What are the most common reasons people don't dps?

[Sebazy]

Miri has it mostly covered tbh but I'll expand on it in a handy TLDR friendly format <3

1 - A lack of confidence in themselves - aka they fear that they will put up cleric right as a tank buster starts casting
2 - A lack of confidence in others - aka the fear that others will jump into aoes the moment they put up cleric
3 - A lack of experience or knowledge of the encounter at hand - Concentrating primarily on learning the flow and timing of the encounter or dungeon
4 - A lack of mechanical skill - They simply might not be able to handle the APM that DPSing can sometimes require.
5 - A lack of awareness - They may not spot safe opportunities in which to DPS without prompting from others
6 - Not knowing better - This game does a poor job of coaching players and it's easy for someone simply not realise the potential benefits of dpsing
7 - It's not what they signed up for - Many players simply want to heal and that's that
8 - Netflix/Reddit/CBA - Those cat videos aren't going to watch themselves you know
9 - Peer pressure - aka the fear of what others will say/think of them if they fail, sometimes this is self inflicted, sometimes it isn't

Pls don't jump on this as a 'this is right or wrong' post, just purely some of the reasons I've seen over the years.

[eternalstar01]

Sebazy pretty much covered it...

The only thing I want to add is... it took me a while of stance dancing to realize how seamless it is. I'm about to show my noob here (I've been playing MMOs since 2006, I should know better, but I really don't)... CS is off the global cooldown, so I think most people don't understand how powerful that is. You can weave yourself in and out of CS without losing "time" (waiting for a CD to cast your next heal or spell). Once I learned how all that worked, I have been DPS-ing far more.

My last add is, I think people would use it more if they ditched that 10-15 second penalty when you turn CS on. That penalty is a huge deciding factor for me when determining my comfort level with a group.

[ChameleonMS]

2 - A lack of confidence in others - aka the fear that others will jump into aoes the moment they put up cleric

2a - Tanks pulls the floor and switches stances.

[Neela]

2a - Tanks pulls the floor and switches stances.

yeah this is a thing which seems to become trendy as well... so less chance for getting the extra dps in big pulls on both sides – tank and healer at the same time. maybe possible if all your buffs and cds are up for the first or even second mob grp but really tricky to get both in dmg stance through the whole dng...