When facing opponents who pose a threat, you will find that you can go for a damage race, in the hope of taking out the opponent before they can take you out. This can be useful if you assess that the range favours your loadout more than your opponent’s.
At other times, though, and especially where longer range engagements are concerned, it can be beneficial to take fights in multiple phases.
The first phase being the softening, where your aim is to take advantage of any advantage in initiative or awareness that you might have over your opponent.
This will tend to involve firing the weapon that you presently have equipped, but depending on loadout and weapon equipped you might find it preferable to switch weapons, especially if the range does not favour your equipped weapon.
If the opponent still hasn’t taken the initiative to start shooting at you, you may then proceed to send projectiles, or even a throwable, their way.
The aim of this phase is to soften your opponent, to get through their armour and maybe chip some health. This pressures the opponent to retreat, and if they do not then you are already at an advantage.
The second phase is the finishing phase. The aim is to secure the kill, while trying to avoid getting into an all-out pursuit situation, which tends to be favourable for the pursued.