I hate to break it to you, but not all clerics look so tough. Visit your nearby Catholic church if you want a visual. Those priests who don’t wear armor or carry weapons? They’re also called ‘clerics.’ Your visual of a ‘classic’ cleric is as romanticized as people’s images of ‘classic’ pirates.
The definition of cleric is “a priest or religious leader.”
You’re focusing on the fantasy of the clergy that got into uncomfortable armor, picked up a heavy weapon, and went tromping off in defense of the faith. You’re completely discounting the members of the fantasy clergy that remained behind to tend to the shrines and temples. The ones who healed the flock, lifted curses, and resurrected dead party members. Those were the ones who didn’t wear armor.
The guys who didn’t get armored up were still clerics. In AD&D terms, the Hearthlings’ version of a cleric still counts. In so much as the healing ability.
However, the game doesn’t seem to have a defined religion. That alone makes the term ‘cleric’ a bit of a misnomer.
That’s all really irrelevant. You pointed out yourself - ‘cleric’ is a bit of a misnomer. Stonehearth is a fantasy game with loose or no ties to actual historical accuracy. The stonehearth cleric is a hearthling primarily used in battle. I just wish the hearthling looked more like the armoured, romanticized version of a cleric on the battlefield, or be renamed to something else.
How about this:
Tier 1
Priest - what it is now
Tier 2
Life weaver - Able to give strong heals, strong offensive and defensive buffs. very fragile health and attack weaker than knight.
Cleric - Fighter able to give same heals as a priest, health greater than footman but less than knight, attack less than footman but greater than knight, attack more effective than footman when fighting undead. able to give moderate offensive buffs.
You can choose to upgrade the priest into a better healer, or a support fighter. The best of both worlds.
Your combat cleric isn’t balanced. You’re essentially giving him the same kinds of heals and sticking him between the actual hard combat classes. He wouldn’t be nearly as good as the footman or knight in combat. Not if you’re leaving him with the full healing ability plus buffs. Your ‘breakdown’ leaves it as I said in a previous post: you might as well just have a full party of clerics and eschew the footmen and knights altogether.
Honestly, if they want a white mage type to be referred to as a ‘cleric’ that’s up to the devs. Clerics come in many flavors in AD&D and in other media. One of the Forgotten Realms deities was absolutely pacifistic. There were no actual damaging weapons allowed. They made up for it with some hellacious spell ability but their weapons were restricted to things that did no damage, like nets and other items used to snare.
They were still called clerics, but they didn’t wear armor and they didn’t have a mace. That kind of cleric does not fit with your ideal of them, but it came from the game that started this fantasy cleric ideal.
You’ve previously chastised me to not be so narrow-minded. You seem to be the one who’s narrowed their vision and in your vision, the cleric is only one way. You’re absolutely arguing against any other way because it’s your opinion that all clerics should be armed and armored. There are many, many, many different versions of a cleric in various other kinds of media and your adherence that there’s only one proper cleric is honestly a bit on the ridiculous side.
This game is someone else’s idea. In their world, these little guys are clerics. It doesn’t fit your narrow-minded and die-hard ideal. So what?
As the saying goes: “My world. My rules.”
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I’ll take back what I said about narrow mindedness. You seem very hung up on it. Yes I want the cleric to look like the way I want it envisioned, because in my opinion, it’s really cool and fits well into stonehearth’s aesthetic. I would hope others would agree that pious armoured guys with maces is cool. That’s what we want from a game, is cool shit.
when I said that I simply meant there doesn’t need to be a technical reason why a cleric can’t look that way. One can broaden their horizons to imagine a scenario where a cleric in stonehearth is an armoured character, wielding a mace, and supporting their allies.
I’m not entirely sure what it is that you want. It seems that you just don’t want me to have my vision of clerics because you believe I’m being close minded and don’t deserve it as a result. if that’s true then let me be perfectly clear: When I said clerics should be armoured mace wielders, that’s a bit of a misunderstanding. I actually don’t mind what the class I’m describing is called. A cleric, a battle priest, a chaplain. just something suitable. I’d like to see a scenario in which stonehearth makes as many people as possible happy with its content, as long as fits within the stonehearth spirit. I also don’t mind if that’s something that’s not going to happen. It’s a suggestion in a suggestion forum. I hope that clears that up.
What if a herbalist acted more as an alchemist, they could make potions that buff allies, and also poisons that a soldier can equip, and apply to their weapon for limited strikes that provide various debuffs or damage.
It could be a stand alone skill tree similar to how the weaver is stand alone.
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hmmm the herbalist already make buff potions dont they? The poisons are represented with the quivers made by the weaver?
But yes it could be super fun that a more alchemy focussed path for the herbalist would be implemented.
Potions that made the hearthlings green for a while (maybe gave them neutrality to the goblins while it was active?) The workers could run into the goblincamp and loot all their firewood 
A potion that made the hearthling grow to double size? being able to haul a huge amount of items?
Waterwalking potion?
A potion that turns the hearthling into a poyo for a while?
I guess there is alot more, that could add some humoristic aspects to the herbalist 
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@AlphaRW yeah probably a flag saying “cant get sick himself” would bea good one…
@fornjotr how about some potions not being button operated but more an inventory thing that the combat classes could bring with them and use right before combat. that would be nice.
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It would surely be a bit more easy to pinpoint who should use what. But how do you define what potions the hearthling should use in a given situation? It would make sense that the knight would drink a stamina potion before engaging right?
It would be a nice adition if the hearthlings just did the potionthing by themselves
i’d do it potion dependant really.
fighter has a slot and only one type of potion available that he can use? he takes it with him
when to use it?
if [requirements] are met.
where requirements are (logical reasoning when a potion might be usefull)
so think small health potion when damaged, small speed potion (when he has to run away, or run towards hearthlings that badly need aid in a fight)
small strenght potion (whenever you have to fight anything bigger then a little shit enemy, or when there are a lot of them and it makes the difference between one and two hitting them) that kind of logic.
and for what potion to take could also just be a logic thing where archers prefer speed potions, fighters health, knights strenght, etc.
EDIT: even if the devs dont do this, one could feasably highjack their enquipment screen do do something simmilar. just make an “armour” that can be stacked with other armour and is a potion.
and since armours can do stat bufs, i wouldnt be surprised if one could put a sort of trigger and effect code in there. then you could literally have their potion hanging from their belts too! (enquipment wise)
so inb4 asterix and obelix style potion 
i should really start looking into stonehearth modding…
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Oh yes, this idea of yours seem to be something alot of players would make good use of! 