How to unlock Sobble
Sobble 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 Galar banner, where it sits in the 1★ pool. The 1★ band takes 45% of all pulls and holds 233 partners, so one specific Sobble works out to about 0.1931% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Sobble has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Sobble refunds 15 coins at the 1★ rate.
Sobble stats and rank
Sobble reads 92 HP, 107 speed, ×1.08 attack, ×0.92 physical, ×1.08 special, 40 defense and 40 special defense, for a 310 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 34.0 out of 100, which puts Sobble at rank 649 of 966 and in tier C. The relative picture matters more than the total: its strongest slot is special multiplier (55th percentile) and its weakest is physical multiplier (8th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Sobble's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (97.6 effective DPS, ×0.92 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (82.4 effective DPS, ×0.92 multiplier), then Hyper Beam at 126.2 damage per 1.76s (77.4 effective DPS, ×1.08 multiplier). 5 of its 12 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 7 with the special one, alongside 5 support moves. Its special multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.08 against ×0.92), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 15.2 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call. That DPS figure says nothing about range or behaviour, so treat it as a first filter rather than a final ranking.
Evolution cards for Sobble
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. That card has to drop inside the run; nothing in the permanent menu replaces it. 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 97.6 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Sobble compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Salandit (+0 HP, +3 speed, +0.01 attack, +10 total) and Helioptile (-2 HP, +0 speed, -0.04 attack, -21 total). Against Salandit, Salandit is 3 speed faster and Salandit hits harder by ×0.01, and the rank gap is 36 places. Treat the gaps as the price of the switch rather than free stats, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.