How to unlock Chimchar
Chimchar is one of the free starters: pick it from the starter selector at the start of a run and it costs no tickets. Later copies come from the Sinnoh banner, where it sits in the 1★ pool. The 1★ band takes 45% of all pulls and holds 233 partners, so one specific Chimchar works out to about 0.1931% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Chimchar has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Chimchar refunds 15 coins at the 1★ rate.
Chimchar stats and rank
Chimchar reads 90 HP, 104 speed, ×1.02 attack, ×1.02 physical, ×1.02 special, 44 defense and 44 special defense, for a 309 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 25.7 out of 100, which puts Chimchar at rank 749 of 966 and in tier C. The relative picture matters more than the total: its strongest slot is speed (46th percentile) and its weakest is HP (13th percentile), so every one of its stats sits below the roster median, so its case rests on move pool and availability rather than raw numbers.
Best moves in Chimchar's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Fire Spin at 33.6 damage per 0.30s (114.4 effective DPS, ×1.02 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (108.2 effective DPS, ×1.02 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (91.4 effective DPS, ×1.02 multiplier). 7 of its 14 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 7 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its physical and special multipliers are identical at ×1.02, so the pool decides the build. The top option beats the second by 6.1 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call. Effective DPS is damage over cooldown times the matching multiplier; it ignores range and area, so a lower-DPS cone can still clear faster than a single-target melee.
Evolution cards for Chimchar
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. 14 of its 18 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Synthesis). The strongest of them is Fire Spin at 114.4 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Chimchar compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Charmander (-2 HP, +1 speed, +0.01 attack, +0 total) and Cyndaquil (-2 HP, +1 speed, +0.01 attack, +0 total). Against Charmander, Charmander is 1 speed faster and Charmander hits harder by ×0.01, and the rank gap is 20 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.