How to unlock Floatzel
Getting Floatzel means pulling the Sinnoh banner and hitting its 4★ slot. The 4★ band takes 6.5% of all pulls and holds 211 partners, so one specific Floatzel works out to about 0.0308% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Floatzel has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Floatzel refunds 120 coins at the 4★ rate.
Floatzel stats and rank
Floatzel carries 108 HP, 126 speed, a ×1.28 attack multiplier, ×1.28 physical, ×1.17 special, 55 defense and 50 special defense, 495 in total. On the three-stat percentile this is 79.9 out of 100, which puts Floatzel at rank 76 of 966 and in tier A. What separates it from its neighbours is shape, not size: its strongest slot is speed (94th percentile) and its weakest is special defense (22nd percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Floatzel's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (135.8 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (114.7 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier), then Quick Attack at 44.8 damage per 0.56s (101.9 effective DPS, ×1.28 multiplier). 5 of its 12 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 (×1.28 against ×1.17), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 21.1 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Floatzel
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. 12 of its 17 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Synthesis). The strongest of them is Body Slam at 135.8 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Floatzel compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Regieleki (-2 HP, +36 speed, -0.03 attack, +85 total) and Toxicroak (-1 HP, -12 speed, same attack multiplier, -5 total). Against Regieleki, Regieleki is 36 speed faster and Floatzel hits harder by ×0.03, and the rank gap is 27 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.