The cleric has widely been considered one of the most powerful classes in 3.5.

In Pathfinder
little has changed in this regard. The cleric is a deceptively complex class with lots of ways to
play him and lots of traps that players can fall into if they’re not careful on how to proceed.
Instead of trying to breakdown the cleric into what’s best for everything I’m first going to break
down the class as a whole and then recommend some good common builds to go along with it.
I’m using Treantmonk’s guides (as they seem to be the standard these days) as a baseline. As
such ​blue means it’s a highly recommended ability, ​green means this ability is good but you can
live without it, ​orange means that it’s highly situational and not terribly useful but won’t break
you for selecting it, ​red means it’s waste of time. ​Below are links to various parts of the guide for
ease of reference

Before we get moving, let’s talk about the Nine Commandments of Clerics so you get an idea of
what they’re about.
1. ​THOU ART NOT A BANDAID: ​Right if you’ve read any of treantmonk’s guides than you are
aware that the role of a party healer is a wasted one. Sure, you can be decent at it but a dead
enemy is an enemy that deals no damage. That’s why this guide refers to “Support” clerics
rather than “Healers”. Clerics make great supporters, buffers, secondary tanks and strikers
when need be but they are not healers.

2. ​THOU SHALT RESPECT THINE GOD AND THINE ALIGNMENT!: ​When a paladin falls,
he’s a fighter with no feats. When a druid falls, he’s a ranger with no combat skills. When you
fall, you’re outright screwed. This guide talks a lot about mechanical optimization. However
one aspect that is often forgotten by cleric’s is that ultimately the GM has authority to rip away
your class abilities if you are acting like a total twat in regards to your god. So do your
homework, find out what your GM expects of you and your alignment and roleplay accordingly.
The last thing you want is to be outclassed by the party’s worst characters.

3. ​THOU SHALT LEARN TO LOVE THE WAND, THE SCROLL, AND THE ROD: ​The Cleric,
more than any other class, has a list filled with situational spells you would otherwise not grant
the time of day to grace your spell slots. Unfortunately many of these situational spells become
absolutely necessary if and when something happens that require their use. In some games
I’ve played this almost always means the party stops adventuring and camps for the night while
they wait for the cleric to switch out spell slots.

4. ​THOU SHALT HONOR THE FIGHTER AND THE WIZARD. PAY RESPECTS TO THE
ROGUE AND SHUN THE ORACLE FOR HE IS HERETICAL SCUM: ​By and large the cleric
has a great many support skills. He can do a lot but he can’t do it all, he’ll never have the spell
casting capacity of a full arcane caster or the straight up combat skills of the prime Bab classes.
As such you should work not as an individual but the backbone on which the group is built on.

5. ​THOU SHALT NOT WASTE THY TIME WITH PETTY MAGICS: ​If you’re having to spend
two standard actions in combat to lay down buffs, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t sweat the small
spells, the minor buffs, or the tiniest numbers. Big numbers and positioning count for more than
just throwing spells out there. You should already be throwing out your minute long buffs long
before the fight takes place anyway. If not, then your party’s scout isn’t doing his job.

6. ​THOU SHALT LEAVE SPELL SLOTS OPEN: ​A little used trick in some games is the ability
for clerics to not have to prep every single spell slot they have. Instead they can leave some
open to keep for the various situational spells they will likely want later. This is not only wise but
essential to success as a cleric.

7. ​THOU SHALT KNOW THY ROLE: ​In Pathfinder, specialists are the best at what they
specialize in (duh). Generally the fewer options a class has to determine its role the better it is
at it. It’s a cold hard fact and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. Though I list several
different archetypes each one can still perform the function of another in the right
circumstances. This is not weakness. Rather it proves the classes versatility which in and of
itself is strength. Even a mild mannered support cleric can hurl strong debuffs or pick up arms
and buff himself into a terror on the battlefield. In the end Clerics play to their chosen role very
well and can get away with a lot more than other so called jack of all trade classes at doing it.
Specialized classes will be better than you at their roles but they won’t ever have the ability to
stop for an hour and completely change the dynamic of the party.

8. ​THOU SHALT PLAY TO THE STRENGTHS OF THY PARTY: ​I already touched on this a bit
earlier but it bears a bit of detail here as well. You’ve got buffs. More importantly you’ve got a
lot of buffs that you can put together to fit the needs of the group. So work with that. If the
wizard commonly drops haste on people then don’t worry about divine power for yourself. If the
party is mostly ranged characters endeavor to increase their mobility or make the bad guys
unable to get to you. If a member has a weakness that needs to be filled endeavor to make
sure it’s stopgapped. Think of the party as a dam, and you the maintenance man. So long as
the dam remains solid you’re golden. Just don’t forget yourself, because you too are part of the
dam.

9. ​NO REALLY, THOU SHALT LEAVE SPELL SLOTS OPEN: ​ It’s come to my attention that
the open slot trick is not as well known as I figured considering it is a part of the core rulebook.
First let me lay out the relevant text:

Under the Cleric entry in the book​:

Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which she
must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain her daily
allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare
spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that she
can cast spells of that level, but she must choose which spells to prepare during her daily
meditation.

Some people stop here and thus I have to constantly remind them of this text which shows up
under the preparing divine spells section in the magic chapter of the book.

A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and
meditation at a particular time of day. The time required to prepare spells is the same as
it is for a wizard (1 hour), as is the requirement for a relatively peaceful environment.
When preparing spells for the day, a divine spellcaster can leave some of
her spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation
process as often as she likes. During these extra sessions of preparation,
she can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a
previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is
empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. Like the first session of
the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if she
prepares more than one-quarter of his spells.

Emphasis mine. Simply put you do have to pick a day to have your main prayer session to get
a clean slate however it was. Think of it like a black board. At the start of the day you can add
to the black board’s space. However you do not need to completely fill it. Over the course of
the day you can erase bits of the blackboard and spend time filling up the unused space to
erase over again. When you memorize new spells you can completely clear off the blackboard
and start fresh. This is among the cleric’s most potent and subtle abilities. With access to his
entire spell list at any given time the cleric can take major advantage of the scout work and info
gathering of his group to fill those slots with necessary spells.

Class Abilities and Skills

Domains and Subdomains
Cleric Types​*
Spells
The Gods!
Multiclassing, Archetypes and Prestige Classes
ACG Stuff