League of Legends (LoL) Question: Cho'gath and smiteless jungling

I don't know why you're getting flak for playing Cho'Gath as a jungler. He's not bad at all. Right now he's not the most popular pick since the top picks tend to have more reliable ganks or team fight presence. Cho's ganks are a little on the weaker end since Rupture is relatively easy to dodge and he has no gapcloser or major damage abilities.

Reasons why Feast is not a viable substitution for Smite:
1. Feast is not available until level six, by which time you have the potential to lose two or more buffs and probably even a dragon.

2. When you do not have 6 Feast stacks, you must choose between using the cooldown for stacks or objectives. This means whenever the enemy sees you use Feast, they have a full minute to take dragon for free.

3. Even if you have 6 stacks, you must still choose between using your ultimate as a true damage nuke in a team fight or to secure an objective. If you use Feast to secure a dragon, the enemy team will be able to fight you with your ultimate down. If you use it to fight, you will have no way of contesting Dragon (or Baron) for the next minute.

4. Feast has a range of 150 (essentially melee range) while Smite has a range of 625. This means you have to slam your face into the objective you're trying to steal. You will often be kited or killed trying to do this. You can also be CC'd to prevent you from using Feast to secure an objective, while most CCs will not stop the use of Smite.

5. Feast has a 0.5 second cast time which makes it harder to use accurately. The enemy jungler can Smite the objective just before or just after the predictable cast time to steal it, depending on how accurately you use Feast.

6. If you take Smite and have Feast up, you can cast Smite right as your Feast finishes its animation for a ~1750-2000 true damage nuke, making it next to impossible to steal objectives from you.

If you don't take smite, I'm going to buy machete 2 pots and a ward, and I'm going to smite steal your blue over the wall. No argument. As well, you need smite on shaco 100%, he clears so slow as he has no clearing abilities.

Not running smite only works against baddies :/

Cho jungle is great :O
I dunno who says it is bad, but when I play chogo in the jogo, then I mostly winno.

About the smite thingy, smite is important. Yes, you can jungle without, and yes, you will probably lose your dragons and barons because of that.
Your R also does 1000 true damage, just like smite at lvl 18, but still, your R has a small delay, the smite is instant.
Though the delay is small, it really can cost you your baron buff.

Besides, taking smite with you as jungler chogath makes counter jungling so easy :P
You can just run to their buff, hit it 2 or 3 times, and then double smite :D
And run away :P

If you really want to take tele, ignite or exhaust, you would have to replace it with flash I am afraid.

Cho jungle isn't bad, it's just that he does way better with top lane farm. Plus, Smite is necessary to prevent objectives from being stolen (as well as enabling you to steal objectives in the first place). Controlling these objectives, including enemy jungle buffs, win you games. While Cho does have a 1000 damage true damage nuke after 6, if I see the enemy team without Smite I'm telling my whole team to invade you level 1 to smite the buff away.