Yup. Even on their own the Sword and Valour Bards stop being casters and become melee brawlers. The line between Eldritch Knight and the "two attack" Bards is blurry ...
But that's with WotC.
Not really.
Sword and Valour Bards are still full casters (In the sense they get 1 spell level per level). While EK and AT both are partial casters like Paladin and Ranger. Heck, both of these Bards still even get a Magical Secret at level 10.
It's only if you multiclass Bard into non-caster classes that they stop being casters (Or if you purposefully don't use any of their plethora of useful and powerful spells at all for some reason)
Which is something that could be argued should change. Making these subclasses get reduced spell levels as a cost for getting their second attack so they're not both a full caster AND martial (Though, I wonder how that could be implemented... Perhaps requiring a college choice on level 1 so that only Lore Bards get the full spell level on levels 1 and 2?).
