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Personally, I'm more of a fan of #2, slightly leaning towards #3, BUT willing to switch between tactics if needed. I feel #2 is generally the most wise tactic, both in outcome, but also, and perhaps more importantly, for teaching/reinforcing that playing smart and using good tactics and teamwork is far better for everyone's enjoyment of the game than other forms of play.
The best use is to use all abilities when they are best tactically. Usually this means a divine caster will buff the party, then either blast/battlefield control/smash, then when a fellow PC is about to DROP, heal. If your combats go on for 5-8 rounds, as is common, letting your tank drop on round 3 is very bad tactics.
In fact, with a good allocation of feats, one can Channel as a Move action and keep casting/whacking as your standard.
And, altho I deplore it, there is "a fun for them so valid" school that has each Player with a pile of PC's at his side so when one dies, another "toon" is brought in next encounter. There's also the "nova glass cannon" school where all is offense, thus CR combats are over by R3, thus having the tank drop on r2 isn't significant.
If you play either of these schools, then sure, why heal during combat.
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James Jacobs:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pi6r?Clerics-shields-and-the-limitations-of-on ly#46
"Every game is different.
In games I run and play in, clerics always heal in combat, and often that ends up being the thing that lets the players survive.
A player of a cleric needs to be comfortable with the fact that he's there to support the group with healing and similar spells—that's kind of the whole point of the class. If I'm playing a cleric, and my in-combat healing keeps the fighter alive for one more round and in that round he manages to kill the bad guy, but if I hadn't healed him he would have been killed before he got that attack, then effectively I'm as much to thank for the death of the bad guy as the fighter is.
In fact, in Jason Bulmahn's weekly grind game (which he hasn't run since last Gen Con, alas), I was playing a cleric who pretty much was healing EVERY ROUND in combat, or something close to it, it seemed. And the one time I wasn't able to do this (because of what I still maintain to be a grossly unfair ambush that got me killed before my initiative got to me)... the lack of healing in combat resulted in a TPK.
I've never agreed with the "healing in combat is a bad idea." But again... every game is different.
In any event, to confirm to the original poster, if you're a cleric you should probably either favor the buckler or light shield, as those shields were designed in part to serve the game as things that let you use that hand for other things like spellcasting. Or, alternatively, do a heavy shield and don't carry a weapon. Clerics don't need weapons to kick ass and be a valuable member of a group, unless of course they've used up all their spells and channel energies and the like."
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I found that HP healing is the least important thing a "healer" class can do. Remove paralysis, suppress charms and compulsions, remove blindness/deafness, and similar condition removal spells are far more important. That fighter can operate at 100% till he is dropped if he has no conditions on him. If that fighter is dominated, blind, or immobile, not so much.
Last night the party was forced to go without their primary healer, only having a witch (their backup healer) available. Party got hit with a feeblemind trap, and the witch got nailed too. It required a UMD'ed scroll to fix the witch, the witch teleporting back to town to buy the right spells, then teleporting back to fix the party. Then there is the level drain and ability damage they took... They had to risk the saves and spend the time to fix that. They also got hit with confusion (which the cleric usually fixes). It was just a train wreck of a night for them (1 killed, 1 neg, 3 feebleminds, 2 levels drained, and 3 party members taking wisdom damage). They got lucky on the saves vs madness effects, that would have been crippling for the summoner who only made it with a hero point.
My party tends to have 2-3 round combats normally, they usually have 2-3 people who are really good at dealing damage, with the others being able to contribute save or dies/save or sucks in addition to incidental damage. There really isn't time for in combat damage mitigation other than a clutch breath of life (the cleric always has a reach breath of life available for emergencies). Interestingly enough breath of life is a condition removal spell for her, it removes the dead condition.
IMHO condition removal and damage prevention through smart use of buffs/debuffs is more important than in combat damage mitigation. That isn't to say that it isn't sometimes needed, but I have found that in combat healing usually involved the party being caught with their pants down, or that they are low on resources at the time the combat occurs.
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I tend to agree, though I usually consider Remove condition spells to be part of healing. The issue is, PF has changed them so they are no longer spells that just do it, but rather ones that need a check. This means about 1/2 - 1/4 of the time the spell just does nothing, which is another reason to not use them in combat unless there is a big need, and a few of them, people don't realize are not a Standard or Full Round Action to cast. So it really just depends on how much it is needed for right then vs can wait a few rounds.
The sheer number of classes that can use a Wand of CLW also means that a lot of times people can and will need to heal themselves and not waste the Cleric's (or healer's) time. Potions are cheap, too. Anyone can invest in the Heal kill, and in my personal opinion, at least one other non-healing character should max it out until about 10th, preferably the Rogue, so when the Healer goes down or takes some damage that they can't heal on themselves, someone else can step in and save them. Rogues have the skill pints to spare on both Heal and UMD, and tend to have the best mobility, meaning they can cross the battlefield relatively safely to beat feet to the downed healer when circumstances are reversed.
I tend to agree, though I usually consider Remove condition spells to be part of healing. The issue is, PF has changed them so they are no longer spells that just do it, but rather ones that need a check. This means about 1/2 - 1/4 of the time the spell just does nothing, which is another reason to not use them in combat unless there is a big need, and a few of them, people don't realize are not a Standard or Full Round Action to cast. So it really just depends on how much it is needed for right then vs can wait a few rounds.
I'm sort of confused by this, most of the remove conditions spells I shared don't require a check. Suppress charms suppresses the effect for the duration of the spell and gives a bonus against new charms cast (though if the duration is longer than the suppression it comes back into effect). Remove paralysis works all the time as long as you don't target multiples. Remove blindness works all the time.
Sure the remove disease spell needs a check, but disease is usually not an immediate problem anyways (long incubation times). Remove cures is another, but considering how nasty curses are its probably still worth doing it despite the check required. Curses in my experience tend to be rare, but some people like them more than others I suppose.
As for casting times, everything I suggested requires only 1 action to cast, its the restoration spells and raise dead spells that require more time. Which is solved by people having their own lesser restoration potions available. They are only 300 gold (or 50 if you can get the GM to buy into the 1st level paladin spell idea).
