My cleric fights, buffs, heals, and throws both utility and attack spells. Lately, I've actually been using my turn undead power because it actually works against the low HD undead we've been fighting.
I try to keep some elemental protection spells on hand, buff the combat types with GMW and bull's strength, have a dispel magic ready, along with some personal combat buffs for emergencies and some evocations like Flamestrike.
First of all, I found a decent level 3 attack spell in R&R. Against normal foes, it's far better than searing light. Lately, I've keeping a searing light or two in memory because we've been fighting undead. Between sunspear/searing light and flamestrike, I have a decent number of powerful attack spells. Between those spells and Hold person - essentially save or die against the right targets - I have a strong load of single target high effect spells.
Basically, I see my role as making sure that A: we win against the monster, and B: as few people die as possible. When our group was a fighter, sorcerer, and wizard, I used more personal combat buffs and meleed enemies so we'd have a front line and spellcasters wouldn't get polymorphed to red paste. Now that we have an additional tank paladin and archer fighter, I use more spells to buff them and focus on strategic spell use.
I use significant healing in combat as infrequently as possible. I'd rather attempt to draw attacks and dish out some melee damage to spread the damage around more so no one person takes a killing amount of damage, or to shorten the fight so we take less total damage. Because there are much more out of combat rounds than in combat rounds, combat actions are precious. Therefore, I only attempt to take combat actions that help in combat. If a character lives, I can heal them to full if need be. If they survive, it makes no difference whether they came out at 15 HP or at 25 HP after I healed them. If, by employing a different spell, I can attempt to shorten the fight, reduce the damage that will need to be healed, and still be able to keep everyone alive, I'll use the non-healing spell. I'm going to hate it when monsters do so much damage that I'll have to use Heal frequently just to keep the idiots from dying.
I also disagree with Wulf about low level fighting clerics. At first level, a cleric with the war domain will be using a comparable weapon, have focus and another feat. A 1st level human cleric with War could go Focus, Power Attack, Cleave. Wow, that feat selection is real different from that of many 1st level human fighters. At NO OTHER LEVEL will the cleric have similar feat parity as a single class cleric. For the first 4 levels, a cleric's Base attack trails a fighter's by one. The gap widens after that point. Also, at higher levels, a cleric's items will likely be split between combat, spell boosting, wnds and scrolls. A fighter stuff will probably more heavily emphasize combat ability. So the difference in combat ability will also widen. At no other level will a cleric's unbuffed fighting ability be as comparable.
On the other hand, at higher levels a cleric will be more reliant on buffs, and will probably have to do the same for teammates as well. In my group, I'm having trouble affording the slots to buff the fighters and paladin, much less include myself. Also, at higher levels, the results from cleric spells will likely be more impressive or at least equal to a round of combat, without the risk of getting dispelled or antimagiced and then having to face a fighter without your cool tricks.
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Healing/buffing/sneaking type ...
