Quote Originally Posted by brian14 View Post
Before level 12, when Enlightened Spirit warlock gets proficiency with martial weapons, that is.
You can have proficiency at level 1 with master's touch.

Generally at lower levels you want to take maximize/empower first and focus on SLAs - so if you want to go ES you would still want consume and stricken early which is very front-loaded and stricken can one-shot hounds until adjusted quest level 11 when they get a sizable increase in hp.

If you want to focus on melee with aura you can really use any weapon and/or shield you want with master's touch, but have to deal with potential arcane spell failure with shields.