Hey guys. This is my first build so I kind of have an idea as to what to type on here but really it's all very new to me. Right now, Cho'Gath is my favorite champ to play. He's a very unique AP/Tank with so much potential. I'll update this as I go on. This is a great champion to play both Mid and Top with. He makes a great jungler as well but I cannot jungle for the life of me so I stay away form that role. Please give me pointers and ideas if you have any as I'm not familiar with making these guides look as nice as others. Also, I apologize in advanced for this guide being a lot of just reading and not many pictures. I'll try and add pics and links and videos as I go along. This is mainly to help give an idea of how I play Cho.

I wont lie to you. There are other champions that are very broken and worth playing for the sake of winning. Here are some Pros and Cons I could think of:

Pros:
Your Cho'Gath. When you eat something you actually say "Nomnomnomnomnom" :D
You have such amazing skins including Gentleman Cho and Battlecast Cho.
Although you can build full tank, you still deal a huge amount of dmg with your ult.
Your items can vary on the situation to be more or less tank while still hurting the enemies.
You have a great AOE Silence and Pop Up for group fights as well as your auto attack.
You gain back mana and health per minion kill giving you a great deal of sustain.
With your movement runes and boots of mobility, you surprise people very well :D
Lets not forget that your if your ult kills something, you gain a stack of 150 health up to 6 times. That's a lot of health just for eating your meals.
All in all I'd say he's very underrated and extremely fun to play in ranked.
He's one of the best tanks in my opinion when it comes to the amount of dmg he can tank while dishing out dmg himself.
The last thing I will put out there is how your ult can be used as a smite. You deal over 1000 true damage to monsters with your feast allowing you to help clear dragon and baron faster for your team. It's amazing!

Cons:
His abilities do use a great amount of mana so you have to learn to use sparingly.
Some champions have no fear of Cho'Gath and will destroy him early game.
Early game must be handled with care to not feed enemies.
Sometimes your ult will give off it's animation as a glitch when you try to Feast but they get out of range or move into a bush.
Your Rupture takes time to master where to drop it(learning to read their movements)
It's easy to be kited as Cho if you cannot get in range to use your rupture.
I'm actually very biased towards Cho so I cannot think of many cons to playing him. I mean he gives you a potential AP caster and Tank in as well as Top and Mid roles all in one champ.

Cho'Gath has wonderful potential for farm. Having a Doran's Ring on start, each minion you kill will grant you 17+(3*lvl) health and 3.25 + (0.25*lvl) mana on top of the 4 mana per unit kill and +3 mana per 5 sec from Doran's Ring. This is one of the best passives in my opinion when it comes to sustaining in a lane. Because of this, and how naturally powerful and tanky you are, there is a lot of intimidation to be used to free farm more often than you'd expect. Just stay behind your minions at level 1 until the enemy creeps are low enough to last hit. Try and only use your q to either harass your opponent some or to grab a few creeps in the distance that you wouldn't get otherwise. Do not abuse this as you'll run low on mana fast leaving you a bit vulnerable. If your opponent goes in on you, just pop them up and auto hit them once or twice to scare them away or make sure you fall back if they are hurting you more than you can handle. If your health drops low, hang back and pop a potion and try to just farm with your q as much as you can. Once you hit level 2, you can use your silence to harass your opponent. Whether it's stopping them from using their skills to attack you, or simply hitting them as they try and hide behind their minions, your feral scream will do a decent amount of damage and help eliminate minions as well. At level 3 you will have your spikes to hit multiple minions at a time as well as harass your opponent hiding behind them so with your spikes, your scream, and your pop up, you have a very sound kit to farming and harassing your opponent. Keep in mind that you will no be gaining more health and mana back as you level and if you are playing mid and your jungler loves you, you'll receive blue buff giving you unlimited spam of your Q and W. Once you get to level 6, you will now have Feast. There are two ways to use Feast. The "farming" way is to use its short cooldown to your advantage and if your opponent is in no condition to be taken out, simply hurt their minions and use your feast on the siege minion giving you a stack on your feast for extra health. The other way to use feast is to soften up your opponent and when they are pushed up a bit, pop them in the air, use your feral scream to silence them, hit ignite, and use your feast to for a combo that will either kill them on the spot or get them down to about 10-15% of life. if you can follow up and keep hitting them it's worth taking a turret hit or three to seal in the kill but play that part carefully. You can keep in mind your feast cools down in 60 seconds and they will now be terrified of what you're capable of so they will now be less likely to try and go in on you. If they fail to understand, simply show them again until they do.

The hardest thing about avoiding a gank as Cho is knowing when to use your Rupture and Feral Scream. If the enemy jungler comes in to gank you, they more than likely have a way to close the gap. The best thing to do is wait until they use their skill to close the gap on you and use Rupture below yourself so it pops them up while you run away. If you are getting low on health, pop any health pot you may have and continue to move towards your tower. If they sun you again, use feral scream and attempt to get to your tower. Some ganks are unavoidable and if the enemy jungler is camping your lane I recommend buying wards to keep an eye out. Often you will be able to escape so long as the mid opponent is hurt or not capable of helping close the gap to you. Most of the ranked games I've play, I have had a very calm mid experience in comparison to other champs as the enemy team is aware of my sturdiness and escape abilities. ||| When your jungler is ready to try and gank your lane, try and allow your opponent to push up a bit and maybe if allow them to hit you to give them the idea they are going to hurt you. Follow this up with your jungler by using Rupture as your jungler goes in for the fight. This will pop them up allowing him to deal dmg or quickly close the gap. Use your Feral Scream to silence the enemy so they cannot use flash or any skills to evade. If they are hurt enough, try and ignite them for the kill or if you are already level 6, finish them off with feast. Most times, the mid opponent can escape with flash but if you are persistent, you will get the kill. If they ignite you and you're low on health, attempt to kill a few minions to gain health back before you die. It's amazing how many times I've survived by farming a few minions after I was ignited.

I like to start with a Doran's Ring and 2 Health pots for some dmg and sustain for my lane. This works in both Top lane and Mid. Try and sustain in your lane long enough to gain about 820-1220 gold in order to buy another Doran's ring and the Fiendish Codex for more AP dmg, cooldown, and mana regen. If you are having a hard time in your lane, go back with around 470 gold to grab your second Doran's ring and more pots to try and sustain better. || Continue to farm your lane and if you're lucky enough to get kills or have a gank happen and gain an assist, return with at least 720 gold and by your first defensive item. This should be bought according to your lane opponent first. If they are AD, then simply build a Chain Vest and get back in lane with even more sustainability. If the opponent is AP, build a Negatron Cloak and get on with it. If you have enough extra gold, buy your first tier boots as well. If you cannot buy your boots just yet, no worries you shouldn't need them as you're still just farming your lane. You can even wait until you have another 1000 gold and go straight to buying your Boots of Mobility if you are doing fine in your lane and do not feel the need to go back yet. || After you've bought the boots, it's time to upgrade your defensive item. If you build your Chain Vest, save up to buy a Sunfire Cape. This will cost more so just save up because you should have all 6 item slots filled if you're buying health pots so you won't have room for your giant's belt. That's alright though because you should be using your Feast to build your health stacks anyways so just keep on farming until you have enough for the cape. If you built the Negatron first, go ahead and upgrade that to the Spectre's Cowl and continue to farm or help in team fights. || Once you have built either the Sunfire Cape, or the Spectre's Cowl, it will be time to start building the opposite item. So if you build AD first, go head and start build up your AP defenses. || After your Sunfire Cape and Spectre's Cowl have been purchased, it's time to go back on the offensive and turn your Fiendish Codex into a Nashor's Tooth. Once this is done, you will hit harder and faster allowing you to tank and deal a good bit of dmg to the enemy team. After you Nashor's Tooth has been built, turn your Spectre's Cowl into a Spirit Visage to give you more health, cooldowns, magic resist, and a bonus to your healing factors. These are your core items. || The last two items you build are based on the situation. If the team is heavily AD and you do not feel threatened by their Mage, you can buy a Thornmail and Warden's Mail to reduce their damage even more. The Warden's mail and eventually turn into a Randuin's Omen allowing you to slow your attackers and hurt them just for hitting you. If you feel the need to dish out a bit more AP for your team, purchase a Rabadon's Deathcap and laugh at how much you hurt their team as the tank. A Rabadon's and Nashor's Tooth will stack with your Vorpal Spikes allow you to deal around 300 magic dmg an auto attack and with Nashor's attack speed boost, you have a great chance of taking on multiple enemies at a time. || If your team needs a bit more magic resist, you can build a Guardian's Angel to give you more magic resist as well as buying an Abysmal Sceptar to give you more AP/magic resist and helping reduce the enemies magic resist for you and your teammates.

I've played plenty of games where my team had fed and all we needed was a small push in the right direction to make a comeback. Cho is certainly a champion that can help with that. There have been countless games where my jungler will ping to come up for a gank just for me to combo my opponent out of existence before my jungler could even make it there. Cho'Gath can be very powerful and an incredible solo and team player. Most games, I apply such pressure that I don't even need to go to other lanes because the enemy team will have to try and stop me from just pushing into their base. This gives my team some breathing space to farm and push their lanes up without the worry of ganks as it takes more than one champion to stop me once I have my build going. With my Boots of Mobility, I roam through the jungle fast and try and catch up to my teammates in need to help turn fights around. You wouldn't believe how often you can get a kill when the enemy think's your top still and you come out of a bush with Rupture and Feral Scream. Your intimidation will cause the enemy team to have to focus you allowing your jungler, mid, and adc to have more space to do their damage. Not every game will go your way either. You may end up against certain champions that destroy you and you have to play very passive and hope your team can help carry you until you gain enough gold to tank up and start doing your thing. It's all a numbers game really. I've had games where I had 7 kills over the enemy team but my teammates were just feeding too hard for it to matter. Not every game will go your way and for those, you can only try your best and stay positive and learn from the loss. Just remember, everybody has a bad game and telling somebody they are bad because they fed will only cause them to want to play worse and lower their morale. So stay positive, and try your best to just win your lane to help carry your team to victory.