Bishops are rather lacking early on (their spell learning rate is as bad as in Wizardry 1), but are really good later on. I am in the post game and I am finding my Fairy Bishop with Magic Essence (makes mage spells, including status ailment spells, ignore magic resistance (but not status or element resistance)) to be very useful.
In any case, for the early game, the pre-made level 4 bishop is good enough, and later on, it is easy to level new characters thanks to (Lesser/Greater/Chaos) Demons which call for help. (One tip: if someone runs from a battle, that character will get no experience, but that character's share of the experience will be distributed between the rest of the party, giving everyone else more experience.)

Thief, Bard, and Hunter don't survive well in the front. Cleric, however, does. Incidentally, Clerics do not need Hand of Kindness to be effective healers in the post game, and neither do Bishops, though it does help make your weaker healing spells not completely useless. A Cleric with a good Hammer can actually be a decent fighter at a high enough level. Because you only have two good front liners, I would consider a Cleric.

Valkyries can be effective healers through the main game, though they need Hand of Kindness to heal effectively in the post-game (unless you rely solely on single-target healing). On the other hand, you may want Swallow Killer in the post-game. (Yes, there are choices to make here.)

For comparison, Clerics get their highest level spells at level 13, Valkyries (and Bards, incidentally) at level 16, and Bishops not until level 28.

Shamans do not get healing abilities at all. They are front-line attackers, not spell casters.

By the way, healing magic isn't important in the early stages of the game. Song of Healing is very nice at the start, and giving everyone Turn Recovery via alchemy is incredibly handy. (I suggest putting Turn Recovery on Obis, which can be equipped by everyone and actually boost Holy (which includes healing magic) by 8%.)

Money isn't a major issue after the early game (especially since there is nothing new to buy), but there is a money sink in the post game.

Thanks!!

That really help clearing up a lot of questions I had.

So, what is song of Healing again? :-)

And how about a thief, do you use one or use one of the hybrids?

Turn recovery on Obis? Sorry, you lost me there. I am a new player, just bought the game and used the pregen character to explore and get a feel for the game.

Thanks!

I actually have a thief in my party, though I am not sure if that is necessarily the best choice. Here are the tradeoffs:

Thief: Best chance of actually disarming traps. At higher levels (26+), can disarm and steal from enemies. (Not as useful as it sounds, but there is one enemy in the final bonus dungeon that has a nice sword and ring to steal, and the ultimate postgame boss apparently has the most powerful weapon in the game.) Not that useful otherwise (try getting some spells through class changing or status ailments through alchemy, or just get her Song of Healing and have her use that all the time). Levels up fastest and therefore ends up with the second highest Physical Damage Up bonus. Also, the XP cost of Miracle is less due to levels requiring less XP. (Note, however, that thieves do not naturally learn that spell.)

Bard: Can use slightly better weapons than thief. Can cast mage spells and use musical instruments. (Note that instruments can break which can be a problem before you get Pendeku). Can use Tarot cards, but I never used them when I had one. (They are mainly useful when you are trying to Contract a resistant enemy with your Summoner and want to keep it alive but harmless.) Does not get a bonus to attack spells at higher levels (unlike the mage and bishop). For EX skill, I recommend Magic Essence, which makes mage spells (including those from items) ignore magic resistance.

Hunter: I have never used one, but this class can fight well from the back row. Also, hunters get free attacks against enemies inflicted with status ailments, which is useful if you have a good way to inflect them. (I recommend Magic Essence on a mage.)

Also, of note, there are 3 other ways of dealing with trapped chests:
1. Use a Summoner. If you summon a monster with Thief Skills (+1), it can examine and disarm chests for you.
2. Cast Portal (level 1 Alchemist spell) on the chest, then decide whether the trap is acceptable to trigger. If it is, trigger it intentionally; otherwise, leave the chest alone. Note that there is one trap in particular that you may want to trigger intentionally even if you have someone with Thief Skills (+1).
3. Cast High Portal (level 7 Alchemist spell, first learnable at level 13) and ignore the trap entirely.

Song of Healing is an EX Skill chosable at character creation that heals the party slightly for free. The more songs you use, the stronger they become, as long as you don't spend a round without singing or end the battle. Only one character needs this; if you really like singing, give characters different songs, as they all contribute to the effectiveness of songs, while multiple uses of the same song in the same round don't stack.

Turn Recovery: In the dungeon, you will randomly find ores that you can mine with a Pick. You can then go to the Alchemy Workshop with your Alchemist and use them to improve your equipment. With certain ores, one of the things you can add is Turn Recovery, which causes the character wearing the item to recover hit points every round.

Thief is needed for efficient acquisition of loot. He is ok damage dealer and he is needed for Item Encyclopedia completion (due to Steal).

Bishops don't have as good Spell Power Mastery scaling as pure Clerics and Mages have. They are good replacement for Clerics but not for Mages. Bishops are required to get some side quests.

Gold isn't needed for much in this game. You are THE cornerstone of economics (unlike in previous games in the series).

Don't get too used to pre-generated party too much, those characters are quite old and so they'll be losing a lot of stats on level-ups (eventually dying forever). Lv.1 party with Song of Healing is nigh invincible on 1st floor of 1st dungeon (unless you get unlucky and meet Mork Cricketers and Chicken Bombs - those are names to run away from really fast as a low lv. party).

I disagree about your assessment of Bishops. In comparison to Clerics, Bishops are significantly worse at fighting and defense. It's enough of a difference that Clerics should go in the front but Bishops should go in the back.

When comparing to a mage, by the time you get the Spell Power Mastery skills, attack magic is already on its way out; by the time you get to the final bonus dungeon, I find that damage spells aren't worth using anymore; status ailments are what you want. There is no difference between classes when it comes to status ailment success rates, plus Bishops can heal effectively at that point and have more instant death options.

I have a bit of conservative approach here, i am not sending medics to front line :) And that's what Cleric mostly looks to me. His fighting capabilities aren't on level of close-combat classes. Issue with Elminage Gothic is that it has much less Medium range weapons than in previous games in the series, but it doesn't mean that all classes are best in front lines. it just so happened that Cleric has access to more equipment than Bishop but for class which is mostly focusing on healing and buffing he is taking very valuable front row slot.

Each time when Cleric heals in front row, the value of his front row slot is diminished, Less raw attacks from front-line means longer fight and even more need to heal, depoison, decurse, etc. And while only some monsters can reach back row (especially while being in back themselves), front line is fully exposed to all kinds of nukes and debuffs with much higher chances to lose Cleric and his ability to recover party from harm. It is vicious circle of negative effects of having medic in front lines. But as I said, my approach might be somewhat conservative and I like to play it safe. Arguable, but still Bishops don't even get much chance to shine with damage spells. They require much more Exp to level up, when Mage gets 7x9 spells already, Bishop doesn't know even 6th Lv. Mage spells yet. Even more so, he gets Spell Mastery at higher level than Mage. But someone needs to cast Cleric buffs, remove debuffs and heal (even if with just Song of Healing) and it doesn't depend much on Spell Mastery. And unlike with Cleric, you can use Bishop to backup Mage when it is necessary to successfully land status effects on enemies.

Fighter-oriented classes actually get quite a few medium-ranged weapons. Valkyries get their spears. Third-gender Lords can use the Holy Sabre (stolen in the final bonus dungeon) which happens to be medium-ranged (in addition to having a bunch of other useful properties). Even my Samurai can hit from the back with zer two God Slayers. (I prefer to keep zer in the front so that Swallow Return is more likely to trigger.) Clerics are unusual for not having a good back row weapon.

Losing a cleric is not a big deal when you have multiple characters with cleric spells, especially since there isn't enough of a drawback to learning all the spells via class change. (Too few good Innocent equipment, too much gender-restricted equipment.) All you need to do is have someone else resurrect the cleric, and you're in good shape again.

Also, I have found that my Gnome Cleric has a lot of hit points, often more than my Dragonewt Valkyrie, Lord, and Samurai at comparable experience totals. She can deal over 600 damage with the Aas Shifter (should be Earth Shifter, but the translators screwed up here) against non-god enemies.

One more thing: There are times when attacking is not safe. My favorite example of this is fighting Terrors: They have Swallow Return and reflect all elements. Therefore, attacking them is not safe before I have my Bishop (who has Magic Essence, which is mandatory for this strategy because of 80% magic resistance) put them to sleep.

By the way, instant death spells are very useful in the post game against some enemies. It's easy to overlook status spells and instant death spells, but they are quite useful in this game. Actually, I have found that you don't need high level attack spells that early. Even third level spells are useful when you have a level 11-12 party, and second level spells are good with high Intelligence. (Equipping a Flame Charm might be a good idea here.)

Also, a front line Cleric will deal more damage with a good weapon at highish levels than a mage can with a spell. (That eventually stops being true, but the level needed for that to happen is ridiculously high, plus there are enemy resistances to deal with.) Keep in mind that it is sometimes necessary to use instant death attacks, and unless the enemies have high Cleric spell resistance, Cleric spells work well for that job.

Spell Mastery does matter if you want Rafaireed (the most powerful reliable multi-target healing ability) to keep pace with HP and enemy damage at high levels.