Bard - they broke my job

[Clarkamite]

Swiftcast Fire IV (for example).
Firestarter (far more frequently than Straighter shot).
Thundercloud (just to add another option.
And only when these are not an option do BLM have to resort to Scathing to keep casting.

Bard has no swiftcast and a weak RNG that only got weaker with 3.x because we hit Heavy Shot less often than before.

I typed out this whole thing to respond to what you put in here but I decided you would probably argue it tooth and nail so I deleted it. Let me just simply say that the Bard toolkit and the BLM toolkit are not similar. They don't even play similarly enough to give merit to all the comparisons. A lot of Bards are unhappy with the new play style. Understandable. Please stop saying you guys are BLM's. You're not.