Exactly. I don't even like to PvP outside of achievements during the holiday events because everything gets so messy. I really wish this wasn't part of the meta.

I wish! I think that would be an awesome compromise.

I must be the only person who didn't have a problem with the achievement.

Personally I didn't notice the Battlegrounds being any less organized than normal... People run around not defending stuff everyday. It's hardly new.

I just went about my usual business. Defending stuff when appropriate. Attacking when appropriate. And I picked up the achievement in a few hours.

A small piece of advice, go with someone. None of them are especially hard. Play nice, be patient and play to win. Most folks will help you if they believe you'll stay and play the BG...anyway, I do

I LOVE PvP, and I'm still dreading School of Hard Knocks.

PvE gamers hate it because they are forced to PvP for the meta.
PvP gamers hate it because it creates mayhem in Battlegrounds for the week (and not the good kind).

Yeah - this is the last achievement that I need for my protodrake and, unless they change the achievement somehow, I doubt I'm ever going to see that gorgeous 310% flying SOB.

Got it done on two toons last year, but only because thirty or so of us organized a dual-faction premade.

Both sides grouped up and queued for WSG #15, (is that even still possible with the bg changes?) and we just had to hope the majority of us got in. It actually wasn't too bad, particularly as we were all in vent giggling and joking around. While there were a couple of griefers in EotS, the fact that we had BOTH factions working together meant that the griefer got a warning from our team to back down, and if they didn't listen...BOOM! the entire opposite team would unload on them. (I'm not talking about regular pvpers, these types were the ones admitting in bg chat that they were doing anything possible to prevent people from getting achievements.) Once everybody had their achievement for that bg, then all bets were off and we got to try and kill each other :-D

Heh...I was going to say "In b4 School of Hard Knocks QQ", but I see it's in the VERY FIRST POST.

I can't believe this is seriously standing between some people and a Proto Drake. Your absolute phobia of pvp is nothing short of ridiculous. Get in the BG, get ganked a few times, but ultimately you should be able to find a way to do it. Group with some experienced pvpers if you have to. It's honestly not as big a deal as everyone is making it.

On my way to the drake this was the one that almost nixed it for a year, making it a longer, stranger trip. I bet hard knocks had some others cursing. The only way I got through it was to get my son who is good at PVP to finish it for me. My son hated this because it messed up the battlegrounds, and you know how wound up people can get. The language filter was working overtime I bet. Cost me a trip to Carl's Jr. but the drake was worth it woot.

I hate this one. Hate it. Hate it. Hate. It.

I will say this, tho: I am going to be one of those "all-in-this-together" players, and if the diehard PVPers don't like, then /rude to them. Take it up with Blizz.

Seems to me that Blizzard is encouraging a form of win-trading by forcing this achievement on us. And if I remember correctly, didn't a couple of arena teams get into trouble for coullusion a couple of seasons ago? Sounds like there's some inconsistency here.

School of Hard Knocks made me quit the Violet Proto-Drake

For assaulting flags and towers in AB and AV do you have to actually click the flag (AB) or just be a part of the squad that goes into node to fight? same goes for AV towers, so everyone part of battle not necessarily flag clicker (lol) gets achievement?

@darkvegeta
You have to be the one to click on the flags with your orphan out. Be careful in AV though because you have to "Assault" not technically "Defend" so make sure you are in the opposing factions area when clicking on a flag in the tower. Ex: If you are Aliance don't wait in Dun Balder for horde to assault then claim the base back. It count's as Defending. All you have to do is fulling make it through the channeling with your orphan out and you get credit. Don't even have to have it fully cap. Hope this helps! :)

This quest line, School of Hard Knocks, completely frustrated me tonight. I gave up after several hours of misery in AB.

Blizzard has totally missed the boat on this one. And worse than that, is that they are fully aware of how crappy an experience this is after years of complaints, yet they do NOTHING about it.

Clearly I suck at PvP because I am dying in 5 to 10 seconds despite some pretty good gear (non PvP though, GS of 5500+). So my odds of finishing this seem impossibly small.

I agree, if they wanted to have a positive experience then simply having your orphan out and getting some number of kills would be much less frustrating. Even if hard, at least I would have some belief that I might succeed. But as it is, I have little hope of finishing this.

Like CaryEverett I had little problem with School of Hard Knocks, (I like to think it was all my 1337 ubber Drood epicness that made it happen) I just played like normal and had most of the achieves done first try, with only AV taking two runs since I was a half second too late on a tower cap first try. It really wasn't quite as bad for me as people made it out to be.

Bliz got this one absolutely wrong. The idea was to encourage battleground play. Instead, there's a thousand noobs in BG now. Not that I care about the integrity of BG, but rather the thought of the impossibility of some of these achievements for many of the masses who will try for it. I play Warsong all the time. I've returned one flag in two years. I play ranged. I'm not normally near the flag when the carrier goes down. It's the only one that I haven't gotten yet on two characters. If they want to encourage BG then they should do what is required of the Arena points. Instead of these asinine goals, it should be to win four different battlegrounds. That encourages us to play the battlegrounds and to play to win (which would be a welcome change on my server).