The only magical in combat healing you need early on is Healing Word. Ranged, bonus action, brings target at 0 h.p up again, simple. For after fights the Healer feat is very helpful, that and spending hit dice.
A good number of cleric abilities are about buffing the party to shorten the length of combat, a Bless spell does wonders to help your side hit and do damage reducing the number of overall attacks they take during the fight and letting them make saves they wouldn't have, that extra 1d4 on a Dexterity save to take half damage or Con save to avoid a big chunk of poison damage altogether is great and much better than a single cure wounds later.
The three clerics I see in regular play are War, Light, and Thunder the Thunder cleric seems to have the most fun out of all of them , followed by Light, and the War cleric seems to get bored.
A good number of cleric abilities are about buffing the party to shorten the length of combat, a Bless spell does wonders to help your side hit and do damage reducing the number of overall attacks they take during the fight and letting them make saves they wouldn't have, that extra 1d4 on a Dexterity save to take half damage or Con save to avoid a big chunk of poison damage altogether is great and much better than a single cure wounds later.
The three clerics I see in regular play are War, Light, and Thunder the Thunder cleric seems to have the most fun out of all of them , followed by Light, and the War cleric seems to get bored.