I'm a returning player to the game who stopped playing around the gen 3 – gen 4 era. My main goal was usually to be able to solo/duo raid tier 3s with budget Pokemon (a team of lv 30-35 with mainly nonlegendaries). Anyways, I've been catching up and have developed a list of common (according to my encounters) Pokemon to catch or worth having checked in my collection, sorted by generation. This would've been particularly useful before my pokeball count started to dwindle from catching everything. I also don't really have much interest in completing the later gens pokedex. I hope this can be of interest to returning or newer players. This list is largely based off of the following:
https://db.pokemongohub.net/best/raid-attackers
https://pokemongohub.net/post/guide/pokemon-that-give-extra-stardust-on-catch/
Do note that I believe the rankings were made with legacy moves in mind. I omitted starter pokemon and gen 4 and below pseudo-legendaries as they are well known and often appear with Team Rocket. Mega Pokemon were excluded like Mega Sharpedo due to no Shadow Sharpedo. Looking up the list of Megas and Dyna/GigantaMax (including those unreleased) might be of interest to some.
I indicated "D" (inspired by D tier) for doesn't appear if not shadow. I did not include them all. Many of those past gen 4 were not included for example. After the D are extra Stardust Pokemon or a "+" was included if it has already been mentioned.
Gen 1:
Eevee
Magikarp
Scyther
Geodude
Rhyhorn
Abra (evolves through trading)
Machop (evolves through trading)
Gastly (evolves through trading)
Tangela
Krabby
Magnemite
Nidoran (D)
Mankey (D, Annihilape)
Shellder (D, +)
Growlithe (D)
Pinsir (D)
Exeggcute (D)
Oddish (D)
Bellsprout (D)
Paras
Meowth
Staryu
Gen 2:
Sneasel
Swinub
Snubbull (D)
Delibird
Gen 3:
Aron
Ralts
Roselia
Shroomish (+)
Cacnea (D)
Spheal (D)
Seedot (D)
Trapinch (D)
Electrike (D)
Houndour (D)
Makuhita (D)
Sableye
Chimecho
Gen 4:
Starly
Croagunk (D)
Combee
Gen 5:
Drilbur
Sandile
Vanillite
Darumaka
Pawniard
Litwick
Timburr (evolves through trading)
Roggenrola (evolves through trading)
Pidove (D, although it is a 1km buddy, 12 candy first evolve, and 10k for a second charge move)
Venipede (D, although it is a 1km buddy and 10k for a second charge move)
Karrablast (D, evolves through trading)
Audino
Trubbish
Foongus
Gen 7:
Bounsweet
Morelull (+ dust only)
Anyways, I hope someone might find this useful.
by darkenhand