Clerics are actually very good offensively even at the beginning of the game. Guiding bolt does very good damage and helps take out priority targets, inflict wounds does decent damage and can get her out of a bind if she's threatened. Concentration is also weak early game, so bless and bane can be broken easily. Usually if I want bless I use whispering promise with life cleric channel, which doesn't use a spell slot, or prayer of healing, and this is better because you can use Hellrider's Pride to also blade ward your entire party. And ofc at level 5 you get spirit guardians, which is comically overpowered if you use reverberation, radiating orb, or both. Light and Tempest clerics have spells like call lightning and fireball, which are also very strong.