Choir Cleric (Cleric/Bard). They can sing hymns while they heal others.
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I love buffer/inspirational clerics. (Evangelist archetype is fun mechanically). You have so many useful spells and you have huge spell flexibility.
Plus clerics can be really good face characters (high WIS, Perception, Sense Motive, and Diplomacy are all class skills, and with a 12-int human using favored class bonus you get 5 skill points/level...) Not as good as bards, but still very useful.
But most of the fun I get out of a cleric is roleplaying the religious side of things. Clerics are very simple to build, and do well at: they're a very tough class (high WIS, good Fort/Will saves, and full level-9 spellcasting -- you don't need to uber-optimize to be highly effective. So all my brainpower and enjoyment can go to roleplaying instead of maxing out my build -- I'm still very effective.
Utility+GOD style (buff+control) with a splash of bloodthirsty tank.
Favorite Cleric has been an Evil Cleric of Knowledge+Trickery, whose standard tactics involved scry+illusion... but always had some Divine Favor and/or Divine Power at the ready so he could enjoy some "glory" in the form of dismembered corpses
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I've had a lot of fun with my pirate cleric of Besmara, the pirate goddess, in PFS. He's a "bad touch" cleric who sits on the front line with the Trickery and Chaos (Protean) domains, using those 1st level domain abilities over and over. Toss in negative channeling for spontaneous inflict spells, and other debuffs like Bestow Curse, Blindness/Deafness, etc, and feats to boost concentration through the roof, and he's very good at holding off the enemies. As long as I'm in a group that can take care of the damage while I hold off the enemies, I'm great.
The typical buff/heal type cleric can be quite effective, as well. As tonyz said, it's easy to build, and lets you focus on playing a religious zealot, which makes it easy to come up with a fun personality. I have a leprechaun wannabe - halfling cleric of Desna with the typical Luck and Travel domains, using the halfling favored class bonus to get extra uses per day of Bit of Luck. His main purpose in life is to spread the luck around.
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A Shaman.
More skill points, actual class features, and all of the flexibility. You even get a Capstone!
Melee Cleric of Desna. Travel and Liberation domains. 2nd would be Milani.
I'm still waiting on the Church of the SubNethys... they create magical slack... *-<8^)
Pull off your pants and roll in your own mistakes.
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High wisdom caster cleric focusing on support: Patch healing, resistances, dispels, summons, buffs, debuffs.
Pretty much the same, I like to use all my toys, casting a different spell each round, if possible, counting on shield other on the main tank (and high hit points) to let me heal us all up with channel energy later, and mixing it up with summons, magic items and / or domain powers, if they are worthwhile.
Depending on the options, I might defend myself with copycat, from Trickery, or learn something about the foe's defenses and vulnerabilities with Knowledge, or delay to hit a spellcaster with a little bit of damage (to force a concentration check) with hand of the acolyte from Magic while a spiritual weapon or summoned monster also adds damage, etc.
The more things that can be going on, like shield other, bless, resist energy, summoned monsters, spiritual weapons, whip feather tokens, in addition to my own actual action, the better, so I don't feel like I'm 'wasting' anything if I use an action to cure wounds on someone or remove a condition.
As noted in previous threads, I almost always have my Oracles chosen by a specific god rather than a group of them, making my Oracles more like particularly saintly clerics than the standard Oracle archetype.
Anzyr mentioned Shaman earlier, and I will partly agree with that - Shaman makes for an awesome Calistrian Cleric style character since the Witch spells make for a particularly vengeancey flavor. However, I find that the Shaman spell list falls short for a lot of my other preferred Cleric archetypes.
I actually don't play many actual clerics anymore - I hate preparing spells, so I will always opt for a spontaneous caster when possible. I mean, I get the utility - I just don't find it fun.
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I have several different clerics in PFS:
* A midrange Cleric of Shelyn (Love/Defense) that sometimes engages in melee and sometimes just stays back and casts spells or channels. She's gotten fantastic use out of Calm Emotions.
* A dedicated casting cleric of Sarenrae (Fire/Restoration) that is utterly useless in melee but it about to start using Shield Other and Holy Smite and loves casting Fireball.
* A battle cleric of Cayden Cailean (Frenzy/Travel) who mostly just stabs things. I always make sure to pack around a copy of Remove Fear with him. <Insert complaint about Cayden Cailean's domains being all wrong>
I love them all, so it's hard to pick. To me, the joy of the Cleric class is picking domains and spells to play into the flavor of your chosen deity, especially so if the combination of domains works into something special. The class needs 4+ skills something fierce though.
My favorite flavor of Cleric is an MMO style Healer. As in, absolutely despises everyone he's contractually obligated to keep alive. And refuses to heal a damn thing that the DPS did to themselves xD
Plant (growth) domain + reach weapon. This fightin' cleric grows to beefy proportions to attack. If a non-reach foe closes the distance he gets the attack of opp. Once the foe is adjacent on the cleric's next turn, the enlarge person effect ends and he "shrinks away" from his foe, returning to 10' range. He then makes full attacks before 5' stepping away, "growing away" from his enemy, and repeating the process. Combine with tactics domain to make sure you're set up to block charge lanes. Play him as an extremely orderly and organized gardener.
I've been wanting to try a Gorumite Evangelist with a twist: Using Inspire Courage, Channel Energy, and other buffs to help enemies and allies indiscriminately, to make the battle more interesting. Mix in thew Destructive Aura Domain power for extra fun. Sadly, it doesn't work well in a cohesive party.
Otherwise, I don't play them too much, because Oracle and Shaman have better skills, but the ones I have usually try to maintain a good Str and Wis, for what I refer to as a "switch caster" using spells either to augment melee potency or to eliminate foes. Persistent Rods help with this endeabvor, but even without them most enemies (not PCs, enemies) fall into one of two categories: I can beat them apart with a stick, or send them to the semi-elemental plane of ranch dressing. Ones beyond these two are why I also prepare group buff spells
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I've been wanting to try a Gorumite Evangelist with a twist: Using Inspire Courage, Channel Energy, and other buffs to help enemies and allies indiscriminately, to make the battle more interesting. Mix in thew Destructive Aura Domain power for extra fun. Sadly, it doesn't work well in a cohesive party.
That's hilarious. It doesn't work for a PC, obviously, because the rest of the party would kill you after the first combat. Not your PC. I think they might actually kill the player.
But as an NPC, I could totally see that happening. I just don't know if the NPC should be an "ally" or "enemy" of the party.
I've been wanting to try a Gorumite Evangelist with a twist: Using Inspire Courage, Channel Energy, and other buffs to help enemies and allies indiscriminately, to make the battle more interesting. Mix in thew Destructive Aura Domain power for extra fun. Sadly, it doesn't work well in a cohesive party.That's hilarious. It doesn't work for a PC, obviously, because the rest of the party would kill you after the first combat. Not your PC. I think they might actually kill the player.
But as an NPC, I could totally see that happening. I just don't know if the NPC should be an "ally" or "enemy" of the party.
Glad you like the idea, currently I'm considering this as an NPC fight announcer for a tournament campaign arc, where he stands in a specialized mechanical cage, calling out fighting moves for the inspire, casting prayer, channelling, and then whacking anyone too close with a great sword and lunge. Not Gorumite, but a similar (homebrew) god.
I have considered it for a PC before, but the general consensus from the group was "don't be a d*** Paradozen" so I went with something else.
I've been wanting to try a Gorumite Evangelist with a twist: Using Inspire Courage, Channel Energy, and other buffs to help enemies and allies indiscriminately, to make the battle more interesting. Mix in thew Destructive Aura Domain power for extra fun. Sadly, it doesn't work well in a cohesive party.That's hilarious. It doesn't work for a PC, obviously, because the rest of the party would kill you after the first combat. Not your PC. I think they might actually kill the player.
But as an NPC, I could totally see that happening. I just don't know if the NPC should be an "ally" or "enemy" of the party.
if any enemy has the destruction domain I usually use the +dmg to everyone within 30ft one, especially funny if they're much weaker than the PCs