The main tools I use, in relative order of importance for a novice:
A-Map 1.92 (not 1.95, it's a broken mess) is extremely useful for all sorts of things, and fairly easy to pick up. It's not the best and you might have better luck with MEH, but I haven't personally used it much as it's still in beta I think? (Also if you hack Emerald, look up the .ini a-map has)
Either Gen III Suite or YAPE is handy for editing the Pokemon themselves. I would pick one and stick with it- YAPE has a better UI, but G3S has more functionality, and will break up movepools in a way that YAPE can't handle if you try to use both.
G3T has some problems with it and I actually don't use it a lot, but if you're trying to cut down on tool quantity it's great. If it weren't for my attachment to Nightmare I'd use it for move editing more, it has a trainer editor rivaling Unnamed Trainer Editor (and surpassing A-Trainer), and it's got a nice item editor too.
A hex editor is a must if you want to do anything fancy- I personally use HxD but there are plenty of other options.
An overworld scripting editor is practically (albeit not technically) required to do anything that isn't a straight-up stats overhaul- most hackers use XSE but there exist alternatives.
There's a handful of tools out there for graphics editing. I don't actually do a whole lot on this front either- Advance Series (also referred to as Wichu's tools or A-Series) are dandy for Pokemon sprites, but I don't think there's a standard for others. I personally use a combination of unLZ and NSE, but I'm told there's better alternatives.
BSP is dandy if you want to try your hand at battle scripting. It's by no means required, but it greatly removes the learning curve for adding moves like Quiver Dance or Hammer Arm to your hack, if that's your thing.
If you want to mess with music, Sappy is (probably?) your friend, but I don't do much in this field so someone might correct me on this. It's also a huge pain to get working, so if you're not huge on music I'd put it off.
Finally, VBA-SDL-H is helpful for ASM hacking, but that's considered black magic by many and certainly not something you should start with unless you're really confident (and hopefully have experience programming).
As far as actually learning to use these goes, the best teacher is honestly experience. Mess around, break a few ROMs, get some idea for how things work, and see what you can accomplish with the tools. Try simple stuff, try complex stuff, be prepared to fail or be overwhelmed. Hacking takes practice, much like anything else. Tutorials are great, but it's better to try and fail before consulting one than to rush to the forums first thing.
With regards to having someone teach you, or implement your ideas for you- good luck with that! There's a billion people out there like you who have ideas, but the people who can actually hack are a subset of that group. Due to pretty much every hacker having their own ideas, you're going to be much better off trying to make your own a reality with your own skill than persuading someone else that your ideas are better than theirs. There's also too much to teach for a tutor to be effective, although nobody'll mind if you try stuff out on your own and ask questions when you're stumped.
