Leveling stats on Antimage

So I gave leveling stats and W on Antimage a try, blink maxed, 2 levels in mana burn and 1 in magic resistance then stats and ult at 6/11/16. Levelled mana burn up to 4 at about L13 and maxed magic resistance at 23-25.

It worked pretty well that game, but it might have been a coincidence.
My assumption is you level mana burn based on the total mana of the people you're fighting, and magic resistance depends on whether you're dying to people like lion :P
However, I'm not really sure of the exact circumstances to determine what you level when.

Does anyone have a better idea of how you should level antimage's abilities?
Cheers.

Mana Break = Core of anti mage. It's a must man and is a pain in the *** always.
Blink = Usually maxed first for defensive purposes. May be maxed second if the opposite team isn't that aggressive in which case, you should max Mana Break
Spell Shield = You are right about that. One point early game may save you (a 280 damage nuke reduced to 140 damage of this is nothing to laugh at)
Mana Void = Usually taken when available, although may be delayed by one or two levels if you think a situation involving its usage may not arise and/or you need more defensive abilities like that one point in spell shield

Anyways that's how I think it should be.

the build with stats is the Burning build. you basicly take just 1 point early in all off your spells, so at lvl 6 you have 2 points in stats and 1 point in every other spell.

the use of this build is so that you have a bit more HP to survive if you are being ganked or against an agressive trilane.

the order of leveling your spells depends on the lane, sometimes you need mana shield early and sometimes you take mana burn to make sure your opponent is low on mana.

just be sure you have enough levels in blink once you have your battlefury so you can blink around and farm.

Usually some levels of stats (two or three are fine) help, because Anti-Mage stat gain is quite low.
But I don't think Spell Shield has to be left to 23-25, the extra levels can make you soak up a lot of magical damage.

Against heroes like Skywrath Mage, Zeus, or any heavy magic damage dealer I would never do a stat build, because increasing your magic resistance increases your EHP more than HP and armor gained from stats. You also want to burn their mana with Mana Break, so they can't use their spells. Levels in Blink are very important once you got Battle Fury, so it looks like every skill shouldn't be skipped, to be honest.

I know that you will try to avoid fights early on, but sometimes it is just impossible and you have to at least survive them nukes (especially Thundergod's Wrath, and remember that with increasing your HP pool, you make Static Field better against you).

It really depends on your lane situation, but generally I wouldn't do that. I would rather get stats on Juggernaut. Hell, I think even on Luna or Huskar it wouldn't be too bad. I am guessing that IceFrog's intention was to make hero skills obviously better than leveling stats.

Therefore, I am rather against getting early stats on Anti-Mage.

It's actually just so you can Farm faster, nothing else. The idea is that you Max Blink just before getting your Battlefury so you have the omst Agility possible while Blinking to another camp after clearing each one.

It's great if you have enough space to free farm, but not if you need to fight with your Team before getting Manta Style (which is a lot of the time).

Ahh ok, makes sense, thanks all.