Athena jungle, scary as hell.

I made this guide because I feel like a lot of people have either never seen Athena jungle, or see it as a joky-pick, while I have always thought of it as a not very common, but nonetheless very viable choice.

Athena is my most played god, and I am legendary with her, I have barely ever had a bad game with her in the jungle.

Shield wall is the first you should upgrade, for killing camps.
Confound is the next one to upgrade it makes shield wall a lot better when you encounter an enemy, and it is useful if you want to help solo early game.
Preemptive strike should be upgraded next for it's escape, and chase potential.
After that you should get your shield wall to rank 2 for clearing camps
When you get to level 5 you should upgrade your ultimate and after that you should max out shield wall for damage, and maybe upgrade confound for longer taunt time.

To start you should get Bumba's mask, hog-1, and a magical damage potion.
Bumba, ad hog are usefull because her camp clear is not that great at the start of the match, Bumba's heal will help stay in the jungle a little longer, and hog is useful for clearing buff camps faster so you don't lose too much health.
Bumba's mana heal is also important since she very much relies on shield wall to clear camps.

Boots are important for mobility, and the cd reduction is helpful because she relies on her abilities.
Polynomicon gives you decent magical power, and the lifesteal is also useful, but the biggest reason to buy this item is the passive, poly passive, together with Athena's passive, makes you do a lot more damage. You will clear camps more easily, and it will be a lot easier to kill.
Her (1*)+3+2 combo get a lot stronger, because it activates her passive multiple times.
Preemptive strike also benefits from this, because after you hit the dash, your basic attack is almost always a hit.

I always like to buy Demonic grip, because athena's attack speed is just pathetic for a jungler.

Lastly, I often buy chronos' pendant because you need shield wall-Confound combo to win fights, and being able to use them again more quickly will help you win fights more often.

Ganking with Athena is quite easy, depending on how close the enemy is when you enter the lane, you may have to use preemptive strike to get close enough, once you are, you activate shield wall, doing damage to the enemy, you then pull them back into the circle using confound, this will make sure they take the secondary damage too, and it will also give your ally time to get closer and deal damage.

If the enemy is not dead yet, and is trying to escape, you can use preemptive strike to finish it.

If you see an ally having trouble in lane, if you see an ally being chased, or if a team fight is happening you can use you ultimate to assist, and even get kills.

The biggest problem with Athena jungle, is that she doesn't deal a lot of damage at the start of the match, due to this, it takes slightly longer to clear camps (compared to usual junglers)which will give the monsters time to deal quite a lot of damage, which forces you to go to base fairly early.
You can make stay in the jungler longer, if you make sure to start the match by killing the blue and red/speed buff, bumba and hog also help, I explain this further in the 'items' chapter.
You also run out of mana fairly quickly, which has the same effect and is also countered by bumba.

Pro's about Athena jungle.
-High damage.
-Mobility
-Because she is a tank, she has the advantage of her natural protections over other junglers.
-With your ult, and confound, you are able to save your teammates if needed.
-Preemptive strike and confound, make her great in chasing, and tower-diving, for a kill.
-She has great ability combos
-She is not that common in the jungle role, so not everybody knows how to counter here well.(Magi's blessing can be very annoying to an Athena.)
-Her passive (especially when you have poly) does quite a lot of damage.