How to unlock Nihilego
There is no direct purchase for Nihilego. It appears on the Alola banner inside the 4★ pool. The 4★ band takes 6.5% of all pulls and holds 211 partners, so one specific Nihilego works out to about 0.0308% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Nihilego has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Nihilego refunds 120 coins at the 4★ rate.
Nihilego stats and rank
The sheet lists Nihilego at 119 HP, 121 speed, ×1.4 attack, ×0.99 physical and ×1.4 special, with 47 defense and 131 special defense — 570 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 90.5 out of 100, which puts Nihilego at rank 14 of 966 and in tier S. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is special defense (98th percentile) and its weakest is defense (20th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Nihilego's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Ancient Power at 31.2 damage per 0.28s (156.2 effective DPS, ×1.40 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (105.0 effective DPS, ×0.99 multiplier), then Hyper Beam at 126.2 damage per 1.76s (100.3 effective DPS, ×1.40 multiplier). 10 of its 17 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 ×0.99), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 51.1 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Nihilego
Its starting move, Rock Throw, evolves into Stone Edge 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. 17 of its 21 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Synthesis). The strongest of them is Ancient Power at 156.2 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Nihilego compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Volcarona (-11 HP, -1 speed, +0.04 attack, -20 total) and Iron Moth (-13 HP, +3 speed, +0.07 attack, +0 total). Against Volcarona, Nihilego is 1 speed faster and Volcarona hits harder by ×0.04, and the rank gap is 29 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.