Different cleric playstyles besides healing and melee?

[Greywander]

I've been looking at the possibility of created a hill dwarf knowledge cleric to have ready should I ever find a group to play with. I'm not too familiar with the cleric as a class, though, but I'm aware of the stereotypes. I've looked at a few guides and many of them seem to be coming from a perspective of building primarily as a healer, with strength-based melee fighter as the secondary option.

I can see playing a buff-bot, and throwing out the occasional heal when needed, but I'm curious what else I can be doing as a knowledge cleric aside from spamming toll the dead when I don't need to buff or heal. I've heard that avoiding damage is generally better than healing damage, so I'm wondering what sort of battlefield control options I have. Also, I was wondering if it was worth picking up sacred flame and word of radiance, leaving only two non-damage cantrips left. All three damage spells target a different save, and adding WIS mod to damage means word of radiance could be quite potent against a large group of enemies. I do like my utility cantrips, though.

I'm also feeling like as a knowledge cleric I'd like to beef up my Intelligence and pick up some INT skills besides my two free ones, but I'm having trouble spreading my ability scores thin. I might have to settle for some odd scores to be evened out later with feats.

[Galactkaktus]

Well clerics are full casters one first level spell that is useful whould be command. You also have some information gathering spells like augury and detect magic.

And they aren't without spells that disables their opponents. Hold person, blindness/deafness, bestow curse and banishment.

But my favorite thing is the ability to change my tools everyday.

Regarding spreading your ability scores thin just give up on strength the great thing about having inteligence is that since it seem to be the dump stat of choice for most classes in 5e if you invest in it you will have high values in skills that no one else generaly have.

[Ogre Mage]

Light Domain clerics are strong blasters. Radiance of the Dawn is very powerful at lower levels. Burning Hands, Faerie Fire, Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Fireball. Bless makes your scorching rays more likely to hit. Pretty impressive for someone who can wear medium armor and a shield.

I personally prefer Toll the Dead (from Xanathar's) over Sacred Flame.

[Greywander]

Well clerics are full casters one first level spell that is useful whould be command.
Letting the tank and/or rogue and/or other melee fighter engage a powerful enemy and then hitting them with "Grovel!" seems like it would be quite potent. "Flee" could potentially knock an enemy out for two rounds, one while they flee and another while they return. The one word restriction doesn't seem to leave a lot of room for creativity, though. Suggestion seems much more powerful for that reason.

And they aren't without spells that disables their opponents. Hold person, blindness/deafness, bestow curse and banishment.
My favorite class is probably wizard, but I'm not sure that's what I'd want to pull out my first time with a group (who may expect me to do nothing other than throw fireballs). The cleric spell list is more limited, but good to see it still has a number of great options available.

But my favorite thing is the ability to change my tools everyday.
Knowledge clerics make surprisingly good skill monkeys for a non-bard caster thanks to channel divinity. Or did you mean preparing a different set of spells? I'm not sure how bards, sorcerers, and warlocks do it. I like having options, which is probably why I'm drawn to wizard. Cleric is probably second-best in that regard.

Regarding spreading your ability scores thin just give up on strength the great thing about having inteligence is that since it seem to be the dump stat of choice for most classes in 5e if you invest in it you will have high values in skills that no one else generaly have.
I was already assuming dumping both STR and CHA to 8. Since I'm stuck with medium armor, though, I feel like I need at least 14 DEX, 16 WIS is a must, and 16 CON would be easily doable as a dwarf. That leaves me with an INT of 12. Better than nothing, but not as good as I would have liked. I could drop one point in CON with the expectation to pick up, say, Observant and Resilient (CON) later on, allowing me to boost INT to 13 + 1 from Observant (with 1 odd point left, probably to STR for carry weight). But maybe it would make more sense to drop DEX to 10 and plan on getting the Heavily Armored feat.

Light Domain clerics are strong blasters. Radiance of the Dawn is very powerful at lower levels. Burning Hands, Faerie Fire, Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Fireball. Bless makes your scorching rays more likely to hit. Pretty impressive for someone who can wear medium armor and a shield.

I personally prefer Toll the Dead (from Xanathar's) over Sacred Flame.
I'm not really interested in playing a blaster, although it's fun to have that option available when you want to cut loose or you're in a tight spot. I'd already intended to take toll the dead as my primary attack from 1st level onward, but I was wondering if it would be worth it to pick up word of radiance and sacred flame later on for melee AoE and ranged radiant damage (which slightly edges out necrotic in terms of creatures that resist or are immune to it). Also, all three spells target different saves (sadly, all strong saves), allowing me to target whichever save is weakest for that enemy. But maybe it's not worth passing up a utility cantrip.

[Arkhios]

War Cleric would make rather amazing ranged weapon combatant.

Divine Favor (domain spell) works with both melee and ranged weapons, which is pretty nice, and War Priest (domain feature) as well. With Sharp Shooter (feat) you become rather frightening on the battle field.

[Kobard]

If you want a best of both worlds cleric and wizard, then I would recommend looking into the Arcana cleric found in SCAG. They get a few wizard cantrips and eventually their choice of a 6th-9th level spell from the wizard spell list. Though a lot of people seem fixated on the Shillelagh Arcana cleric melee build (meh), you can pick up some nice control options and utility through wizard cantrips via Arcana cleric. You will also get +Wis to cantrips, so you can also stand in the back to cast. Plus, you could also take Ritual Caster (Wiz), if you want to expand your outta combat utility by essentially combining the two best classes for ritual spells in the game (excluding tomelock). A lot of "knowledge" type domain spells are basically wizard and cleric rituals anyway, so you can further free up your spell slots with wizard rituals. Go Arcana and Ritual Caster (Wiz) and you can pick up a lot of that without having to expend too much effort optimizing.

[jaappleton]

If you want a best of both worlds cleric and wizard, then I would recommend looking into the Arcana cleric found in SCAG. They get a few wizard cantrips and eventually their choice of a 6th-9th level spell from the wizard spell list. Though a lot of people seem fixated on the Shillelagh Arcana cleric melee build (meh), you can pick up some nice control options and utility through wizard cantrips via Arcana cleric. You will also get +Wis to cantrips, so you can also stand in the back to cast. Plus, you could also take Ritual Caster (Wiz), if you want to expand your outta combat utility by essentially combining the two best classes for ritual spells in the game (excluding tomelock). A lot of "knowledge" type domain spells are basically wizard and cleric rituals anyway, so you can further free up your spell slots with wizard rituals. Go Arcana and Ritual Caster (Wiz) and you can pick up a lot of that without having to expend too much effort optimizing.

Here's my only issue with Arcana Cleric:

The Capstone. I don't know how to word it for the book, but I think you should get access to the Wizard spells when you reach that spell level. So at spell level 6, you get one Wizard spell. Two levels later, you get one 7th level Wizard spell, etc.

Maybe alter the capstone entirely, and have lower level Arcana feature be 'You gain a number of Wizard spells equal to your Wisdom modifier'.

[Kobard]

Here's my only issue with Arcana Cleric:

The Capstone. I don't know how to word it for the book, but I think you should get access to the Wizard spells when you reach that spell level. So at spell level 6, you get one Wizard spell. Two levels later, you get one 7th level Wizard spell, etc.

Maybe alter the capstone entirely, and have lower level Arcana feature be 'You gain a number of Wizard spells equal to your Wisdom modifier'.That seems easy enough to adjust, particularly if you discussed it with your GM. Simply getting access to Wish as a cleric would be a nice capstone in itself.