I primarily use pulses and scouts myself. From my experience, distance is your only real friend. Close-to-mid range, handcannon users are going to poop all over you unless they're incompetent with them. If you're sticking to sidearms, as long as your reasonably close you can typically outshoot them(lol GG bungo). I generally use high-impact fusion rifles though, so I can usually safely crispify them from midrange. Those are just my experiences though. I'm not exactly a sweaty tryhard lol.