School of Hard Knocks Guide

By Wowhead Updated: 2023/04/26

Children's WeekChildren's WeekSchool of Hard KnocksWowhead's Children's Week Guide As of 2022, School of Hard Knocks is no longer required to complete For the Children and What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been; it is purely an optional activity.alwaysAssault a flag in Arathi BasinHorde endArathi BasinBlessing of ProtectionLeap of FaithArathi BasinDeath KnightShamanAssault a Tower in Alterac ValleyArathi BasinArathi BasinCapturingArathi BasinHorde Tower Appearance and Flag LocationAlliance Tower Appearance and Flag LocationCapturingArathi BasinTop Tip:Capture the Flag in Eye of the StormEye of the StormArathi BasinAlterac ValleyArathi BasinAlterac Valleyheld by your team If your team holds no bases you can't capture flagsTop Tip:Returning a fallen flag in Warsong GulchWarsong GulchWarsong GulchChildren's WeekWarsong GulchChildren's WeekChildren's Week

Comments

Comment by PrairieChicken

Probably most mindless achievement blizz has ever done. This should be removed from meta requirements.

Comment by 518741

Really helpful guide for PvP newbies :) Thank you for writing it!

Comment by 1210028

Very nice guide for a PvE kitty who's been off for 3 years. Here's my personal experience as a terrible, undergeared PvE DPS:

Arathi Basin: GET THE FIRST FLAG! If you have any kind of speed buff that lets you go faster than guild perked mount speed, use it. If all the bases end up captured but you still want to try and capture a flag, follow a big group and continuously try to capture the flag while they fight (but avoid dying- come late into the fight to capture).

Alterac Valley: FOLLOW THE GROUP! don't be dumb like me and try to recapture your own tower. nobody will help you. Don't bother to kill ranged NPCs on the towers; try and find a spot where the guard NPCs can't hit you and capture. This can be based on luck a lot, because once a tower is captured, it's unlikely you will have a chance to recapture it, so really try to be first.

Eye of the storm: If you have any wish of doing this, your side needs to be winning/rushing the flag. There's likely going to be a million people on the arse of the flag, so it's really a spam race to see if you can get a lucky break and capture it (knockback attacks are A++ here). Bring any kind of non-mount speed (potions, talents) you can, because even if you capture the flag, you still need to run it back.

Warsong: Easiest for me, because many people stayed around the base for the achievement. When enemies come in, communicate to your team that you want the enemy to capture the flag, then kill the enemy and spam click where the flag drops. Rinse & Repeat until you're the one to capture the flag.

TL;DR: spam the flag and pray

Comment by 1094329

Probably my most disappointing experience with fellow players so far, Warson Gulch proved the breaking point...doing the battleground 8 times and not once would anyone help.....didn't do too bad for a non-pvp player, even killed a flagbearer once or twice....but had the flag snatched before my eyes, I know, it's all in the game, but it is a frustrating attempt at an achievement and basically: what the use of pursuing further world events if you know you won't complete the achievement for another year?
:(

Comment by 1029683

Never mind PvP, my experiences during Children's Week left me with a negative impression of WoW and Blizzard. Don't get me wrong, I did complete the achievement, but it was not worth the frustration and stress. I would have skipped What a Strange, Long Trip It's Been if I had known more.

This experience combined with Blizzard's apparent indifference to those of us who want the achievement removed from the meta was one of my major reasons for quitting WoW.

If you're still interested in going after the achievement here is some information I didn't find in any School of Hard Knocks guides: If you're an engineer and use nitro boosts, you drop the flag.

Comment by Dragonwidow

sounds like i won't be doing this one, it's not worth it, from what i have read. I don't even like pvp anyway

Comment by aliciana2

Do you have to have a particular orphan out? i had my wolvar pup orphan out and did EoS and did not get credit for it!

Comment by Copperhelm

Though late to the game and a miserable failure in most BGs, I just wanted to thank you for this in depth guide.

I finally got my violet drake in 2015 because of the help of awesome fellow Alliance players who made sure everyone in the group who had an orphan out got their BG achieves (making sure everyone got their flag returns, etc.). But most especially because of incredibly fantastic Horde players who saw I had my orphan out and rather than attack me, despite my attacking them, used in game emotes to SHOW me exactly where I needed to go, walked WITH me to that most important spot that allowed me to get my achievement.

I've never liked PVP but those players proved there can be cross faction cooperation and that things like this can be done. They are the reason I now also have a lvl 100 Horde character.

There are some very good folks in this game and that's why I keep trying for the hard stuff.

Comment by 891296

If you hate having to do this achievement towards For the Children as much as I do, please let Blizzard know! In game, press the Escape key to bring up the Game Menu, then select Help, then write a complaint under Submit Suggestion. Maybe if they see how many people hate doing this achievement they will remove it from the requirements for For the Children.

Comment by eikmin

After several futile attempts earlier in the week to obtain the "return a fallen flag in WSG" portion, I tried today.
However, this time I made my objective known and asked the BG group to help me. It turned out they were more than willing to help. There was another person doing the same achievement and we both got it in turns. The group took down the EFC and let us click to return the flag. As a bonus we also won 3-0

Nice group of players. Thumbs up!

Seiei - Aman'thul US

Comment by MRTF

This the 2nd year I fail doing this. Why? Because of the queues.

I was waiting for over 8 HOURS for the Alterac Valley battleground!

Sadly I was stupid and decided to once again do it on the last day. So don't underestimate this achievement. Start doing this on the first day of the event! Or else you'll regret it for a year.

In all honesty, I have no idea why I'm forced to rely on 79 other players, just to get inside the battleground. I hate failing because of other people. -.-

EDIT: This year (2017), I finally got it. This time there was the battleground bonus active, which made it a lot easier to queue for the AV BG and naturally to the other BGs as well. I'm not sure if the majority of people only play PvP during the bonus event, but to me it was a relief to get it finally over.

Also, be careful while trying to capture a tower, your own allies can and will ^&*! you up. Use a neural silencer to prevent leap of faith. However it doesn't work against hand of protection from what I experienced, so yeah I had to re-queue again thanks to that #$%^er.

Comment by Kurias

I don't really pvp much. I have heard several people get excited about DH being able to communicate cross faction in order to coordinate getting these done. This got me thinking about another way to make it easier. Is it possible to complete the objectives in a war games match?

Comment by ToniaPat

Just a heads up: apparently you have to have your orphan summoned BEFORE you enter the battleground. Don't know whether this is a bug atm, but the Orcish Whistle cannot be used in pvp instances, so have it summoned beforehand! Also, in case you die your orphan is no longer by your side, so be careful :)

Edit: apparently it was a bug after all.. They have now fixed it.. We were just unlucky.

Comment by ChocoboValentine

I've had parts of this meta done since 2008, and it is the School of Hard Knocks which has prevented me getting the achieve/title every single year. I admit that I really don't like PvP -- it stresses me out, and I get really tired really fast of the enormous number of &*!@s who seem to think it's super funny to steamroll and camp people who are genuinely trying to get started in PvP (I'm not looking for a kid glove treatment. I'm just looking to actually get a fair chance, and not have some loser fixate on me and literally kill me every single time I res so that I come out with no honour and a lot of rage). It's unpleasant enough during the rest of the year - during Children's Week it's total hell.

My faction server/battlegroup pretty much never wins BGs. I think I've been in...three? Maybe? that we've won. It's just a total joke, and the bg chat is full of people who are either a) 'we're gonna lose anyway, STRIP AND DANCE' and b) *FOAMS AT THE MOUTH* "I WILL MURDER YOU AND YOUR FAMILY YOU PIECE OF WORTHLESS HUMAN GARBAGE"

aaaaaand I just

no thank you

Reading the guide -- it's great. You explain things really clearly, and it's super helpful. By the end, though, I was like 'oh yeah, I remember why I don't have this yet, and why I never will'. I wish Blizz would dump it.

Comment by lordhegemon

Whether by design of not this (2018) year's children's week coincides with the Warsong Brawl. Having three times as many flags makes it a bit easier to finish the warsong portion of the achievement.

Comment by TooFad3d

JUST A HEADS UP!

You can get the "Return a flag in WSG" in the WSG Scramble event going on right now!

Comment by Gylfie33

I would like to thank you for this useful guide! I managed to complete the entire achievement in one day because of it. :)

Comment by rteger

Reworks of Arahi Basin made the achievement unobtainable. Assaulting the flag does not count towards the achievement.

Comment by Minderien

As of 2019 it is currently impossible to get credit for the Arathi and Warsong portions of the achievement.
It seems the overhaul broke the achievement.
Tickets have been submitted, but meanwhile it's no use.
Eye of the Storm has been reported to work.
EDIT: Alterac is fine, as said by others. (If you manage to tag)

EDIT 2: It has been hotfixed during the night! Happy achievement hunting guys!

Comment by Jorvalt

You know what's really cool? The fact that this requires you to do objectives in AB and WSG but doesn't count doing identical objectives in these BGs' several clones. That's super cool.

Comment by Jorvalt

Was doing this during the current Brawl. Don't forget to resummon your orphan after you land from being launched in the air. If you go into the air at all, your orphan gets dismissed. I hadn't realized this and capped a flag without them. Then, later in the same game, some total piece of %^&* used a swapblaster on me to get the flag before I could and they didn't even have an orphan.

Comment by Arkamedix

Its horrible. Especially now, during BFA, with que times between 30-60 min for small battlegrounds and 2-4h for epic battlegrounds. How can you complete Alterac Valley achievment, when you wait 4h to join then you need to compete with 39 players to take the flag? Its the hardest achievment to obtain so far, from what i experienced.

Comment by randommerryman

The trouble with this is that if you aren't familiar with PvP you get no chance to learn. Unless you hit a lucky line-up that helps you (which I never have) or fluke a flag (which got me the Arathi section of the achieve) then you have absolutely no chance to build towards success by getting incrementally better. The opposition gets easy kills off you while your own side spits out incomprehensible instructions that you can't follow on account of being dead, frozen, or in completely the wrong part of the map. And next time you do no better, because you haven't been able to try things to see what works. I actually did get quite into Ashran during its final days as I chased the faction rep and the auction house part - I was in the final battle when the server shut down on us and it closed its doors - but this is no fun at all.

Comment by fourthrock

Yes, this is no fun at all but I did this in a solid day of queuing for and grinding through battlegrounds. I got a flag in Arathi Basin first and got it by simply asking the group if I could capture the first flag (Stables for Alliance) and they let me. I remain deeply indebted to them. I got a tower in Alterac Valley next. I couldn’t reasonably solo a tower there so I found a group attacking a tower, rushed to top during the attack and managed the capture. Surprisingly, I got a flag in Eye of the Storm next. I hung near one of the customary Alliance bases to make sure it stayed in Alliance control, kept my eye on the center and during a period when everyone else seemed so intent on killing one another, I rushed in, picked up the flag and took it back to the base. Warsong Gulch took the longest. I could not get the kind of help the guide suggests. And so after time and time and time again, I finally managed to click and return a flag in the midst of midfield fighting. In fact most of my chances came when I hung near the opposing faction’s flag carrier as he or she tried and failed to make it through midfield. I don’t want to leave the impression that I knocked this out bang, bang, bang, bang. I didn’t. Took maybe 20 battlegrounds all together, for me mostly Warsong Gulch, but it’s doable, not enjoyable, but doable.

Comment by Pigsy1

This achievement is stupid. Cheeses off both pvp and none pvp players and it's about time Blizzard sorted this out.

Comment by wohin

Good news. It has been removed from the meta.

School of Hard Knocks Guide

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