Is this raiding? (Updated: post #215)

Updated: See post #215

I'm going to be very negative, here, about raiding. Please understand this is me putting out my personal experience and asking whether I'm experiencing it correctly. I *do not* mean to insult you or your preferred play style.

I know I would never enjoy a karaoke bar, (and I've never been to one), but I can see why/how some folks would love them. I thought I would like raids, but having experienced a few, now, I'm surprised at my disappointment, and I'm not seeing why/how some folks love them.

I boosted a tauren paladin to 100 so I can experience all this end-game content I hear so much about. This tauren was my favorite character while questing. But I'm just not enjoying raids. I'm wondering if my lack of enjoyment is because of this type of character (melee DPS) or if it's raiding in general. Or maybe it's because of the boost thrusting me suddenly into something I've never done with no introduction or preamble.

I've done four or five raids so far (via LFR). Moving battles of 20-40 players against 1-4 huge monsters, lasting 10+ minutes or so.

First off, I really have no clue what's going on -- no introduction to the scenarios. I'm just following the other players into the fray, and figuring out the battlefield mechanics as I experience them. With no introduction to the scenario, it feels really "flat". This is very similar to leveling in dungeons, I have to admit. I realize I was probably very foolish to expect raids to be different in this regard.

With 20-40 players in the fight, I feel like my input/DPS is minuscule. I'm tempted to just hang around one fight and see if not doing anything makes any difference to the outcome.

With the constantly moving battle, I dislike playing a melee character because I have to constantly chase the monster. When I see a monster start attacking a softy DPS (mage, priest, etc.) I try to draw that monster's threat away from them -- I kind of like doing that, essentially looking out to protect the squishies (even when not the tank). But it doesn't seem that I actually affect the monster's attention. I've seen monsters run from one caster to another over and over with me chasing and [trying] smashing on it, but never getting it's attention on me. It makes me wonder if it's just a mechanic that I can't affect. ?

And although I do like fights to last through a few/several rotations of my abilities, 10+ minutes feels excessive. It gets to a point where I actually get bored and frustrated -- 40 players blasting away at this thing (doing thousands and thousands and thousands damage) for 10+ minutes, it loses excitement and becomes drone activity.

And at the end of the raid, I have only *once* gotten a drop -- wrist armor not as good as what I was already wearing. Is this right? This can't be right? I always thought raids dropped great items.

Tell me: am I doing something wrong for what is raiding, or is raiding probably just not something I'll ever enjoy?

I have enjoyed dungeons (via LFD) -- low level dungeons are too easy and fast; but 90-100 dungeons feel appropriately challenging and long -- and find the rewards (xp or drops) to be worth the wait and effort.