Slug spam doesn't exist. You can fire 3 slugs with the MOU53 in quick succession and that's it. It's not a cheese tactic, because it doesn't result in you immediately dying.
Getting 1 hit PB'd after pouncing a marine is entirely your fault as a lurker or runner. If you don't know how to play as those xenos, that's your fault. You aren't supposed to be able to get a kill from landing a single pounce as those xenos. It also doesn't kill elder or ancient lurkers, I am pretty sure.
Like said I said the fattys are the problem. Basically instant/silent drop CAS that can knock out critical tier 3s regardless of age. You can’t balance it and the work around isn’t like with CBT and making flare CASable areas or idiots with nades the answer seems to be never attack outside caves and CBT marines to death, cancerous 5 hour rounds. That or have no CAS callers or POs or an all star Xeno team
Xeno underestimating laser for Direct CAS is what leading to the so called Fatty meta. I wouldn't say it's meta at all. Nowadays xeno just don't give a fuck when they see the laze because they'd assume it'd be weak Fire Mission CAS that'd not even do any damage and give them warning sonic noises and then complaint in dchat how bullshit it was to be hit by silent CAS or mistaking the Fatty to OB.
Current winrate is somewhat changed. But I'd give that to xeno performance. It's been so often that I see xeno ignoring Queen's orders and underestimating the dangers such as Boilers not caring how far and punishing the LTB can go.
Xenos need to respect CAS, yeah. The only rocket harder to use properly than the Fatty is the Keeper, which basically does the same thing as the Fatty but with a tiny aoe instead of a huge one. Talk to some good POs and they will tell you how they use keepers to fuck boilers.
Cheese tactics do not always necessarily result in immediate death, but pre-slug nerf that shit lays you out for a whole second which is more than enough to get fucked on OR hit with another slug before you get back up, perma-stunning you. I did it to defenders and warriors all the time. PBs are the definition of cheese, though, marines can easily swarm the nest and PB everything to death by 12:35 if they're not held back by something because of how incredibly strong it is. Xenos have zero counters to PBs, it is a near death sentence to everything but T3s and it FUCKS on T3s even if it doesn't outright kill them. Acid blood is now negligible, so there is no downside to rushing a xenomorph and PBing. Originally that was the counterbalance for PBing the shit out of things, it would give you massive burn but damage you a shitton.
Shotguns NEED to be that way, though, because the xeno cheese on the other side is equally as cheesy as PB buckshot, but given the numerical imbalance between marines and xenos, being able to one hit what is generally at least half (normally more) of the xeno force is a bit goofy as fuck.
I would add to this that buckshot PB isn't as easy as just point and click. Unless the xeno is not moving at all, it can be actually rather difficult and luck based to land a good PB. Some people are a lot better at it than others, then there's of course lag to take into account. And as far as PBing right after standing up after being tackled goes, in 60+ rounds I've only ever managed that once, while I'm sure there's people being able to do it consistently.
Highpop we have up to 200 people on the server, it's always going to be difficult to balance things when there's a wide spectrum of player skill involved. For example, if all the people who can use buckshot effectively switched to M41As instead and left the shotguns only to people who aren't as great with them, the difference would be staggering.
I'm not saying everything is balanced, because with such huge differences between marine gear and xeno abilities it's nearly impossible, but I will say that player skills play a major role in winrates.
Xenos have a massive counter to buckshot, which is just staying out of it's fucking range. Xenos CHOOSE when they want to fight marines, marines cannot force the xenos to fight them, except on Prison station and arguably Trijent with the unique comms tower up. Acid blood should only be discouraging multiple PB shots, not a complete and total counter to it—this is why it is a GOOD thing that acid blood doesn't cause you to immediately die when you shoot a xeno, as it takes no effort on the xeno's part to have acid blood hurt a marine, but a LOT of effort on the marine's part to get a PB buckshot shot off. Also, the only xenos that will straight up die from a PB buckshot are young/mature T1s and T2s, from what I recall, and if you fuck up as a Warrior, Lurker, or Runner against a marine you should die.
Xenos also have pheromones, queen heal, and a hilariously long 'critical health' period even if they have been technically 'one shot'. The only true one shot attacks are explosives, currently.
A robust spitter can hold back 5+ shotgun unga users if none of them are packing slugs. A boiler makes it impossible to get anywhere near them to PB. A hedgehog ravager (which is what the majority of bald ravager players seem to pick) makes it so you take a shit ton of damage if you don't stop to pick out fingernails from your arm or something. What counter do the marines have to any of these? You can say that a fire extinguisher works against spitters (It only does if someone ELSE uses it, which is arguably only a soft counter), but boilers and hedgehog ravagers do not have any counterplay besides good fire support.
I am genuinely concerned that you are applying to be a developer for CM with this sort of mindset, it shows a lack of understanding of the game's mechanics.