WHat? When you place your ninjas that will tell you what position they are in. There is no way a ninja can be pos 4 in 3rd collum 3rd row.

I have no idea. I have the same question. can someone enlighten us?

I remember something I heard from a long time ago about position 2 going before position 1 if the initiative difference is greater than 10k. Though that is an old rumor and not really reliable. General rule of thumb is position 1 will always move before position 2 and so on

Initiative ALWAYS follow the ninja's position.

A position 1 ninja will always act before position 2, who will always act before position 3, who will always act before position 4. The only exceptions are NPC-fights like Plot instances etc.

The thing Initiative does is to make sure that YOUR position 1 goes before the enemy position 1, your position 2 goes before the enemy position 2, etc. It's basically the tie breaker, and not what sets the turn order by itself. You can test that too - put all your initiative on your position 4, and your position 1 will still outspeed it if they both start doing prompt mysteries.

It means the (most) bottom left corner

Tamamo is wrong.

@Ebenheizer then you said it wrong (if its about your lineup). Numbering of collumns and rows always starts from left to right (collumn) and from left to right (row). It's the same about opponents, but you can read about that below.

When you enter ninja tab, you have a grid that looks like this:

x x x

x x x

x x x

General order of positions in this grid is:

7 4 1

8 5 2

9 6 3

and for your opponents during a fight (during a fight, not when you inspect their team) is mirror version of this, so whole battlefield looks like this:

7 4 1 | 1 4 7

8 5 2 | 2 5 8

9 6 3 | 3 6 9

Order of your ninjas movement depends where they are placed. Lower number on this list moves before the higher number, same goes for your opponents. For example, you have ninja on grid 3, 5, 8 and 9 (underlined)- and this is the order in which they will go. Ninja on grid 3 is on position (or move) 1, ninja on grid 5 is move2, ninja on grid 8 is move3 and ninja on grid 9 is move4. Opponent might have ninjas on grid 1, 2, 3, 4. In this case initiative is compared between positions, so your ninja on grid 3 vs opponent ninja on grid 1; your ninja on grid 5 vs opponent ninja on grid 2, etc.. There's no difference if your move1 is on grid 1, 3 or even 6 (except for tactics pages bonus stats) in terms of how initiative works, as long as there are no ninjas that are placed before him (lower numbers of grid above). If you are still unsure if your ninja is on what move, when you enter ninja tab you have big red numbers with number of action.

It is possible for a ninja on a higher grid number (lets compare setup from example above and ninjas on grid 3 and 5) to take action before lower grid number (in simple words mvoe2 goes off before move1). For this to happen, ninja on move 2 has to have 10k initiative more than your move1. If your grid3 ninja has 8000 initiative and your grid 5 ninja has 19000 initiative, grid 5 will take action before grid 3. Same applies to other positions between them. It also applies to you vs your opponent. Quick example:

Initiative of your ninjas...... opponent ninjas

move1- 18k..........13k

move2- 25k...........12k

move3- 10k.......... 9k

move4- 10k............11k

Order of movement in this scenario is as follows: 1st. your move1, 2nd your move2, 3rd opponent move1, 4th opponent move2, 5th your move3, 6th opponent move3, 7th opponent move4, 8th your move4.

Interesting fact: its possible for a ninja on move4 to act faster than move1. For this to happen, position 4 has to have over 30k ini advantage over your move1.

As told in Elementary school when you draw a Horisontal line you start from left to right. When you draw a Vectrial line you draw from top to bottom.

so that said 3rd Collum (going from left to right) and 3rd row (going from top to bottom) is not left corner but right corner.

That confused me :P

its 1st collum 3rd row. that is left corner.

You may consider the 4 positions as if they had a 10k initiative bonus in comparison with the following position.

Just to state it more directly:

By placing a ninja in position 3 you are actually giving it a buff of 10k initiative in comparison with position 4, by placing a ninja in position 2 a 10k bonus in comparison with move 3 and 20k in comparison with move 4, by placing a ninja in move 1 you are actually giving it a bonus of 10k in comparison with move 2, 20k with move 3 and 30k with move 4.

Sorry for the confusion, yeah, I was wrong at pointing the pos.

Confusing at first, but I can somewhat manage to understand the information. Very informative. Thanks!

Some questions though:

"Initiative of your ninjas...... opponent ninjas

move1- 18k..........13k

move2- 25k...........12k

move3- 10k.......... 9k

move4- 10k............11k

Order of movement in this scenario is as follows: 1st. your move1, 2nd your move2, 3rd opponent move1, 4th opponent move2, 5th your move3, 6th opponent move3, 7th opponent move4, 8th your move4."

Let me make a scenario here:

Same with your formation example, say, the pos 1 of my opponent is 20K. 2K higher than my pos 1 ninja, but 5K lower than my pos 2 ninja, then will the opponent (with lower initiative) goes first instead of my second pos (with higher initiative)?

Another question is:

My formation .......... Opponent's

2 X X .............................. 1 4 X

3 X X .............................. 2 X X

4 1 X .............................. 3 X X

If my pos 1 ninja has higher initiative than opponent's pos 1 ninja, but that opponent's is on the front line, while mine is a bit to the back, will my pos 1 ninja goes first or my opponent's?

Thanks in advance.

@Ebenheizer

"Let me make a scenario here:

Same with your formation example, say, the pos 1 of my opponent is 20K. 2K higher than my pos 1 ninja, but 5K lower than my pos 2 ninja, then will the opponent (with lower initiative) goes first instead of my second pos (with higher initiative)?"

Yes, in this case you mentioned your opponent's move1 (20k) will go first. Then acts your move1(18k) and your move2 (25k). For a moveX+1 to go before moveX the difference in initiative needs to be over 10k. In this case the difference between your move2 and move1 is 7k, and between your move2 and opponent move2 is 5k, so move2 cant go faster. Scarlettblue might have said it in easier words in his comment.

Regarding another question:

Yes, your ninja will move first. It doesn't matter if opponent is in the frontline and you arent.

Yeah, this misconception was thanks to this "guide" made by someone which still hasn't been updated :/

https://naruto.oasgames.com/en/strategy/gamestrategy/who_attacks_1st_in_ninjutsu

One thing this makes me wonder. If I have 11k initiative on my position 1 and 21k initiative on my position 2, and my opponent has 10k initiative on his position 1, my position 1 goes first, but will my position 2 also go before his position 1?

Not really something that would ever happen, but it this works it could be fun for a super whale to load up his position 2 and double mystery in sage.

Yeah, there's this rule that if your pos 2 has 10K more ini than the opponents pos 1 your pos 2 will have their move before the opponents pos 1. This works too on NPCs.

I imagine in order to have your pos 3 go before the opponents pos 1 the pos 2 needs to have 20K more ini but I didn't test this theory so I can't say for sure.

^^^OP directly above me said what I was going to say.

Yep. It does.

And it actually happens in my swb where some whale put earth main first and edo hirzuen 2nd just to hope to be faster than some move 2 kisame samehada/madara 5k in using both chakra wall and hiruzen mystery.

I thought i explained it just some posts before yours, lol.

I heard of that too. I remember someone saying a 10k difference will make pos 2 ninja go first before pos 1 ninja OF the enemy lineup. In your own lineup, pos1 ninja WILL always go first.

Nope is not true. If your move 2 ninja owns 14k initiative and your move 1 owns 3k even your move 2 ninja will move before your move 1. Is not hard to test it, it's enough you give move 1 stats to move 2 and thar you remove your gear from move 1 to see it works so.