Has anyone ever considered Mawile as a weather setter? It can set up Rain, Sun, Sand, and gets amazing support in the form of SR, Baton Pass and the like.
well, it's an interesting thing to bring up, but i don't see how it's the better choice compared to something like regirock.
first of all, mawile has baton pass, taunt, pain split, and a few other interesting and unique options going for it. relegating it to a weather setter just makes it an inferior version of regirock since it won't really have much room to fit moves that other stealth rock setters don't have. additionally, a defensive steel-type should be used as a check to other normal- and flying-types by nature. sadly, it can't even do that well because mawile's base hp is pretty low, and intimidate works against itself if it comes across braviary, which has defiant. because of mawile's mediocre stats, it needs to run a defensive spread if its main goal is to handle certain normal- and flying-type attacks, while something like regirock can have amazing bulk even when it's 252+ attack. if you're thinking about going offensive with a mawile with stealth rock and a weather-inducing move, then it won't be achieving too much offensively without swords dance or its coverage moves.
and as a little thing to note too: if you're going with a sand team, regirock and other rock-types actually benefit from the 50% special defense boost, making them an even better choice in many cases.