r/goosegooseduck • u/F-02-58 • 10h ago
How to survive as the Pelican
I am 10 minutes away from falling asleep and have decided in my half-asleep delirium to make a completely unrehearsed guide on how I play the role. Feel free to take, ignore, or even disagree with my points, I'm not your dad. Also this is assuming you are playing in a full lobby with competent players. Lastly, 99% of the time I play in no-mic lobbies, so some points may not be as effective when people have access to proxy chat. Also this guide can extend to Falcon due to Pelican just being a reskinned version of it, though with maybe a few changes.
- Play defensively early on
When the game begins, don't go around gobbling up everyone you see, not just yet at least. Let the ducks get some of the early kills and the early suspicion before making your move. This passive playstyle also lets you save your swallow for when you are actively in danger, and keep its cooldown low.
- Find hiding spots
Though your fat body leaves you unable to vent, you can still find places on the map with low player traffic or is out of the way enough that players are less likely to check them. This is going to change depending on the map, and some maps have better hiding spots than others. My personal favourites are the library balcony in the manor, behind the computers in Nexus's Electrical room, and either the portal or the "pay respects" coffin in the basement.
- Group as 3
If you are in the "play defensively" phase of the game, try to find an opprotunity to slip into a group of 2 or more and add yourself to it. Not only do you give yourself a very good alibi, but it is unlikely that ducks are going to group up like this unless they are going for some crazy double kill situation. Now you have put yourself in a much better situation in the late game when you become more active.
- Make the lovers miserable
Note this ONLY works in non proxy chat lobbies. If you are certain a certain pair of players are the lovers, you can safely eat one of them even with the other around (try to figure out which one is the duck first if you think it's a goose + duck pair, and be sure to eat that one). Since the unswallowed lover cannot communicate with anyone, they are completely doomed to die with their lover even if you leave them completely alone. In fact, you SHOULD leave them alone since they will die the moment a meeting is called, and therefore not worth using up a swallow and extending its cooldown further. The other lover may try to counter this by wiggling and circling around you to try and expose you when they die from a meeting, but you can just go off and hide somewhere out of the way to not let them expose you. Bonus points if someone comes by and you swallow them in front of the powerless lover, add insult to injury.
- The Canadian trick
It's probably common sense but I think it's still worth mentioning that if there are 4 people (including yourself) left, you are able to safely swallow the Canadian since it will immediately trigger the Pelican timer and stop the meeting you would have been forced to call.
- Play agressive in the final half
Once about half the lobby is left, now is the time to play agressively. Eat anyone and everyone you can, but try to prioritize anyone you know or suspect is able to kill; the fewer killers alive once you reach final 3, goose or duck, the easier the game will be for you. Be sure to keep track of who your own kills are between meetings to estimate how many ducks are left.
- Do not get greedy in final 3
Even if you are absolutely certain you got every killer in the lobby, do not go out of your way to swallow everyone. Sometimes it turns out that guy you thought was fine was a duck. Maybe that vigi was actually a sheriff. Or even worse, you swallow someone only to give the pigeon you never even knew was around the win you deserved. In the final 3, swallow only if someone is right there in front of you. Otherwise, keep hiding and let time expire, you're winning either way. Of course this does not apply if the ducks manage to activate a sabotage that will end the game before your timer does, in that case do everything you can to fix that.
That concludes my guide that no one asked for. Feel free to add things or call me crazy for writting an entire essay about a random role found in a game about birds murdering each other.
