How to unlock Meloetta
Meloetta is not sold directly, so the only route is the Unova banner, where it occupies a 5★ slot. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Meloetta works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Meloetta specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Meloetta refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Meloetta stats and rank
Meloetta reads 115 HP, 116 speed, ×1.4 attack, ×1.12 physical, ×1.4 special, 77 defense and 128 special defense, for a 600 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 84.1 out of 100, which puts Meloetta at rank 46 of 966 and in tier S. The relative picture matters more than the total: its strongest slot is special defense (97th percentile) and its weakest is physical multiplier (53rd percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Meloetta's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (118.8 effective DPS, ×1.12 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (100.4 effective DPS, ×1.12 multiplier), then Hyper Beam at 126.2 damage per 1.76s (100.3 effective DPS, ×1.40 multiplier). 6 of its 13 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 7 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its special multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.4 against ×1.12), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 18.5 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call. The figure is a ceiling for a single target: splash, piercing and knockback can outweigh a gap this size.
Evolution cards for Meloetta
Its starting move, Tackle, evolves into Take Down once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Vigor card, which boosts HP for that run. A level 5 move without Vigor in the run is still just a level 5 move. 13 of its 17 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Magnet). The strongest of them is Body Slam at 118.8 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Meloetta compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Kyogre (+0 HP, +0 speed, +0.12 attack, +70 total) and Latios (-9 HP, +8 speed, +0.02 attack, +0 total). Against Kyogre, the two are level on speed and Kyogre hits harder by ×0.12, and the rank gap is 17 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.