How to unlock Ho-Oh
There is no direct purchase for Ho-Oh. It appears on the Johto banner inside the 5★ pool. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Ho-Oh works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Ho-Oh specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Ho-Oh refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Ho-Oh stats and rank
The sheet lists Ho-Oh at 118 HP, 116 speed, ×1.42 attack, ×1.42 physical and ×1.31 special, with 90 defense and 154 special defense — 680 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 86.1 out of 100, which puts Ho-Oh at rank 37 of 966 and in tier S. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is special defense (99th percentile) and its weakest is defense (73rd percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Ho-Oh's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Gust at 31.2 damage per 0.26s (157.4 effective DPS, ×1.31 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (150.7 effective DPS, ×1.42 multiplier), then Fire Spin at 33.6 damage per 0.30s (146.9 effective DPS, ×1.31 multiplier). 9 of its 19 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 10 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its physical multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.42 against ×1.31), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 6.7 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Ho-Oh
Its starting move, Ember, evolves into Fire Blast once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. Menu upgrades use a separate system and never stand in for Power. 19 of its 23 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Synthesis). The strongest of them is Gust at 157.4 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Ho-Oh compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Kyurem (+8 HP, +2 speed, same attack multiplier, -20 total) and Xerneas (+9 HP, +4 speed, same attack multiplier, +0 total). Against Kyurem, Kyurem is 2 speed faster and the two carry an identical ×1.42 attack multiplier, and the rank gap is 19 places. Read those deltas as swap costs, because a gain on one line is usually paid for on another, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.