How to unlock Palkia
There is no direct purchase for Palkia. It appears on the Sinnoh banner inside the 5★ pool. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Palkia works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Palkia specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Palkia refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Palkia stats and rank
The sheet lists Palkia at 110 HP, 120 speed, ×1.52 attack, ×1.36 physical and ×1.52 special, with 100 defense and 120 special defense — 680 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 87.3 out of 100, which puts Palkia at rank 26 of 966 and in tier S. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is special multiplier (99th percentile) and its weakest is HP (79th percentile), so it spreads its value fairly evenly.
Best moves in Palkia's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Dragon Claw at 48.3 damage per 0.39s (168.4 effective DPS, ×1.36 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (144.3 effective DPS, ×1.36 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (121.9 effective DPS, ×1.36 multiplier). 7 of its 16 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 9 with the special one, alongside 6 support moves. Its special multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.52 against ×1.36), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 24.1 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Palkia
Its starting move, Water Gun, evolves into Scald once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. The permanent menu cannot substitute: only a Power card picked during the run unlocks the evolution. 16 of its 22 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Synthesis). The strongest of them is Dragon Claw at 168.4 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Palkia compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Reshiram (+5 HP, -4 speed, same attack multiplier, +0 total) and Dialga (+5 HP, -4 speed, same attack multiplier, +0 total). Against Reshiram, Palkia is 4 speed faster and the two carry an identical ×1.52 attack multiplier, and the rank gap is 6 places. Every one of those numbers cuts both ways, so the decision is about which stat the run needs, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.