How to unlock Salamence
There is no direct purchase for Salamence. It appears on the Hoenn banner inside the 5★ pool. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Salamence works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Salamence specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Salamence refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Salamence stats and rank
The sheet lists Salamence at 113 HP, 120 speed, ×1.44 attack, ×1.44 physical and ×1.31 special, with 80 defense and 80 special defense — 600 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 87.8 out of 100, which puts Salamence at rank 24 of 966 and in tier S. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is physical multiplier (96th percentile) and its weakest is defense (64th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Salamence's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Dragon Claw at 48.3 damage per 0.39s (178.3 effective DPS, ×1.44 multiplier), then 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 (152.8 effective DPS, ×1.44 multiplier). 9 of its 16 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 7 with the special one, alongside 5 support moves. Its physical multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.44 against ×1.31), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 21.0 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Salamence
Its starting move, Dragon Rage, evolves into Draco Meteor 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 178.3 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Salamence compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Landorus (-3 HP, +0 speed, -0.05 attack, +0 total) and Arcanine (-3 HP, -2 speed, -0.13 attack, -45 total). Against Landorus, the two are level on speed and Salamence hits harder by ×0.05, and the rank gap is 28 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.