I recommend Smartan's excellent tips and tricks video.
Fear is the best crowd control in Gears 5 Pve. It's a good class for Horde and an essential one for Escape.
It's not just a defensive ability. It's a way to begin an offensive push as well. The Nomad's passive is double damage against enemies in Fear. When you are starting out, use the Gnasher proficiency card in conjunction with Fear to get CQC kills.
That should be sufficient to level you to where you can do a Faze-Execution shield build, where you can chain together executions, crowd controlling everyone around you. (be sure to learn the melee combo.) Getting Fear kills should be child's play at this point.