, done.
The first WSG I tried it took about 30mins but I did finally manage to elbow the other horde out of the way and return the flag.

Hope this helps, it's really not as hard as it seems. Granted, we should still be mad at Blizz for ruining bg games for those who actually WANT to be in there. A very poorly designed achievement, yes. Impossible? No.

The key is to get a couple friends to help you. You don't need a whole premade, or even a whole party. Just 1 or 2 people who are willing to help increase your chances.

Comment by Tucker28

Like others that have posted about this, I've also been thinking of cancelling my account because of these pvp achievements. I hate pvp, Blizz... why do you think I'm playing on a PvE server? I'm tired of being forced to pvp just so I can get these achievements and earn the mount. But more than that, I feel for the pvp players out there. All of their BG's have been ruined for the week as they have to suffer from all of us non-pvp players suddenly flooding their games and ruining the fun for them. It's the overall picture that has me thinking of cancelling my account... with Blizz popping things like this in, it makes me wonder where they're going to take the game.

Blizzard? A suggestion here... how about you get it through your head that some people love pvp and some people hate it? These attempts at forcing non-pvp fans to "experience" it do NOT cause us to suddenly think "hey! I've had it all wrong! this is fun!". We still hate it. And what's worse is you ruin things for the people who love pvp because they have to suffer through those of us who don't coming in and ruining their games.

Comment by 356468

AV is by far going to be the hardest. With 39 other peeps trying for the piddly few towers this is going to be very difficult for a non-BG player like myself.

Comment by Trippid

I'm not much for pvping, and I don't even use a pvp trinket to say the least. As a shaman with imp ghostwolf getting the EotS flag wasn't actually that difficult - the hardest part was ensuring we actually had a tower to bring it back to.

WSG wasn't too bad either, I guess being a spammy clicker when the flag carrier is about to die is a bonus here.

AB seems simple enough so far, I haven't gotten it, but that was my own fault. Essentially just be the first to get to farm flag and hope to heck you clicked fast enough :P

As for AV... I did click and cap it when it was grey turning blue for the Alliance, but I did not get credit. I had my orphan out and another Horde near me said he had the same problem. Any confirmation on needing a tower to be fully blue/red to get the achiev?

**And on a side note I'm utterly suprised by what these achievs did to my battle group. Pretty much every single battleground I've been in trying to complete the achievements was a win for Horde. It was a little odd considering since WotLK Horde in this battlegroup have a history of bg failures.**

Comment by 153148

After a lot of frustration at getting the EotS flag, I was starting to wish this achievement would be altered or taken off of the meta for the holiday.

But...

in the end, I really hope it stays. I absolutely hate PvP and didn't even go into these with one piece of PvP gear, so I really wasn't looking forward to the requirements to this achievement; so far they've probably been the hardest ones to accomplish outside of the purely random ones like the bag of candies for The Love Fool.

But that's exactly why it -should- stay, as is. It's the random (or double random, in the bag of candies case) achievements that should be looked at as "unfair". The most dedicated person in the world can still not get the random rewards, but these PvP achievements...even if they're annoying...are right there in plain view. It may be hard to go get them, but this is one of those things that separates the men from the boys, so to speak.

I was cursing at the screen over people without orphans capping the EotS flag just out of spite. I even managed to cap it once myself -without- my orphan out and had to go do it again. But in the end, I got it done. And if I'd just stayed calm and not let all the petty %^&* get to me, I would've gotten it done without raising my blood pressure. And now I can stay out of EotS until another holiday achievement happens to require it.

Blizz, keep this achievement in there and don't change a thing about it. Just because some particularly vocal people kick and scream and flail, that shouldn't mean they should be hand fed the reward just to keep them quiet. I understand people loathing PvP; I'm one of them. But with the overal meta-holiday achievement, and the Violet Proto-Drake it rewards, we're all going to have to bite a bullet somewhere along the line. You draw a series of achievements up over the course of a year or more then there's no way you're going to make everybody happy with them. Suck it up, go get your achievement, and keep working toward that drake......or don't. The choice is purely up to you.

Comment by goatsicle

I was prepared for the worst after reading these posts in anticipation of the holiday.

I did all of the other parts of the meta first, feeling that i would need the rest of the week to be frustrated.

I felt the achievement should be removed because of the bias against certain classes (and the bias against me: i just suck as a pvp'r).

I seldom have done bgs since wotlk came out.

AV first try -- lucky to cap TP after the horde stole it
AB first try -- capped mines while a huge melee ensued, i was ignored :)
EoS first try -- ran right to MT, waited to have control, ran to flag, grabbed it and ran back unabated
WSG fifth try -- i could never seem to click on the flag before someone else, until i got lucky

the moral of the story: try it before you really complain, it's really not that bad. just hope to get lucky, and be in the right place at the right time.
if i could do it, so could you

-goat

Comment by 236258

Its sad to Say i kinda Suck at pvp as well, my biggest contribution to any BG is tying up 3-5 people trying to kill me because i usally have 7-10k more HP than everybody else there not in full pvp gear, after 5 AB attempts, and as many on EotS and WSG, i gave up on this achievement sadly. I agree that it should have been different set-up for this acheviment playing to the middle of the road players, or have a PvP element that is a brother to a PvE element like a choice of doing Heroics or BG. That would be the best IMO. Let the +/- begin

Comment by 136629

This whole achievement is soloable by a shadow priest (raid dps spec clothy) with no PvP gear (albeit pretty good raid gear), as just proven by yours truly.

WSG- 2nd or 3rd try
EotS- 2nd try
AB- 1st try
AV- 2nd try

All this is is just seizing the proper oppotunities. If I can do it, I daresay any skilled player can. Quit your QQing, buckle down, and do it. This is an achievement for a reason.

Comment by 331887

AB- not so hard just raced everyone to the flag and got it first

WSG- kinda hard since there was holy/prot pally with the flag accompanied by a priest but we got him down and i was spam clicking the air to get flag and got it

EotS- pretty easy, we took turns with the flag since no horde were there

AV- hardest to get, took me 3 hours to get it, i went into the enemies territory at end of map and raced up a tower
wzs close to getting it but got tag and interrupted by a lock, turned and tried to kill him
i almost died but a very helpful DK came by and finished him off while i got flag
THANK YOU RANDOM DK

Comment by 329651

AB - Probably the easiest. As others have mentioned, just race to a flag in the beginning. If that doesn't work, just spend some time looking for undefended flags. If you are Alliance, hang around the Stables and recapture it when you can. If Horde, do the same for Farm.

AV - Generally not too bad. Just race to the end of the battleground and capture a tower. The opposing side is very likely doing the same and the towers on their end of the BG are usually uncontested. One of my guild members had to try capturing several times before the objective listed as completed for some reason.

EotS - This was by far the hardest for me and my guild members. We were facing constant premades and everyone was always mobbing the flag. This took several games to complete. Killing the opposing faction's flag carrier, picking up the flag and returning it seemed to work the best.

WSG - At first this was challenging because nobody would focus on the healers keeping the flag carrier alive. After people coordinated, this was pretty easy.

All in all, this took about 4 hours to complete. Not terrible, but it was frustrating at times (not a big PvPer, even though I play on a PvP realm). I'd rather have spent that time doing something else.

Comment by 361235

For AV, even as a Hunter, I lucked out and just ran straight south to the East and West Towers of Frostwolf Keep. There were no Horde around, and apparently most of my Allies felt storming the first two towers (Iceblood & Tower Point) along the way was a better choice, so that in itself shed many competitors for the last two towers. I ran up to the top of the West Tower, LoS'd the guards who left me alone after I entered the flag room, and voila, flag was all mine! Purely luck, but at the same time, fairly easy knowing that most people tend to charge for the first available towers they see.

AB was merely a race to the Stables, first attempt, very easy.

I have yet to do EotS and WSG, and being a non-pvper, I do not look forward to these lol.

Good luck.

Comment by Utukku

Well, as I'm a PvE player, I can understand all of you when you complain about this particular achievement.

But you all should try more than once before complaining. I'm a holy/disc PvE priest and I managed to get the achievement with 0 resilience. None of these things are impossible for anyone, even for ppl that don't play PvP.

You have a whole week to try, so give it a chance.

I really prefer to try to make a hard achievement than to /cry and get it removed... even if I cannot complete it. Achievements should be hard, that's what I really think.

Comment by 361297

i do feel for the dedicated pvp'ers who feel like their game gets ruined periodically by having pvp noobs running around looking only to get an achievment in a bg. I played for about a year and a half before i stepped foot into a bg. And the only reason I went then was because a friend got me hooked on completing the seasonal achievements. And I was not happy about the pvp requirements. But i gotta say, I found out that i actually LIKED pvp. Not all the time....not enough to respec or regear for it...but enough to jump in and participate once in a while. I'm a healer and I know i am contributing in a worthwhile way when I'm there. And i wouldn't ever have been there if Bliz didn't "push" me into it via the achievement system. Makes sense to me that they find ways to get people to explore all aspects of the game. :)

Comment by 263444

just to say i h8 this one :D just hating it from deep of my soul ^^ but i will do it

Comment by Sithicus

I feared this achievement for a long time and wasn't sure how it would end up once Children's Week actually started. Judging from the above posters I got pretty lucky.

EoTS - Ran straight down the cliff when the bubble popped open and did a b-line for the flag..was at 20% health and saw 2 horde running towards me but somehow they got crushed before they ever stopped me from grabbing the flag...total luck. First try.

WSG - Took me two tries but eventually got it just by camping the base and following the enemy flag carrier until he got creamed. Tip - the flag is actually there as soon as the carrier dies but due to lag is may not show up right away on screen...as soon as the guy drops start clicking all around as fast as you can.

AB - Another lucky one. First try I somehow got out of the gate ahead of the group. I happened to be grouped with a pally with the speed buff who did not go to stables.

AV - This one worried me but some cool horde helped me out. I ran up the tower and did a quick /plead and /point (to the orphan) to the guy guarding the flag. He /nodded and let me cap, then took it back...I then capped it again for his buddy who was also there and we all got it. Good times....how I get a nice couple month break before the Midsummer Fire Festival!

Comment by Selayna

This is not the worst achievement, but it certainly makes the top 5. The worst was brew of the year. The second worst was the valentines day candy achievement. This is a solid third worst, though. It is not fun, not fair, and ruins battlegrounds ( which I actually play and enjoy from time to time).

Comment by Nighthawke

Well I have 3 of the 4, but AV is killing me, I have personally captured the flags several times in the Dun Baldar North and South Bunker with my orphan out and nobody else there, still no credit for the achievement! WTH!
On the bright side I am now 10121 of 12000 into honored and have received a lot of Alterac Valley Marks. I have put way too many hours into this damn achievement.
Alas, I will not give up, I am going to try the orphan from Org, maybe the Shattrah one just does not like me anymore, complains of too much killing. Poor traumatized little creature.

Comment by kwicked

Assault a tower in Alterac Valley

A trick for non DKs (on a pale horse) or paladins on Alliance (same concept with horde just different tower names). If you are a paladin or DK with pale horse, even better:

Having some sort of potion that increases your run speed will help.

Step 1: At the beginning of the game, look for a paladin with a kid out. Chances are this guy is trying to get a tower achievement and most likely will have crusader aura on (hopefully even aura mastery so he'll even get a little boost).

Step 2: Follow this guy as closely as possible when the game starts (run through the lake with him) and chances are he'll be going to the Ice Blood Tower (the closest one). Once you both run in there with your mount and when you get auto dismounted, hit sprint or rocket boots or whatever else you have to dash up the tower faster than the paladin. (Hint: At the very top go left instead of right to avoids the bowmen and get into the flag room more quickly)

Optional: If you notice that Ice Blood Tower is impossible because someone else made it way before, Tower Point isn't far away and if you stuck with the right paladin you should be the first one there.

I know it sounds greedy but the people who never PvP and aren't familiar with how AV works are going to have a painful time with this achievement. If you fail to get the flag in the AV game, don't leave yet, take a chance to get familiar with the towers so you don't fall off or something dashing up to the top. Good luck and remember to have your kid out!

Comment by 235336

You may also want to create a macro to notify the opposing faction of your intentions.
/wait
/target Orphan
/point
/target last
/wait
They might stop killing you and and actually assist your team in completing the achievements - as long as you assist them.

WSG - have one person pick up their flag, then drop it in their flag room for one of them to return. Continue until their whole team gets the achievement. Odds are, they will do the same for you.
EoTS - each faction take a turn returning a flag. (Only 1 base controlled per faction)
AB/AV - assault a flag/tower, let them defend it, then let someone else assault. (If each person needs to assault)

Server: US-Coilfang
Toon: Talisin - Horde
Battlegroup: Retaliation

AB/AV were both very easy for me to get done, only took one try.
WG took a few tries. I mainly just waited in the flag room with a few other players and took turns returning the flag after we killed the flag carrier.
EoTS was hardest for me as it was the Holiday weekend. After many tries and a lot of nerd rage I stripped down my armor and ran up to the flag naked with my Orphan out. No one attacked me and as the battle raged on around me I was allowed to grab the flag and return it. "Worked for me, might work for someone else."

Also big thanks for the help from both sides on this achievement.

Comment by LoqueNahak

A Hunter's feedback
(never PvP'ed in my wow career)

Notes:

level 80
blue/emblem gear
zero PvP experience/skill/knowledge
zero PvP gear
zero BG's knowledge (maps, tactics, locations, ...)
crappy reflexes, button smasher (I know...)

I tried with my my primary MM spec but speed was not enough to beat other competitors. Specced BM with talents in Pathfinding (+10% mounted speed) really helps a lot when running for the tower (AV) or assaulting the 1st flag (AB). It will also help you running away in (EotS) as soon as you grab the flag in the middle of the map.

When it comes to (WG)... well that's pure luck, no matter what you try to do. Speed does not count as you will be constantly stunned, slowed, feared or just frozen to the ground as son as you shot the flag carrier. On my realm the "/beg /point <children> /wait" did not work at all: instead, they just kept destroying me as never before, maybe with more anger (if possible).

The only thing I did was staying as close as possible to the flag carrier hoping to be ignored by others and be ready to grab the flag as soon as possible. I did 10 WG runs. First 8 did not produce anything but frustration. 9th allowed me to kill the Horde player AND grab the flag... but I forgot my child (ARGH!). 10th I was able to followe the flag carrier and kill him with some other alliance players. I was lucky because everyone was frozen/rooted and I had those 2 seconds to click the flag and get the achievement done. Pure luck, that's all.

Overall I think Blizzard should just remove this achievement from the meta. Yes I was able to complete it but as a pure PvE player I felt very frustrated, useless and noob while running the BG's. I've been a sstupid player who joined BG's just for my personal interests (achievement) more than actually help other people. I did not like that, I think it's just a bad way to introduce PvE veterans to PvP.

To sum it up: 2 out of 4 achievements (tower and flag capping) are doable if you're fast and no Paladins are doing the same. 2 are just a matter of pure luck. Given that we got a week, I found a bit pointless forcing people to repetitively join BG's just to get the job done and then bye bye.

Comment by Whisternefet

Been trying to get this one for the entire week. The only thing I'm missing is the Flag Recap in WG. It's really sad that the people on my side that can see I have an orphan out recap the flag right in front of me, even though I'm right there and helped kill the flag carrier. When I ask them why they did it, all I get is verbal abuse in return. Really, this achievement brings out the worst in people. Both in the PVP'ers and in the people trying to get the achievement. (I'm guilty of AFK'ing out of AB after getting the achievement.)

I got the achievements like GNERD rage, and the fifty kills in a santa's helper costume. Those were really painless compared to this piece of work.

AV: running to the farthest tower worked for me.
EOTS: it's pure luck that I came upon the flag when everyone else had been chasing down the carrier.
AB: I ran as fast as possible to the mine.
WG: No love. From my side or the opposition. I tried the /wait /point /beg /cry and any other emote I could, as well as standing by our flag naked, with my orphan out, dancing. Multiple times. The opposition killed me as a matter of fact.

I've gotten a whole lot of tokens and honor, and got my ten tabards achievement from it. Still, having this for the meta is crazy IMHO. I hope they do something with this one. It's caused all sorts of pain to the people that want to PVP and the people looking to get their achievements done.

*Update: Finally got the achievement by dumb luck in WG. Killed the flag carrier by myself while his defenders were killing my "allies" and they were all still in the flag room some 30 yards away. Even then, I barely managed to click the flag before everyone else came after it. People on my side that weren't after the achievement were still recaping the flag and being extremely rude to the people trying to get the achievement. I guess my battlegroup is just full of people that only play to grief others.

Comment by 259795

That's a negative. After 4 hours of trying to do this in AV, I've gotten a number of the PvP achievements despite the fact that I've not a single honorable kill in my life just by being near someone who got one.

I've been near someone with my orphan out assaulting every freaking tower in the place twice, and no dice.

They really should rework this whole thing.

Comment by 361237

Think at the end much more people got this achievement comparing to what we expected before Children's week start.
Only Midsummer and Brewfest left for those who started the achievements when they came out. :>

Comment by 300731

I can't be entirely sure but I think that this achievement was named after a song called School of Hard Knocks by P.O.D(a Rapcore band and one of my favorites.)

Okay, now as for everyone who is complaining for this achievement it is optional, meaning that you do not HAVE to do it. I found it pretty easy in my battlegroup since some of the people in there helped heal me when I tried EoTS. When it came to WSG, my guild made a pre-made WSG group and I got it easily. Arathi Basin, in my opinion, is by far the easiest to obtain.

Also, I think that Alterac Valley was the hardest to obtain somehow, it was my last one I got for the achievement. The reason why it was hard was because I was in a 40-man raid group with about half of them being my competition in racing to a tower and assaulting it.

EoTS - All I did for capturing the flag in EoTS was ask in battlegrounds chat for a healer to help shield and heal me when needed. Luckily, I found someone nice enough to do so. So, I went into the middle of the map and camped for a while while fighting off the Horde. The first few times I did not capture it, but I just kept camping then when I got it I ran my ass out of there.

WSG - WSG was quite easy for me since my guild wanted to make a random pre-made for Warsong Gulch for no reason. I joined and eventually they gave each of us a chance to return the flag. I figure this part of the achievement is pretty easy, even when you randomly join a battle without a pre-made.

AB - Okay this one is pretty easy also. You don't even need a pre-made for this just gotta beat the others in your raid. I just quickly summoned my orphan then mounted up and right when the battle started I got my ass to the Stables and assaulted it.

AV - Woo, this one takes a lot of patience, well it did for me anyways. Since you basically are racing a big raid group in order to assault a tower. I was very lucky on this when I got it after my 3rd AV match. I ran all the way down as far as I could go and ran in a tower. As I reached the top I noticed one of the Ally's were already trying to assault it for their achievement. This was the last tower to be assaulted so I figured I would have to wait for another match but actually... the Ally got dazed by a NPC Horde guard and I had my chance to capture it. It was pretty funny because after I assaulted it he just cursed me out, I just left.

Okay so that was my take on it, feel free to mark this comment as "negative" or whatever it doesn't matter to me. I'm just here sharing my experience with it and... killing time. Sorry for all who couldn't get it in time.

~Kinqo

Comment by 363448

Yes, the achivement has to be completed within the Children's Week. The whistle to summon your Orphan will be deleted once the Festival is over sadly :( Good luck on getting the achivement thou! :D

Comment by 159425

I can confirm that completing the quests with an orphan even after Children's Week is over still counts toward the achievement. (I completed Hail to the King, Baby just last night, 4 days after Children's Week ended...)

I picked up the Stormwind orphan two days before Children's Week came to a close. The whistle has a seven-day cooldown regardless of when it is acquired.

So, here I am with one day left on my orphan whistle still trying to capture and return the Alliance flag in a Warsong Gulch battle. (My one last task to acquire the Patron title!) I don't know if it's going to happen... (Especially with the extended maintenance on Nathrezim today, I'm rapidly running out of time. Squishy priest and all...)

Hopefully I'll be able to get some guildies to head into WSG with me and help me finish up the achievement later today. (I'd rather not have to wait until next May to acquire the violet proto-drake!)

UPDATE: It looks like I'll be waiting until next May. Grrr! I must have run WSG nearly 30 times over the past couple days... begged people to let me return the flag just once... But as a priest (experiencing slight yet frequent network lag), this part of the achievement turned out to be (apparently) impossible. The level of frustration in attempting this one "simple" task unsuccessfully over and over and over again was beyond annoying as I watched myself one-shotted, pounded into the dirt more times than I can count, and seeing fellow Alliance players send the flag back mere nano-seconds before I reached it myself.

Comment by Engwadur

Can anyone confirm that you can't acquire this achievement with the new wolver pup or with the oracle orphan?

Edit: Alright, I've confirmed you can't obtain this achieve with the resently released Northrend orphans. W/ screen shot.

Comment by 315792

I still wish they would modify or remove this one from the meta-achievement. I don't enjoy PVP, then only BG's I like are Wintergrasp and AV (like is overstating it btw). BUt I would not like doing them often.
I agree with someone above who says that it's no fun having to do PVP for anahcievement whilst not playing on a PVP server. I wish that the PVP achievements were in a separate world events PVP achievement list.

I am doing the PVP achievements but to be honest I am afraid I'm ruining the experience for a lot of other players that do like to do the stuff. Cause I don't care about anything else but getting the achievement so you won't see me capturing mines, attacking other players, killing generals etc in AV. I won't be defending towers in EOTS or capturing them, I just want the flag and will be waiting for the opportunity to get it and get out.

Blizzard should make a section in PVP achievements for this stuff... really. And have the PVE stuff in a different...

Comment by 394556

I'm surprised nobody told that this is a reference from "Rock your Sock" by Tenacious D, it actually ROCKS!

Comment by 513061

i like pvp , but this one is the only thing that going to prevent me to take the drake .. :( !

Comment by 445357

Wait, we're teaching our poor orphans violence?

Hmm...

Matron:What did you teach your orphan?
Orphan:How to slaughter people.
Matron:Excuse me?
*screaming*
You: I'm so proud of little Timmy!
Orphan: My name is James.
You:Shut up or I'll feed you to my Elekk.

Comment by 233039

Sometimes I wish I could just get the Blizzard developer who made these achievements and blow his knee caps off.

thank you. I agree,after 2 years of waiting on this achievement all i have left is a tower in av and a wsg flag return. peeling their skin sound to good for the developer also...i guess that would be flaying huh?

Comment by tyguy21g

I am a achievement junkie

I have better things to do with my time.

these things dont mix.. plus this is one of the easier achievements, im a squishy enhancement shaman and i have no trouble, if you really are an achievement junkie you would realize that some achievements just have to be earned less common ways, such as:

Capture the flag in Eye of the Storm:
well i personally have it easy here im an engineer, and a shaman i use my rocket boots and parachute at the start of the match land right on the flag pick it up before the enemy team can get anywhere near me ghost wolf and run to a tower being capped and im done. (cloak can be replaces with a mages slowfall/priest levitate and rocket boots can be replaced with a mount if you have a pally with crusader aura in group, and the ghost wolf at the end to ensure you get safely to tower can be replaced with swiftness potion)

Assault a flag in Arathi Basin
this requires no PVP gear or experience whatsoever just mount up run to a flag at start and cap it. being an engineer also helps here because i can use my rocket boots for the last few seconds to ensure i get the first click

Assault a tower in Alterac Valley
slightly more difficult than the others but still not hard, just run past the enemy team and assault icewing bunker/iceblood tower. most of the time they wont even touch you at the start of the match because they wanna get into the big combat areas/towers to cap

Return a fallen flag in Warsong Gulch
easy as long as you have a decent computer, so the flag loads fast when dropped, state that you are going to play defense at the start of the match at least 1 or two people will stay with you, wait untill someone picks up the flag slow them if you can while your allys kill them and mash click on where the flag is going to drop.

Comment by 243202

My girlfriend is a carebear of epic proportions, she couldn't pvp her way out of Northshire Abbey. So, for this, I had to carry her through a few things...

AB: Easy, crusader aura on, she runs to farm and caps it before anyone else. Just luck and speed.
EotS: She waited at FRR and capped that, while I grabbed flag. Ran near her, dropped it, she grabbed it, capped.
WSG: Luckily alliance were playing along, sending a 45k hp tank to grab and drop flag over and over. Took a while for some scrubs to stop killing him, but we all got this and Frenzied Defender too! One in a million players in WoW are nice.
AV: She ran with me all the way to end bunkers, like in a zerg. I tied up archers and she capped.

EotS was by far the hardest, since there was so much competition for the flag, and alliance premades were cashing in on the horde carebears sitting on the flag by 4-capping us every game. Had to go through 5 or so losses before we got to a game where both teams were going for achie.

On that note, trading flags in WSG, bases in AB, and towers in AV, are great ways to get their respective 'grind' defend achievements. I got frenzied defender, overly defensive, and tower defense so far, and I will be going for To The Rescue! and Persistent Defender before Children's Week is over!

Comment by 263414

Last year my fear of this achievement stopped me from completing the meta. I admit, I'm a pretty huge carebear but I used to do a lot of PvP and wasn't afraid of the BGs themselves so much as that I couldn't trust the people to play nice for a few minutes.

Now I'm halfway through with this and while it isn't fun by any means, it's not horrible. I went ahead and tried AV first, though maybe I should have gone after WSG before that. First game went badly, the Horde either didn't understand my /waits or they just didn't care. Second time around I got to Iceblood Tower where there were probably 4-5 Horde who started to attack me, but I /waited them and they jumped back and let me do my thing. So gracious!

Then I did AB, which also took two games. Both times the other side wasn't letting me or anyone just waltz up and cap a flag. But towards the end of the second game, the Alliance zerged the Stables and while they were all distracted I managed to get the flag. I had actually assaulted the farm earlier without my orphan out! Ugh.

Edit: just did EotS, by far the quickest and most fun! As expected everyone rushed to the flag and the Horde got control over it pretty easily. They were just swapping people out for capping the flag for a minute or two while the Alliance took control over 2-3 bases. At one point there was so much chaos in the center I went to get the flag and was surprised when I wasn't interrupted. Promptly capped it at MT and collected some HK's until we won. Got a couple achievements too.

All finished! WSG was mostly a breeze, there was a bit of confusion at the start but then for a good couple of minutes this troll warrior kept going to get the flag so all we Allies could finish our achievement. I went to the Horde base and did the same. It was a precious moment.

Comment by Shadock

"School of Hard Knocks" also mentioned in the song "Rock your Socks" by Tenacious D.

Comment by Hairband

It might be nice to explain to those with NO battlegrounds experience what the objective is a bit more step by step. Rate this up if you have no BG experience and you want to know more about what to do. This is not going to be a /rant to nerf the achievement or a /whine how hard it was or a /brag how easy it was. Also for starters, don't mount when you have a flag or you'll lose it.

Capture the flag in Eye of the Storm:

In summary, the objective is to click a flag and return it to a base owned by your faction. There are 4 bases (2 each by the Alliance/Horde entry points) and a center flag placed on a mound on sort of a bridge, so don't fall off. Everyone will need to run to the center obviously to click the flag (it'll have a cog/gear tooltip). The flag takes like 10 seconds to attach to you when you click it, like a cast. You cannot be in combat or else there will be an "Interrupted" message. If you are successful, a message is broadcast " has the flag," or something similar. Nothing will go into your inventory; the flag just appears on your back so you know if you have it! That is, if you are lucky enough to get to it, because there will be traps, rogues, AOE everywhere on that center mound. But at some time in EOTS (for me, 4 BG's) that mound is going to be clear--AND you will see a message broadcast "The flag has been returned to the base" or something like that. Hopefully you'll be in the right place at that time, and hopefully with a base owned by your faction to run to.

My advice is to just try to keep that center mound clear of the opposing faction, and try to be first to click it while everyone is elsewhere, and be patient. Once you do have the flag, you have to make it to one of the 4 bases, as long as it's owned by your faction. If you're NOT the first to click the flag after it respawns, but someone of your faction IS, then protect the heck out of them. I put Aspect of the Pack on, and lay down traps for my flag carriers, and Flares if they were up. Eventually, the opposing faction will kill an unlucky flagbearer and the flag'll be on the ground for you to pick up and click. Then, when you are successful, hopefully you will run right for your base and the minute you land there, you should be done. Look at your Achievement tracker and your EOTS should be cleared off.

Assault a tower in Alterac Valley:

The objective here is to find a tower owned by the opposite faction, run to the top of that tower, and click a banner inside. (Again, cog/gear tool tip and about a 10 second cast time and you can't be in combat to click the banner.) Initially, there will be 4 each Alliance/Horde towers. What do the towers look like? I was expecting a tower, but they're not towers really. The Alliance ones look to me like the lookout stations in Loch Modan (we've all done the Tunneler's Ear's Quests) and the Horde ones look a little like the Orcish towers in The Barrens where you pick up Harpies Threaten. Anyway, at the top of these towers are some NPC's guarding these banners. If you're lucky, you can run past the NPC's and click the banner if you're in a group, but if not, try using your pet for classes with them. I've done this twice and both times my group's synergy got me this prong of the achievement. One person was dual boxing with a horde/alliance toon, and the alliance person organized everyone's achievement at the tower using his hordie to help click the flag to make it a Horde flag, just so we could turn around and reclick it and make it an Alliance (for as long as he could, anyway--someone on the Horde didn't appreciate the help as you might imagine).

The thing everyone is saying about this is kind of true: everyone of the other faction is running past you and not wanting to kill you; if they have their orphan out, they probably are looking for a tower guarded by your faction's NPC's and don't care about you. But because of the layout of the map, you're trying to go past YOUR territory into THEIR territory, so you will cross paths with quite a few of the opposing faction so just try to be speedy and use the posts here that contain the maps of the bases if you don't know how to read your BG map.

Assault a flag in Arathi Basin:

I'm a little bit fuzzy about what I did to get this but I'll edit this tonight when I do it on my alt. If I remember correctly, there will be 4 bases you need to capture, and each base starts out neutral (ie., with a grey non-Alliance, non-Horde flag). I think once you touch a grey flag, it takes about 10 seconds of cast time, and if you are the first successful person to click the flag,the flag becomes that of your faction. Like the other two above, you cannot be in combat or else you get an "Interrupted" message. And like the other two, there will probably be three or four people trying to click the flag so you may not be first, so be patient.

ETA: For patch 4.3: This one I got on an alt today and I had to click the opposing faction's flag. I came in with my /beg and my /help emotes to the one defender that was there. It seemed as if the defender was going to let me have the flag, because he wasn't casting any spells. Meanwhile I was saying "I need a flag for my orphan, so please let me have one!" in the /bg chat. Just then, the defender started to get ganked by a rogue and I just did a Hail Mary and clicked their flag.

Return a fallen flag in Warsong Gulch:

I'll confess I didn't know what to do at first, but it's really easy, in theory. First, someone of the opposing faction has to take your flag from your base and begin to run it back to their flag room. You'll stop them by killing them, and the flag will be on the ground for you to pick up. You'll pick up YOUR OWN faction's flag and voila! Ignore their flag, because if you try to be a hero and run their flag to your base, you won't get the achievement. A lot of ranged classes might have problems with this if there is stiff competition and scads of orphans running around the dropped flag. With good communication, hopefully you will be in an understanding BG group and help each other out. Doing this, everyone was rooting for me and helping me, and was a really positive experience.

Hope that helps. Remember to rate up if this helped you figure out what you were supposed to do. ETA: I don't think anything has changed in 4.3.

Comment by 517094

Thought I would put in my feedback about this achievement.

I tried EoST yesterday and found that not only are you going against an opposing team where many were trying to get their achievement, but also the folks on your side doing the same. You have to be lucky to get this one but with the chances stacked against you. I was not able to get mine.

The next day I tried to get into the fights in the morning but of the 4 battle-grounds needed, AB was the fastest with the rest of the waits were averaging 15 minutes and up. I went in as a healer and noticed that my side charged the first point and whoever has the fastest mount gets to cap. The rest of the fight even rushing in with others, I ended up being focus of the enemy and so I spent the majority of my time waiting to be rezzed. After a bad match and losing, I decided to switch to shadow and that helped some. I was still not able to get at least AB done and a number of players upon getting their cap, left the fight. At the farm I just helped kill the last enemy player there, and the other player capped the flag even with my child being out.

I can see that attempting this event is utterly pointless and basically a waste of time. It does not encourage team-work. At least I wished I could have received credit for being close to the point when it was capped or if we had won.

With things and how they stand, I decided to not bother with getting the achievement and the drake at the end of this whole debacle just isn't worth it.

Comment by Manstus

I was fortunately able to complete this achievement this evening. All told, I was about 5 hours of PVP playtime, and I was getting kind of frustrated so I would quit after a handful of attempts and go do something else. I feel for everyone that does this achievement, and also for the people who actually love BG's for the objectives and accomplishment as the BG's can be very difficult to do when everyone is in it to win it. This being said, I am a casual PVP'er, in that I love BG's, premades, etc, and I do have a full PvP gearset and do alright, but I'm not terribly gifted in the reaction time department.. here is my analysis of the BG's you need, and their difficulty:

Warsong Gulch: This one can either be very annoying or very easy depending on what the other side is doing. This one is probably your second easiest one, in that in about half the BG's there are groups that are just trading flag caps. One person from alliance goes horde side, picks up the flag, and keeps dropping it, and vice versa from the horde side. If you find yourself in WSG, you may want to announce to teammates to be slightly patient when the opposite faction grabs the flag and don't immediately go to killing. If they're playing it properly, you will need to kill them, but wait until they start running. If its a fun game of trade the flag, just wait your turn (by non-stop clicking where he's dropping the flag until you get it!)

Arathi Basin: I actually find this one not terribly bad, but I am pally with Crusader Aura + Aura Mastery to get there first. Head to Goldmine or Lumbermill and start capping, hopefully the other team is ignoring one of them (I always go LM at the start of AB's, and typically get a free cap 50% of the time when Children's Week isn't on). Shouldn't be too bad. I've also seen groups go to the goldmine and dance and trade caps. Alliance caps, horde waits until its fully capped, then takes it back (you need to take it, not defend it, returning a flag thats not fully capped counts as a defence, so be very patient).

Alterac Valley: I can see this one being absolutely horrendous with 40 people and 4 towers... fortunately when I did it, people were all standing in towers not attacking each other, but capping and recapping the flags.. pray you get as lucky as I did, or run to the opposing BG chief and cap one of those two towers, as it is possible to win the race - speed potions help - alot of people stop off at the first two towers.

Eye of the Storm: I had a miserable experience with this one, as you're fighting the other team, your own team, and the objectives because your own team isn't doing them. You MUST have at least one base capped to get the flag. No bases, no capture. Everyone is going to bum rush the middle, and shaman's will knock you off and its super annoying. That being said, go slightly slower than others (also resummon your orphan there, i typically outrun mine for some reason, and had to get two caps). I hate to suggest being selfish, but help your teams carrier to the base, and you will be followed by the opposite faction, protect them until close, let them die, and grab the flag for yourself... I'm very sorry to recommend this, and if you can do it normally, all the better!

These are just how I did it, and a couple of suggestions, but it will be one of the least fun achievements for the PvE and PvP players alike, as both seem to strongly dislike the others presence in their BG's.

Edited a couple times for spelling and clarity.

Comment by 497566

Having low latency is the key to soloing this achievement.

I did every part of this achievement on my first attempt except EoTS, which I had to do twice simply because I forgot to have my orphan out...

You need the following:

1. Low latency.
2. Deadly Boss mods or any mod which will count down to when the BG starts.
3. The ability to move in a straight line from A to B.

You do not need:

1. PvP skills.
2. PvP gear.
3. Speed potions, auras or anything to increase mount speed.

At the start of a BG, get as close to the gate/barrier as possible, but don't run. Wait for the BG to start and start running at the exact time when the battleground starts (use the timer from DBM or similar addon) and you should be able to get a slight head start on everyone else, if you time it right and your latency is low enough. Then just make sure you run as economically as possible, shortest route to the flag/tower and it's easy as pie. I can do this 90% of the time thanks to my low latency.

Getting first to the farm in AB is trivial, most people get stuck in the doors since they run before the BG starts or don't know how to run in a straight line to the flag.

In EoTS you might be the first one to be attacked so you may fail to cap but usually the other players will run past you when you have clicked the flag and engage the enemy - all you need to do is turn around and deliver the flag. If you fail there is no point sticking around, just abandon, wait 15 minutes and retry.

In AV you can't mount immediately, but run/sprint/blink until the icon for your mount lights up and hit it immediately as it does so and you should be one of the first to get off. You obviously need to know the shortest route to the towers, if you haven't been in an AV before, get one match in before you attempt this, the BG lasts long enough for you to get a couple practice runs in if you need that. In AV you can actually be the second one to reach the tower, the first person will likely get attacked and will fail to cap the flag. Having an aggro reset helps of course.

WSG also benefits from low latency as you don't necessarily have to be the one to kill the flag carrier, all you have to do is click the flag first, to which having low latency works like a charm. Just make sure you are close to the flag when the carrier drops it.

So if you are a PvE type person who is afraid to do this achievement but you are lucky enough to have low latency, go for it! It is not as difficult as it seems.

Comment by Obolon

Yridar,

The descritions for the achievements are in fact exactly correct. In Arathi you have to ASSAULT the flag. That means just click it, let the progress bar complete for the assault, and then walk away with that task complete. The flag does not have to turn to your side.

In EotS you have to CAPTURE the flag. That means bring it back and CAPTURE (CAP) it on the base. It doesn't say assault the flag or grab the flag.

The terms are used correctly. Capturing implies that you end up owning it, completely. Assaulting it, as in Arathi basin, doesn't guarantee you capture it. You have to wait until the allotted time expires and the flag converts, during which the flag is still at risk of being assaulted by the opposing faction before it becomes captured.

Comment by Kurtosis

I'm finding the problem is not so much the achievements, but the bg queue times. It takes forever just to get into a single bg, and then you've got tons of people all going after the same things.

And if you're on the undermanned side of a dominated battlegroup, good luck when AB lasts 5m and you have to queue for 30m+ just to get back in.

The achievements themselves are fun and challenging, but for those of us who can't spend half a day at a time on them, the bar is a little too high. Bliz should mix up these achievements with some more-accessible world pvp and WG pvp ones too.

Comment by Kurtosis

After queueing for AV several times, I discovered that the Towers/Bunkers near the center of the BG are often hotspots for Horde and Alliance helping each other with this quest, taking turns capping flags.

The pvp'ers usually cap those then run straight on to zerg opposing side's generals to try to win the BG, leaving only the achievement-hunters hanging out together in the middle of the bg.

Pay attention to your BG warning messages in chat/combat log. You may notice the BG warnings showing that one particular bunker or tower is getting captured and recaptured over and over throughout the fight. If so, make a b-line for it, b/c that is where the cooperative capping is going on.

Comment by 255834

One of the hardest things about this achievement is the queue times. I mean, US BG9 is a pretty popular battlegroup but very horde heavy if I recall correctly. An hour + queue for Arathi basin, only to join a game which is in progress and lost half a minute later? Great. It took my alliance character, on a BG9 realm one morning to knock out all achievements. Can't say the same for my priest, who is half way there, half way through children's week.

Comment by 540433

First, I'd like to say thanks, sincerely, for all the useful hints and tips to those who posted them. I have an active dislike for PVP, I was dreading this achievement, but since it's the only thing standing between me and that mount, I gave it a try.

In spite of the helpful advice found here, and the attempts to help by my patient guildies, two hours of frustration later I have a grand total of ONE of the four requirements, WSG, which is supposedly one of the easier ones. I also have an ulcer and a greater contempt for my fellow gamers, who all left their brains and their manners in their other pants when they came out to PVP that day.

It was not fun. It was not even hard, challenging, or difficult. It was horrible. And I thought...why am I here? I'm not having fun. These other people aren't having fun. And we're all giving up our hard-earned dollars and leisure time for the priviledge.

I am not a person who gives up easily. I am not afraid of a challenge. I have loremaster, seeker, and numerous rep achievements that involved long, tedious, tiring grinds and sundry other proofs of achievement addiction.

So, I have decided to not get the mount. This is MY recreation, and if I'm not having fun, I'm doing something else. I'm sure those of you who like PVP will be relieved to hear you won't have to contend with me bumbling about out there anymore, and I advise others who feel as I do to just skip it, as I have. There are plenty of other mounts to be had, and really, if you're not having a good time, why are you here?

Edit: lol..I just re-read over some of the other comments here, and realized Ineluki's "Suck it up and be Conan" post, which is pretty much exactly opposite to my own. Not to say that over-the-top-with-fixed-bayonets mindset is wrong, or anything...but I have a job, and WoW isn't it. Just saying.

Comment by Transducer

This can be very easy, through two different strategies.

The hardest two, WSG and EoS, require just one thing, surprised it's not mentioned yet:
a well-timed SWIFTNESS POTION : Swiftness Potion
Much, much easier to grab the flag when it's down. Better get several just in case...

edit: my mistake, the SWIFTNESS POTION was mentioned earlier too,
BUT IT CANNOT BE STRESSED ENOUGH! GET SOME SWIFTNESS POTIONS! ----> Swiftness Potion <----

In WSG, I'd recommend lurking near the edge of the battlefield, towards the middle of the map, away from enemies but in sight of your base. You are far more likely to get to an almost-dead enemy flag carrier from here (presuming the enemy team's doing good, otherwise may as well lurk at base).

In EoS, definitely good idea to protect a teammate that DOES have the flag though, because it still has to be brought to a tower for the achievement.. otherwise, you'll have to compete with them again.

AB and AV are really just a matter of rushing to a location that ISN'T commonly attacked.
AB, rush for one of the two outer bases, Gold Mine or Lumber Mill, and right-click the banner. Very good chances you'll be the one to get it first.

AV, rush for the second tower, climb to the top ignoring all mobs, right-click the banner. Contrary to a few earlier comments, you do NOT have to stay or survive the waiting-to-capture process. You need to be first to click banner.
Also, the two further towers can be done as well, but it's much more risky (more likely to get killed by an enemy player on the way).

Comment by Pinkitteh

As chknnuggts said you can emote to the opposing faction and hope they co-operate.

I just completed this achieve on my 3rd toon this week with this method of using a macro to emote my intentions and taking turns with them on flag caps.

It was only very difficult on one character because I kept getting into BGs where people were just selfish and didn't want to co-operate on both my side and the opposing faction side. However, the other two I completed very easily because I got into bgs where people helped each other out.

It does help to pre-make even if it is just 3-5 of you together and not a whole premade, as you can take turns to assist and can count on at least your pre-made members to agree to co-operate which tends to encourage others to also join in and co-operate.

After doing it on more than one character I just want people to know that if you're really lucky and get it first bg grats, but if you have to try many times don't loose hope, just keep que-ing eventually you'll get into a good bg where people are willing to work together.

It is understandable that if you have to que a lot it does get frustrating, but remember you're not the only one that "just wants this stupid achieve, that's all I'm here for and I want to get it and get out!" You'll find most people doing the achieve is feeling that way. Especially since a lot of people are finding the que times ridiculously long.

So I suggest you que first then go do the other children's week quests and achieves while you wait for the bg to pop, or farm something you've been putting off doing for sometime, or shop/sell on AH while you wait, generally stuff you can do in-game that you can stop immediately if bg pops and can resume after bg.

And be realistic about estimating the time, it will take a few hours. Don't drive yourself nuts because you think it will take 5 minutes and plan a whole lot of other stuff in 10 mins time then stress because you can't do those things. So you should get your snacks and drinks set up, put aside a night when you don't have other things planned and prepare for a bg stake out!

Good Luck All, I hope you all find a friendly person of the opposing faction that will oblige to help you out. I sincerely am grateful for those that were so kind and polite to help me out (and I did make sure I returned the favor by helping them out too.).

Comment by Eilonthay

I started working on this in about the same hour that the event opened, because I knew the PVP part was going to be the most difficult and the BGs were going to be the most active. Also, while I'm passably decent at PVP, I knew I'd be fighting so many other people for the same thing that at some point I would be about ready to hurl the mouse across the room in frustration and shut the game down for the day. That's what the lack of cooperation does to you. Besides give you a gut ache from the stress. Also, it was the EotS BG weekend, so there was extra honor every time I went in--let's just say that I spent so much time trying for that particular part of the achievement that I about earned myself a PVP mount. =/ Still didn't get it though.

I went through EotS about 15 times the first day with no luck and switched to WSG. The first one was a hair pulling experience that I just wanted to end (being camped at the graveyard by a rogue is absolutely no fun because you're generally dead within just a few seconds after coming back--yes, thank you, Mr. Rogue, I hate you too, even though we've never met before now.). It was also my first time in WSG, so there was some dying that had to happen before I figured out that no, there's a wall there and you can't jump over it to or go around it to escape the paladin gunning for you. The second time was so much better. We decided that we'd hang out in the base and wait for the Horde to come over...eventually they did, but it must have taken them a bit to figure out that we were after the achievement. They might have even been doing the same thing. Thankfully, they were a decent set of people and helped out. They came over, picked up and dropped the flag a few times, and we killed them a couple times when they wouldn't drop it, but still just stood there and danced, and when we were done, we went over and sacrificed ourselves so they could get it done. Once that was out of the way, we got down to the ruthless killing, though it was pretty laid back, compared to the first one I was in. I don't think anyone was really trying all that hard, but we had our fun and I didn't mind losing. But rogues drive me crazy and can be real asses. I still don't know my way around the map and I can honestly say that it will be a cold day in Hell before I go back there ever again. Hats off to those of you that become exalted with the Silverwing Sentinels.

I went into Arathi twice with no luck...hard to do anything when you come in a minute from everything being done. The third time was difficult, but a Belf priest was nice enough to let me cap the stables before taking it back--then I got stun-locked by a stealthed rogue and died. I felt bad about my pet trying to eat her face for a couple seconds before I figured out what she was doing. Oops. >_<;;; Arathi's not so bad, overall, but again, I'd only been in there a couple of times before, so I didn't really know where I was going. I remember that the first time I was there (for the Love Fool achievement, actually), I had fun, so I might go back.

EotS happened completely by accident. Before, everyone made a mad dash to the center--I realized quickly that I'd never get the dumb flag first, so I always ran to MT to cap it before trying for a flag later. I can't tell you how many times I managed to pick up a flag, only to have a rogue destealth and stun-lock me, or pick it up and have the BG end before I even had a chance to run anywhere. Well, last night I ended up in a group that went about it waaaay differently than usual. The leader gave cap assignments and threatened to kick anyone that rushed to the middle like a "nubcake" (I thought he was being a bit of a jerk because of what else he said)--I rolled my eyes at that and was like "yeah, yeah, whatever," but went off to FR anyway. Well, I was off and running to BE a few minutes later, when I glanced over and saw that the flag was about to respawn! And there was no one else there! So of course I ran over, clicked, looked around for other people, saw no one, hit Cheetah and took off—there was not a single person around and I was so excited and worried all at once and my heart was pounding so hard…it was more stressful than any raid I’ve ever been in and I didn’t enjoy the feeling. I did enjoy getting two achievements at the same time as the Hard Knocks requirement. After that, I was able to go back to killing.

The last one was AV. It was my first BG and it's still my favorite because of the utter chaos that can result, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. I wasn't looking forward to it because everyone goes after the first two towers. I ended up not having to recruit a guild mate after all, like I had originally thought. It took 2 BGs to finish it, but that was just incredible luck...and I did it the Friday before the event ended, so maybe that had something to do with it. (/shrug) I knew it would be difficult and it was--the first time in, we zerged to the end, but because of lag, I was at the back of the pack and wasn't able to grab a tower. The second time was just plain dumb luck...we had planned zerging to the very end and so we did...except that somewhere about half way, we got separated in about three groups, probably because the Horde intercepted. I was too busy racing in the foremost group to check the map. I was able to race all the way to the end and found to my great delight that absolutely NO ONE had grabbed either of the towers (humanoid tracker FTW)!. And I hadn't even been the first one there. I didn't know what the other people were doing, running around like ninnies, when it was obvious everyone was already capping, but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity. I raced my butt up that tower and clicked...and promptly spammed guild chat with achievement bars. It was, in a word, AWESOME. I was sooooo happy to be done with it that I was grinning for hours afterwards. Silly, but true. I can now resume PVPing at my leisure.

Perseverance is the key. Also, some patience, but totally expect to get so frustrated with every other person in the BG that you want to reach through the monitor and punch them in the face. You WILL eventually get it because there are actually nice people out there on both sides…it’s just sometimes difficult for some people (I’m looking at you, you stupid rogues!) to hit pause on their PVP instincts for a moment to let things get done. Make sure you're at the front of the pack, with all those paladins and you might be able to edge out that competition.

You know why I'm really so happy? Because I’ll have gotten the albino and violet drakes and a title in one fell swoop. I’ll be able to rest easy on major achievements and finish up the last couple holiday ones that weren’t requirements for the mount. Good luck to everyone and may the gods of fortune smile upon you! =)

(Also, it's stuff like this that makes me glad that I decided I was only going to have one toon gathering up serious achievements like this.)

EDIT: Forgot to update the AV part after I finished 5/7/2010.

Comment by CaptainFalafel

I managed to do this last night, and was the last achievement I needed for the Violet Drake. Here was my experience, it may, or may not, be helpful. I credit 2 of the metas to engineering:

WSG: First one I got, very luckily. 2 Horde were standing near the flag and would pickup and drop our flag letting us get this.

AB: We capped the Lumbermill, and fended off the Horde there coming up from the east. A group made their way over to the Blacksmith from the North side, and the Horde occupying the blacksmith went to defend against them. Using Nitro Boosts and my cloak with Flexweave Underlay, I leapt from the lumbermill landing right next to the BS flag and managed to cap it just before the Horde noticed, and slaughtered, me.

EOTS: First we capped two towers, then I made my way to the flag. In the fray, we downed the mage aoeing us, and I managed to grab the flag before anyone else. On my way back to a tower, a Warrior caught up to me. Thank goodness for the priest, Fel Healthstone, and people defending the tower.

AV: Used Nitro Boosts right out of the gate. Before the buff wore off, about 4 1/2 secs in, I mounted up. Had a fairly significant lead on the rest of the raid. Made my way to the first tower via the shortest rout possible, got hit by the archers, even fell off the third story to the second due to a malfunctioning mouse and STILL managed to cap the flag here.

I was ready to give up and boycott (like it would do any good) trying to get the EOTS one. Then I realized how close I was, how friggin cool the mount is, and that I probably wouldn't be able to get a 310% mount until Cata. All told, I probably put in 6 hours to complete this.

As the person above said; Luck. Plain and simple. And let me go on record as saying this is, indeed, the worst achievement ever.

Comment by Iceveiled

The only luck I've had getting these 4 PvP things done was when both sides agreed to let it happen and NOT through natural battleground PvP.

In AB the entire horde team capped the flag at the mine then stood around with their orphans out. Their intentions were pretty obvious as soon as I rode up and none of them attacked me. I whistled out my orphan and capped the flag. They they did it and somebody else on my team would re-take it, repeat. We all stood around emoting back and forth, laying down campfires and dancing with one another. It was the strangest battleground I've ever been in, but fun.

Warsong Gulch is easy. Just defend a flag, wait for somebody to come along and take it, and then jump that person and return the flag. There were 5 of us guarding the room and only 1 opponent, maybe 2 would come try to take the flag. Needless to say we all took turns returning the dropped flag. Easy.

EOTS has been a freaking nightmare. The dozen times I've tried has 7-8 opponents just camping the flag and NONE of them are willing to let me come up and take it, regardles of how many /truce emotes I spam. Gonna have to keep trying and hope I get a lucky roll of the dice and get a group that is more cooperative. A prot warrior in decent PvP gear,and receiving heals CANNOT take the EOTS flag with 8 enemies lobbing everything they have at him.

AV - I haven't tried yet but when I did it last year with another toon it was basically a few horde/alliance guys in a tower trading caps.

I'm all for working for achievements but having spent over 5 hours trying to get this one is a bit much to ask. If this achievement is blizzard's attempt to get people into battlegrounds to experience them, this achievement not only woefully misrepresents the typical BG, but it also makes BG newbies completely and utterly despise them prematurely.

Comment by Obolon

Ok, I have a lot to say. Some people might not like what I have to say, some may mock me, but some may appreciate it and say to themselves, "WoW! Great idea!" and then finally have a way to get this achievement.

First a side note to Andiae, about a dozen posts up : More than likely those Alliance guys are camped out to help you and you have to get your guys to stop attacking them, so they can help. I have been one of those Alliance guys camped out to try to help the Horde in AV and all too often, even if I was lying there sleeping, emoting /truce, /wait, /bow, etc. the horde would simply slaughter me. I would go back and persevere in my quest to help the horde who needed it.

Alrighty then...

Like so many others, I had a devil of a time with this achievement, mostly with the Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm caps, because I am stationed overseas on a military base with quite possibly the crappiest internet connection on planet earth, on a dialup and behind countless firewalls, filters, and proxy servers. I can play PVE realtively well, run 5 man instances and sometimes struggle through 10 man raids on a good day. I never have less than 4000ms latency in a battleground, and the more people the more my latency. I have roughly 10,000ms latency in EotS. I constantly disconnect. PvP is impossible for me. The later at night I get on, the better, just because fewer people where I am stationed are sharing the same crappy connection through their dialups, so my latency can improve, but my bandwidth never improves.

Because my connection is so bad, I have no choice but to solo for the most part, because I would not want to burden other people with my crappiness, so I am not part of a fantastic raiding or PvP guild who I can ask for help. I looked at this achievement as insurmountable. Period.

However, did I whine about it? No. I figure that for a 310% speed mount, you probably have to overcome some pretty big obstacles. It's not going to be a freebie. There is probably some part of this year long trek that is hard for everyone. I am dreading Midsummer where I will have to juggle 40 things in 15 seconds. That's the last thing I have to do for the mount.

All of that said, I did overcome this impossible task. How? Well, what I lack in bandwidth, I make up for in GOLD. Low bandwidth leaves you with a lot of time on your hands sitting around in the Auction House doing nothing but making money, because you just don't have the latency to run an ICC rep run at the moment. I make gold hand over fist.

My character is alliance. I have a couple banker toons on Horde side, so I logged on with one of those and offered 1000g to the first Horde character who saw me in Warsong Gulch on my Alliance character and would drop the flag for me to return and then wave at me and wait for me to wave back after I returned the flag (in case another alliance player ninja'd the thing). Most people just thought I was pulling their leg. I wasn't.

Then I got back on my Alliance toon and advertised the same thing in the trade channel in case anyone had a level 80 Horde toon and wanted to make some gold. Instead, an Elite Alliance Warrior chimed in and said he would group with me and make sure I got the flag return by killing any horde that grabbed it and letting me return the flag. He was true to his word and it took him killing about two dozen flag grabbing horde before my click on the flag registered. Several attempts failed at first, because other Alliance people would click it first or it would time out and return on its own before my latency allowed my click to register. Eventually I got it.

I paid him the 1000g.

Then I offered him 3000g to bring me a flag to cap in EotS. "No problem," he said. I suffered through about 12 disconnects and failed attempts to click on the flags he seemed to effortlessly bring back to me until I finally got the cap and hence the achievement completed.

Following the example set by the family recently in the news, I sent my stupid orphan packing on a plane back to Russia!

So, paying a hired merc is in fact a proven way to get through this that hasn't been mentioned yet. If you have the gold and no bandwidth or PvP experience, hire some help!

I was able to get the other two on my own very easily.

AV was the easiest, simply because of a nice Horde guy that stood there recapping the flag while all of us Alliance folks took turns capping it, me being last of course, because I was suffering tremendous lag. I wonder why this truce only seems to be taking place in AV and not the other battlegrounds?

Arathi Basin was rather simple. I never find it hard to at least assault one flag, being a rogue.

My only point in all of this diatribe is to stress that while some of the achievements we want may be extremely daunting and even downright impossible, there is probably some way you can overcome them. For me it was with Gold. I probably offered too much, but 4000g is nothing to me and I wanted to be certain that the burden of babysitting me through it was well worth it to the kind stranger who helped. I hate it when Blizzard nerfs achievements that I found a way through already, just because other people with no patience and 100 times the bandwidth I have want to compalin about it.

My suggestion : Stop banging your sippy cup, get mommy to change your diaper, so you have a nice, dry bottom, and sit down and get to work.

I haven't figured out how I will be able to juggle 40 of anything in 15 seconds for the midsummer meta, but even if I don't get through it and have to wait another year until I may be back in the States on vacation with high bandwidth or something, you won't hear me whining about it. I figure that if other people have done it, then so can I, somehow. No one ever said that life was easy. Not even virtual life!

Comment by 220466

As many ppl have stated already, this can be a very annoying achievement for anyone who's not into pvp, and even for the ppl who's pvping a lot since the battlegrounds tend to fill up with non-pvpers running around not caring about anything else than the achievements.

By far the easiest one in the list is assaulting a flag in AB. The only thing you need rly is to know where you're going, and to have an mount with equal speed to that of the others. Having some kind of speed boost like crusader aura or similar also helps a little. Simply burst out the gates when the battle starts and head for the mines. Most people tend to charge for the stables which should leave you pretty unchallanged.

The one i found most difficult was returning a flag in WsG. Luckily, i finally after many tries ended up in a BG where the people where helping the oposite faction to get it. If you dont happen to be that lucky, try to stay as close as you can to the person carrying the flag, and avoid killing the player from the oposite faction befor he manages to actually take the flag. when the flag is about to drop, spamclick the place where it'll spawn and hopefully you'll get it.

Capturing a flag in EotS can be about as tricky as the WsG, depending on if you're facing serious pvpers or not. Since im on a server where the hordes most of the time crush the alliance like &%#&", i spent many hours in battles where the horde were keeping the flag base, without the alliance even daring to come anywhere near it. My advice if you're having the same kind of silly luck as i did, is to simple keep joining battles and hope someone will let you get the flag at some point. This one was by far the one i spent most time doing, and i entered EotS way more times than any of the others.

AV is fairly easy, if you keep the pace up and have some patience. A tip for this one is to not aim for the first tower, since thats what many other ppl are gonna do, but keep running closer to the oposite base. If you still dont manage to get a tower at the start, dont panic. Stick around and keep checking the map to see if any tower gets taken by the enemies. Thats how i managed to do it. Spoted a tower with noone around it and got the achievement without having to do much fighting or desperate runs to get ahead of someone.

Comment by gof22

This is one of the worse achievements in WoW. Why are we forced to PvP? We should not have to click on the flag first. As long as we click on it while it is being contested for control than it should count.

It should be we have to let the orphans visit the battle grounds, not make us PvP. No achievement should be worth this much frustration.

Comment by 178783

Sorry, but this achievement isn't doable. There are achievements that requiring like minute or two to complete, some that requiring some grinding or some kinda stupid race around the world. Then there is this one. Random BG throws you into SotA or IoC. Queues for AB and EotS are like 30 minutes and if I'm patient enough, I'm usually getting almost finished battle without having a chance to do anything.

To sum this, I'm going to use a sentence from World of Crycraft: What was Blizzard thinking ? Were they smoking the hella-hella-hella?

Comment by 441773

I still don't understand why Blizz will not fix this achievement. As it stands the only way to complete it is luck.
Luck - that you get a battleground with competent team mates.
Luck - if after waiting in the queue for 45 minutes your battleground doesn't end 30 seconds after you enter (yeah, happened to me 8 times)
Luck - if you are able to hire someone that will help you achieve these.
Luck - if you happen to be the first one to click the flag.
Luck - if the opposing faction is willing to let you get your achievements.
ALL LUCK! Blizz has removed other luck based achievements from being a requirement for the meta. Why not this one? Because if you're good enough you can still do it? BS! I don't care how good you are at PvP. When you grab the flag in Eye of the Storm but your side controls no towers you are not going to succeed. You'll be the lone person trying to retake a tower agains 5 or 6 enemies while the rest of your team camps the flag spawnhoping to be the next one to miserably fail.

I can understand what Blizz might have been thinking when they put this achievement in. They wanted to get players that might not normally go into these battlegrounds to experience them. The problem is the way this achievement currently stands it creates a very negative experience. Most people I have talked to will never again venture into any of these 4 battlegrounds because they don't care to remember the endless frustration and all of the hours put into this 1 achievement that was blocking them from getting their Violet Proto Drake.
Change this achievement so that it can be completed by a group. They guy defending the flag carrier deserves just as much credit as the one carrying it. This will also encourage more team play rather than the gross doushebaggery it currently does.

Comment by gof22

I have been trying to do EOTS for the last two hours and I have not been able to yet. Every time I get the flag some Horde bastard kills me. I have my orphan out, but no, they still kill me. Forcing us to PvP against other players who are there to PvP is bull*!@#. Forcing us to get flags and towers is also bull!@#$. A concerted Efforts like achievement would make this achievement much more doable.

Comment by 576389

I don't see what the problem is with AV.
The most important factor in this, is the start. You have to be asap out from the starting room. If you are an Engineer, you can use rocket boots. Get mounted up before everyone else. That way you will have a little advantage over the others. You wont get that far ahead of the others, so if there if a paladin who isn't slacking, you will get Crusader Aura aswell.

Get to the base furthest away. Pray for there not to be any hordes there. If you dont screw up, this is easymode! If there should be any hordes there (and you really really need this achievement), you can let someone else desperately trying to get this achi take the focus of the hordes. Then just 'sneak' past them and capture :D

The thing that REALLY sucks about this achievement, is the fact that Eye of the Storm was unaccessible for the last 3 days of Children's Week. I would stand 2 hours+ in queue, and still not get in EotS (on Kazzak anyways). After CW, i still had my orphan. 5 hours after midnight, i logged on, got in right away, and captured the flag with the orphan out. In the achievement, it is not stated that this has to be done during CW, only to be done with the orphan out. But what do you know? No credit for capture -.- bb proto =(

Comment by 318094

No, gof22, you don't need to be good at pvp for these achieves. A lot of the people who are accusing the complainers of qqing seem to be under the impression that the complaints are saying "It's hard because you have to be good at pvp to do it," which isn't the case. I have minimal pvp gear on, if any, whenever I queue up, and I've done all of these criteria at several points in my bg experiences. On a holy priest. Without assistance. These are all criteria that present themselves through opportunity. Being the first to assault the flag/assault the tower/pick up the flag and hold it long enough to capture it/return the flag is very, very easy once the opportunity has presented itself. In fact, all of those are dependent on opportunity first.

No one would have an issue with this achieve if it had to do with skill, effort, time investment, or RNG. A lot of the other RNG achieves reward you for putting more time in with a higher chance of success.

When no matter how long I queue for something, it is half a day before the game even lets me enter, or when I try to take a chance on landing in a bg randomly and it lands me in any bgs but the ones I need (and yes, 90% of random-queuing for me landed me in Strand and Isle), that's less RNG and more sheer dumb luck.

The blue posts claiming to have fulfilled this achievement on multiple characters have likely never attempted this horde side in the Cyclone battlegroup. None of the blue posts on Blizz's stance seem to have described 3-hour-long-minimum queues. Yet all of them seem to be suggesting that failure of this achievement comes down to the person simply not trying hard enough. I could understand their logic if it were consistent with the experiences I've had with this achievement, but that's hardly the case. I was never aware that the ability to have a queue pop for me was entirely dependent upon my skill and/or effort. I guess I simply did not wish myself into Arathi Basin hard enough.

The worst part about this achievement is that a lot of the people who managed to pull it off think themselves the rule, not the exception. The difficulty of the criteria is irrelevant if you can never get a queue for the bg that has the criterion you need. It's funny how the people calling this a challenging achieve associate queue times with difficulty. They're seriously likening this to Alone in the Darkness (25-man) or a Tribute to Insanity (25-man) as a challenge. It certainly is a tribute to insanity, to be sure, but for an entirely different reason that has nothing to do with challenge or the skill required for that challenge.

Comment by 124818

Tried to get this achievement past the week's end, as I still had a few days left with the whistle.
I just helplessly tried to get into an Arathi Basin for several days, but none would start on my battlegroup.

Today (the day after children's week's last day), I finally entered Arathi, managed to tag a flag and capture it with my orphan out. Nothing happened. I'm disgusted.

TL;DR : seems you can't complete this achievement outside Children's week.

Comment by 587379

I capped two flags last night with Northrend orphan out (from Alliance and staying put till I capped for horde) and di not get the achieve

Comment by shadowdragon986

Pro Tip: Orphans give away stealthed rogues.

This limits the effectiveness of roguery. We are reduced to luck and patience as the rest of you. That being said, I managed to do this in a few hours early in the week because my time was going to run out that night anyways. It's hard, it's frustrating, it's a pain in the ass in EoTS, especially when I died with the flag from dots, but it's definitely an 'oh hell yeah' knowing I did it and now only one holiday stands in my way.

Comment by 585883

Altherac, i had the same issue.

Ive started waiting for AB 20h00 and got just 2-3 runs till i went to bed at 02h30 the following day.
Next morning, i started to do more AB's and only focus on AB and que'd up during 12h00.
Waiting time was over 2h's and ive waited 4 hours without getting any AB BG.
Again, ive waited all night and got some help from my guild to fill up some vacations in the Que's for the Horde site.
Waited another hour and no result.

18h05, Yay AB triggers! --> I rush to the mine, get my ass kicked by 4 allies (love being a PvE lock!).
I wait till i respawn and rush toward the Lumber Mill. Lots of Allies and Hordes fighting over the flag, so i guess ill pop the flag for them.
First run, damn ally rogue bows at me and hits me right before i cap the flag..... but didnt kill me because of my fear.
Second run on LM, yeah orphan is out and i was capable of capping the flag!
Chatlog results in Andiaen assaults the Lumber Mill!
but.... no achievement!
After BG i made a ticket but havent got a response yet. Will let you guys know what the response will be.

23h30, i wasnt in the best mood since i was waiting for 2 days for AB to trigger (it triggered once between 18h45-19h00 saturday but i was having dinner >< karma!) Ive asked a guildy who was doing the BG and he said no horde player got the achievement, not even the one claiming the farm. And he was sure his orphan was out since he was watching the scene.
00:30 Woof, magic occurs! Suddenly Que waiting time pops from 1h45 min to 15 min! ... I was afraid it would be too late for the achievement, but still tried to do it :)

0:35 my AB BG starts :) Alliances rushes over and takes all the flags while me and the rest of the Horde try to get their achievement, no one got the achievement, not even the one owning the 1st claim of the farm!

0:45 AB que waiting time drops from 15 min to 2-3 min. People complain they cant get their achievement and ppl complain about idiotic waiting times.

I wasnt lucky, i will need to wait another year for my Proto drake.
I dont like to complain, but this achievement should be changed imo. I dont mind a bit of PVP'ing but player ganking players just to make sure they cant get their achievement isnt my cup of tea.

Comment by 588070

I'd like to offer a little perspective as someone who does a lot of pvp, almost exclusively on bg's, but also raids and grinds heroics.
Nobody likes pvp durring children's week. For people looking to get the achieve, it can be frustrating because of others not cooperating on either team. For those of us who do bg's regularly, it's infuriating because after our waits which can last over an hour we end up on a team with a bunch of people who just hang out in the flag room waiting for someone to grab the flag.
Lets be clear here: in bg's, the goal is to win. It's not like raids where if you fail and wipe you just do it again but hopefully better. We want to beat the other team, not only for the sake of winning, but also because we want to get some better pvp gear with our honor points. I'd compare it to a tank in heroics who wants something to drop from the first boss, and when it doesn't drop he leaves the group and lets the others either ragequit or wait half an hour for a new tank to que, costing you valuable time and emblems you could be getting if the tank weren't a %^&*!@. I'd actually say it's worse for us because instead of one person leaving and getting replaced it's often half the team, or more doing nothing for the entire battle. Would you let half your raid group fart around while you try to down the boss? Hell no. You'd probably boot them from the guild and replace them with people willing to play the game.
Same with our bg's, only we can't just get rid of you. We're stuck with you for the duration of the battle. I've read some people who've said it would be better if you just stay around for the whole bg. That would in fact make it worse. Instead of at least having some people guarding the flag, we'd have entire teams staying in the start room only moving around to keep from /afk'ing out. Again, nobody wins.
Granted, sometimes teams agree to help each other with the achieves, and that's fine when everyone wants to play nice, but if it's only you and a buddy you're not doing anyone any favors.
The simple solution to all this is to invest in a little pvp gear and play the damn game. I freakin' love the pvp in WOW. I think it adds a challenge and unpredictability that raids can't match, and I love besting other players directly in a field of battle. Pvp gear is cheap, you can do VOA, use Emblems of Triumph, or spend honor points and get geared. I got full Furious in under 2 weeks using nothing but emblems.
I'm not trying to say pve players don't belong in bg's, but if you are gonna play with us, then PLAY WITH US. I think a lot of us might even be more helpful if you showed a little respect in our playground.
So next year plan ahead a little. And if someone is griefing you at Warsong, do the right thing. Kill his ass and shut him up like a man instead of whining on Wowhead.

Comment by tapczan100

The school of hard knocks is name of 9 episode from Pokemon series. (Season 1).
Pokemon trainers show orphans how poke battles look like.

Comment by Allakhazam

Here is a guide I wrote that gives you tips on how to do this acheivement:

http://www.!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*!@#$.com/world-events/childrens-week/school-of-hard-knocks/

Comment by redback

Removed from the meta on wotlk classic.

Comment by Contmotore

I'm not sure what's wrong with this achievement, but I returned the flag 4 times in WSG. 3 Times in our own flag room and 1 time in the enemy flag room on the roof and still didn't get credit for it. And yes, I had my Human Orphan Whistle out.

Links

School of Hard Knocks

Take your orphan into the battlegrounds and complete the feats listed below.

Criteria

	Assault a flag in Arathi Basin (1)
	Capture the flag in Eye of the Storm (1)

	Return a fallen flag in Warsong Gulch (1)
	Assault a tower in Alterac Valley (1)

School of Hard Knocks

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