I wrote a lot of the lore with Tox so I'll be responding to these points. Sorry for the lack of clarification when you asked earlier.
While a Lunarite casting implement can be used, it is able to be broken or taken from the caster. If they can't retrieve it, they would have to emote pulling out their tome and using even more mana and time to cast again after their focus is broken. In this time of fumbling around their safety could easily be compromised. Having an obvious casting implement in your hands is also a way to make others aware of your abilities and more cautious around you in the first place.
The need for Vesperal Ink adds another component that should be considered. It's something you mentioned but seemed to overlook the significance of. An Astral Sorcerer's tome is unique to other spell books because it takes a limited component to write the glyphs inside. This component can only be obtained once every 3 irl days(might be changed to a week) and is also used to preform rituals. We are currently considering adding a cool down on how often books can be created as well. If the source of the ink is compromised, it takes additional irl days to repair the Star Well. One being destroyed could render the Sorcerer powerless for quite a while, leaving them open to whoever or whatever decides to target them.
Another drawback is Astral Sorcery's incompatibility with most other magics. Tox will work on expanding the list of incompatible magics listed in the lore. Speaking of incompatibilities, that's another drawback to the magic. It can't be stacked with most other forms of magic like Arcanism could be.
I firmly believe that not all magic needs to have physical weakness, aside from over exertion of the mana pool which is very easy to do with the higher tier spells.
While it's no secret a lot of inspiration was taken from Arcanism and even says so in the last paragraph of the lore, this is not an evocation and has lots of characteristics completely unique to it. As stated in the section about weaknesses, we are aware that this is an extensive magic with lots of capabilities. This is the reason it's not allowed to be stacked with most other forms of magic.
Healing Spells- The weaker healing spell is not just a magical fix all band aid. It cannot heal major wounds, as stated in the redlines of the spell, nor can it fix broken bones or anything of that sort. The starlight particles will form a clot of sorts onto one gash (cannot fix anything internally), or split up to assist with several small scrapes. The powerful ritual requires five T4 mages to even be done, and saps an entire star well of resources for 2 irl weeks. It is the craziest thing an astral mage can do but it has a huge drawback and takes a lot of manpower.
Shield spells- We will most likely be removing the conjurable shield that can be attached to the arm. The other two spells are a wall and a small dome that can be expanded, part of the utility options. They cannot be moved and require focus so you will not be able to preform any other actions while shielding. If this is seen as too powerful Tox will work with the other LT to fix the spells.
Conjurable weapon- This works like any regular sword would it's just an aesthetic star sword. The extra emotes can make it burn on contact because the stellar energy becomes compact heat but there's no other special properties. I don't specifically know the phantom lore but I'll look into it- pretty much it's made of magic so the sword can hurt anything that is harmed by magic. You can't cast anything else while using the sword, and you have to still be holding the tome/implement unless the hilt is made out of Lunarite.
Constellation Field- The one emote cast time was a typo and has be amended.
Bolt Spell- Star Bolt is a blunt damage spell that takes three entire emotes to cast for staggering damage, and an additional emote + extra expended energy for damage that can knock someone off their feet. We do think this is pretty balanced given the amount of time it takes to conjure the projectile but feel free to suggest changes and they will be considered.
Tier gating spells- They technically are tier gated. Each spell takes a certain number of slots in your spell book, and the number of spell slots you have depends on your tier. Certain spells take more slots than others because they are more difficult glyphs to create and activate, therefore a lower tier mage could not do them. This will be clarified in the lore.
Stay tuned for more redlines. Thank you for the suggestions.