Quote Originally Posted by RogueJK View Post
No, there's no juggling needed. Just take a hand off the 2H weapon (no action required), grasp your spell focus/component pouch and/or perform the somatic components (no separate action required since it's part of casting) and put your hand back on the 2H weapon (no action required). You don't even have to spell it out every turn, since it's all non-actions. It's just assumed as part of the process of casting while holding a 2H weapon.

Per the PHB errata and Sage Advice, the Two-Handed property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it. You can hold it in one hand while casting, then regrasp it in both hands to attack or ready yourself for potential OAs. Switching between holding it in 1 hand and 2 hands is a non-action, and can be done freely.

Compared to something like a non-Warcaster TWF or sword-and-board arcane spellcaster who's having to do the actual juggle of drop a weapon (no action), cast spell with free hand (action), then pick weapon back up (using your your lone free Object Interaction per turn). Those are the only instances where being a Swords Bard would be helpful to prevent "weapon juggling".
Putting your hand back on the 2H weapon in a useful way isn't a nonaction - you've unreadied the weapon, and you'll need to consume your 1/turn free use item to re-ready it. Not a big deal unless you're doing other things as well, but worth mentioning that it isn't totally and wholly free, unlike the rest of it.

Your original point is still valid. A valor bard is theoretically at its best as far back as possible, because Combat Inspiration - which isn't selfish and accordingly doesn't render the bard themselves a better archer - only outperforms other bards for the limited things it can do when you exploit the fact that the bard only needs to be near their friends, without needing to see or be near their enemies, so a valor bard probably wants a longbow, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily all that great with said longbow. If you want to be good with a longbow yourself, you need to look into subclasses that can spend their own inspiration dice on murder, like a swords bard.

But valor bards just aren't good. Defensively, I'd rather have a Lore Bard in my corner, and offensively, an Eloquence Bard or Creation Bard. Valor is in between the two and doesn't have the abilities to keep up.