Lost Lore

Use physical moves against Clefable, for starters. Poison and Steel are your friends- my Drapion one-shot it with Poison Jab, personally. A good Electric-type can help you against the birds- Jolteon has already been suggested, and Magneton will (at least) handily take care of Swellow. Keep it away from Staraptor, though, that thing has Close Combat. I dunno about Ampharos, but I doubt it'd do too terribly, either. I'm not far enough to test that so take that with a grain of salt. Cinccino... a bulky Fighting-type is an idea. Scrafty works well, as does Emboar. And Hariyama would probably do okay, too.

Ampharos' Thunderbolt. Zappety zap zap.

Granbull's Crunch. Why does that get Outrage now, anyway? What even...

Have a Torkoal. The variety around Apophyll Beach really sucks wow.

I picked Tepig. I only did so because it was one of three starters I hadn't used actively (the other two being Snivy and Turtwig) and... Fire is my second-favourite type. So it kind of cemented the choice for me. Granted, if I could have, I would have started with something else. It's not that Tepig (now an Emboar) did poorly, per-say, I just... feel that I should have chosen more wisely. I'm not sure why...

Though I'd usually advocate for Team Magma, I find joining Team Aqua more handy if you intend on breeding early, since Ponyta has access to Flame Body. If you don't, however, you're gonna want to go with Magma, for that exclusive Chinchou. Everything else is obtainable either way.

You don't need Nasty Plot- if you're so dead-set on using a special Lucario, give the damn thing Calm Mind. Swords Dance is an earlier and stronger available option that works well with all of the physical moves it gets naturally, and it can run mixed just fine. Or did you think that base 110 Attack was just for show? Ya don't need Ice Punch... why would it even run Ice Punch...? To counter Ground-types is about the only reason I can come up with... and I have no idea why you'd leave Lucario out on those, anyway. Now, getting back on topic... I wouldn't go back with new moves, either, if I were you... as for the 6th Gens, yeah, they'll temporarily disappear when you hop back to 10.1, but they'll be safe and sound and waiting for you when you come back to 11~

/has the mental image of a Xatu telekinetically pelting a Blaziken with socks Meowstic's Dark Pulse.

Punk Lucinda used to challenge me like five or six times a day... but now in this latest file she refuses to battle me at all. I have no idea why. She must not like me because I keep curb-stomping her. But yeah, this is normal. It's kinda frustrating if you're really high level compared to the trainers, but at least they won't give you any trouble. Plus, money. You're gonna want the money, no matter what. Every little bit helps.

Pachirisu has ridiculous amounts of bulk + early access to Charm. And, if you want it, Volt Absorb for Julia. (Or Pickup. Pickup is cool.) Trubbish, as has been mentioned, is an awesome option in the early game because two layers of Toxic Spikes really makes things easier. Acid Spray + Sludge combo doesn't hurt it, either. ...What was my fourth in the early game again? Oh yeah, Rattata. Hustle makes it hit pretty hard, but the missing makes it a bit risky to use... might want to pick a different Normal-type. ...Unless you like the fact that Raticate gets access to Swords Dance from the move relearner. Which is literally one of the best things ever when combined with Hustle.

That's probably because it's disguised as another Pokemon...? There are two cages stacked one on top of the other with the same Pokemon in them. I believe it starts off as Vanillite?

Aggron's Iron Tail. (I still will never understand why Florges didn't become Fairy/Grass...)

Winter form is my personal favourite (dat fur collar), but whichever form they end up taking is fine with me.

If you haven't heard of 7th Street in-game, chances are you're not far enough in the story to access it yet. So you're going to have to wait on Abra, sadly. Wait til after you've gotten your eighth badge.

Swoobat is pretty cool for a Psychic-type. A Psychic/Flying-type, at that. If it has Simple all it has to do is set up Calm Mind and go to town. Otherwise, Gardevoir has already been said and is very useful here. If you don't mind grinding up another Fairy-type, most of them will do pretty well- Swirlix and Spritzee are available, and you can also get Igglybuff and Cleffa, though I don't know how you'd feel about grinding those up... ...And I haven't tried Meowstic against her, but I would love to. I don't think it'd have Reflect by that point, so it can't buffer physical attacks, but... hmm... Oh yes, and Ghost-types are pretty useful too, if nothing else. You can easily catch Duskull and Yamask in Shade's Gym, for a couple of them. Both very bulky and capable of taking hits, but rather slow, unfortunately. Edit: X items are broken as of Episode 11, so that's probably not the best idea, but Bulk Up/Dragon Dance could work just fine, too.

Adding on to the "don't choose Water-type starters" thing... Totodile I'm going to agree on, because of its terrible level up learnset (unless you don't mind breeding, in which case, by all means). The only ones I've personally used are Froakie (who was awesome because Protean) and Oshawott (who did all right and actually dealt the finishing blow to both Julia's Electrode and Rini's Cradily). And Marshtomp is immune to Explosion with or without Damp in Julia's Gym, since Explosion picks up the Electric-type thanks to Electric Terrain. Just a heads-up. (Although I'm not 100% sure on that, being honest... not that Explosion doesn't really suck on Voltorb even with the boost anyway.) Anyway, yeah, Torchic and Chimchar are kind of overpowered so far as starters go, because of Speed Boost/Infernape's crazy Speed. I've also used Chespin, and that did well in the early game, but I don't think I completed a playthrough with it... Piplup is pretty cool for the Steel-typing later on as well (just keep in mind that you can get it later if you don't pick it... way way later, like after the eighth badge later, but it's there) and... ...Oh, and Charmander is kinda broken in the early game because Dragon Rage. Has to be said.

^ Allow me. Haxorus, get dat Mold Breaker in here and use Earthquake!

Heh. I have a team planned now, on my newest file. Thing is, most of them are either available later in the game or have things I want to breed for. So what do I do? Make do with other things until I get them. Maybe you should try that. You'll probably enjoy the game more if you can use the team you want, in the long run~

Slowking's Surf. The mental image of Slowking catching some waves on a surfboard just makes this better.

To clarify, Skorupi and Geodude are further in the Railnet, just past the Rock Smash rocks in the first part. You won't find them before that. (Except in Geodude's case, which is also found outside Beryl Ward Gym.)

I know my type effectiveness, damnit. I'm not that tired. Espeon's Grass Knot. ...What the hell, when did shiny Espeon become that shade of green?

To answer your ability questions, since I think that thread will tell you all you need to know about where to find them: -Clear Body on Beldum, all the way. Light Metal is rather useless. -Battle Armour and Sniper have about the same usefulness, just pick whichever you prefer. (Personally I prefer Battle Armour paired with Drapion's really good Defense, but it's up to you.) -I'd advise Sturdy on Geodude. Edit: ...I'm tired, I can't type fast... ninjas everywhere. But my two cents, anyway.

Skuntank's Poison Jab.