Refines...

The initiative stat. If his initiative is higher, he goes first.
Things that increase initiative, ordered from the highest change to lowest:
- Refinement
- Purification on your Refinement lol
- Battle Armor
- Eight Inner Gates (Initiative Rune available in shop only)

Note that Move Order also matters. Move Number 1 will always outspeed Move Number 2 and so on and so forth.

Okay, thank you for the information! :D

refines are the only thing that carry over into arena I believe. refines will help your initiative which in turn make you faster. Strive to get at least 165 stats(level 5 I believe) on at least 5 of your equipment.

Will do!:D

Its kinda dumb, Arena should be the ONE place where nothing matters but skill and ninja formations. They should really remove the first round bonus.

We have plenty of PVP in this game where you c*e your true power. Arena should be fair, Just my opinion.

I have fought the same player twice in a row.
First time, he went first
second time, I went first
I changed nothing.

This make me doubt the init bit (now that purification is in play, ties are very unlikely)

Can assure you it carries into arena, and its total team initiative that decides who goes first on all characters. Maybe it wasn't the same person or they were just too late to hit the *on.

That's a fact, I totally agree bro

Some ppl said Arena n Trial has average initiative by 4 ninjas?

It have nothing to do with *on hitting, because I wasn't observing the mysteries. Fact is, the order of mystery cast is EXACTLY the same as the order of standard attack (should both side cast mystery at same time and they are all prompt) Because of all the control/interrupt etc that can make your mystery go "*" in the game, I've gained the habit of observing the order of normal attacks on round 1, so I can determine whether I should cast my mystery at the start of round 2 or wait for them to do their thing and not waste my skill.

Granted, I usually pay most attention to move 1, a bit of attention to move 2 and usually not much attention to 3 or 4, because it gets tedious to remember all of them. I only observe more than 1 move only when the fight would be really close.

That said, what I observed in that particular case is my sage naruto vs his wind main, which are move 1 in our respective team. I only observed move 1 because I beat him every time in arena with the particular team we were using (and he always chat me about the misfortune of having to fight me as a result, so yes, it was the same person).

Doesn't change the fact higher team initiative goes first in arena no matter what so seems like you didn't pay enough attention