How to unlock Archaludon
There is no direct purchase for Archaludon. It appears on the Paldea banner inside the 5★ pool. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Archaludon works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Archaludon specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Archaludon refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Archaludon stats and rank
The sheet lists Archaludon at 110 HP, 114 speed, ×1.39 attack, ×1.28 physical and ×1.39 special, with 130 defense and 65 special defense — 600 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 78.4 out of 100, which puts Archaludon at rank 95 of 966 and in tier A. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is defense (95th percentile) and its weakest is special defense (45th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Archaludon's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Dragon Claw at 48.3 damage per 0.39s (158.5 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (135.8 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier), then Metal Claw at 37.8 damage per 0.38s (129.0 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier). 10 of its 16 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 6 with the special one, alongside 5 support moves. Its special multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.39 against ×1.28), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 22.7 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Archaludon
Its starting move, Metal Claw, evolves into Iron Head once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. A level 5 move without Power in the run is still just a level 5 move. 16 of its 21 moves carry an evolution card, across 5 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes and Armor). The strongest of them is Dragon Claw at 158.5 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Archaludon compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Moltres (+0 HP, +2 speed, same attack multiplier, -20 total) and Necrozma (+4 HP, -3 speed, +0.01 attack, +0 total). Against Moltres, Moltres is 2 speed faster and the two carry an identical ×1.39 attack multiplier, and the rank gap is 20 places. The exchange rate is the point: nothing here improves on both lines at once, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.