Magnifying Grass (Plants vs. Zombies 2)

For other uses, see Magnifying Grass (disambiguation).

Magnifying Grass
Magnifying Grass turns sun into a bolt of colorful damage.
Almanac statistics
Sun cost	50
Recharge	5 seconds
Damage	550 damage per shot
Range	Straight
Special	Tap to spend sun for an attack
Family	Fila-mint
In-game statistics
Other weakness	(can block attacks) (avoids shots while submerged)
Rarity (China)	Uncommon
Unlocked	Beating Far Future - Day 17
Unlocked (China)	Collect 10 Magnifying Grass Puzzle Pieces
Costumes
Magnifying Grass understands the inherent power of a rainbow. Beneath her stoic features she takes great joy in delivering radiant multicolored destruction to the zombie horde.

Magnifying Grass is the sixth plant obtained in Far Future in Plants vs. Zombies 2. She uses sun earned by the player and turns it into a bolt of energy when tapped. Each bolt deals 550 damage per shot to a single zombie and costs 50 sun to fire.

Origins

Magnifying Grass is based on Poaceae, the large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants known as grasses. Her name is a portmanteau of "magnifying glass," a convex lens used to produce a magnified image of an object, and "grass," the type of plant this is based on.

Almanac entry

Magnifying Grass		SUN COST 50 RECHARGE 5 SUN COST: 50 RECHARGE: 5 TOUGHNESS 300 DAMAGE 550 TOUGHNESS: 300 DAMAGE: 550 PLANT FOOD POWER Beam Strength FAMILY Fila-mint PLANT FOOD POWER: Beam Strength FAMILY: Fila-mint Magnifying Grass turns sun into a bolt of colorful damage. Special: tap to spend sun for an attack Magnifying Grass understands the inherent power of a rainbow. Beneath her stoic features she takes great joy in delivering radiant multicolored destruction to the zombie horde.

Magnifying Grass

		SUN COST 50			RECHARGE 5

SUN COST: 50
RECHARGE: 5

		TOUGHNESS 300			DAMAGE 550

TOUGHNESS: 300
DAMAGE: 550

		PLANT FOOD POWER Beam Strength			FAMILY Fila-mint

PLANT FOOD POWER: Beam Strength
FAMILY: Fila-mint

Magnifying Grass turns sun into a bolt of colorful damage.

Special: tap to spend sun for an attack

Magnifying Grass understands the inherent power of a rainbow. Beneath her stoic features she takes great joy in delivering radiant multicolored destruction to the zombie horde.

Upgrades

Plant Food effect

Plant Food ability (animated)

When fed with Plant Food, Magnifying Grass shoots a rainbow that burns zombies ahead of her one by one. This effect will last longer the more sun-producing plants (excluding Sun Bean, Toadstool, and Sun-shroom in the Chinese version) there are present on the lawn; if there are none, the effect will only last for 3 seconds. The Plant Food effect lasts 0.15 seconds longer for each sun producing plant. The beam only hits things in columns ahead and parallel to itself.

Costumed (China only)

Her sun beam deals a greater amount of damage.

Fila-mint effect

When boosted by Fila-mint, Magnifying Grass's damage is increased by 800 DPS.

Level upgrades

Level	Seed Packets	Coins	Upgrades
			Sun Cost	Recharge (Fast)	Toughness (Typical)	Damage (Huge)	Projectile Velocity	Plant Food Power (Beam Strength)*
1	0	0	50	5 seconds	300 dps	550 dps	Normal	200 dps
2	10	1,000			350 dps	575 dps		250 dps
3	75	5,000			400 dps	600 dps	+ 1.3x	300 dps
4	200	10,000			450 dps	625 dps		350 dps
5	400	20,000			550 dps	650 dps		400 dps
6	750	30,000			600 dps	675 dps		450 dps
7	1,000	40,000			650 dps	700 dps	+ 1.6x	500 dps
8	1,250	50,000	25		700 dps	725 dps		600 dps
9	1,500	60,000			800 dps	750 dps		700 dps
10	2,000	75,000			900 dps	800 dps		800 dps

*Damage per second.

Level upgrades (China only)

Level	Upgrades	Description
	Charged Attack 蓄力攻击	Hold and fully charge the Magnifying Grass to deal triple the amount of normal damage at the cost of 100 sun.
	Combat Training 战斗训练	Magnifying Grass gains 50% more attack power and health (150% of initial).
	Cumulative Charge 聚能	Now the charged attack deals quadruple amount of damage than its normal state at the cost of 100 sun with its attack power.
	Cell Activation 细胞活化	Magnifying Grass gains another 50% more attack power and health (200% of initial).
	Ability Awaken 能力觉醒	Magnifying Grass may be boosted when planted.
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Magnifying Grass gains another 50% more attack power and health (250% of initial).

Plants vs. Zombies Online (Adventure Mode)  (China only) (Archived content)

Fires a stronger projectile at the target. If the target dies, the projectile will damage the target behind the initial target.

Strategies

Here is a table of the number of sun shots to kill some tough zombies.

Zombie	Number of sun shots to kill
Gargantuar	7
Pharaoh Zombie	3
Mecha-Football Zombie/Disco-tron 3000/Knight Zombie/Blockhead Zombie/Jurassic Fossilhead	4
Robo-Cone Zombie/Brickhead Zombie	5
Jurassic/Gladiator Gargantuar	10

Magnifying Grass allows the player to weaponize their sun production to deal damage to the zombies. Her high damage and quick-firing capability allow the player to allocate firepower to swiftly eliminate high-threat targets, provided that they have enough economy to do so - Surfer Zombie, Jester Zombie, Wizard Zombie can only survive one shot, Mecha-Football Zombie can survive four, and Gargantuar can take up to seven shots.

Her greatest weakness, however, is her inefficiency: 50 sun is a very steep price for an attack that cannot kill a Conehead Zombie (level 1 Magnifying Grass), and Magnifying Grass will drain sun very quickly if used to attack large amounts of weak zombies, such as Zombie Chickens and Imps. Tomb Raiser Zombies are also very dangerous as their created tombstones will block her attack and shield stronger zombies such as Explorer Zombies, causing you to waste extra sun.

Because of this, it is not recommended to use Magnifying Grass as the main offensive plant, but rather to use her as a supporting offensive option for others. Several plants can be used to help remedy Magnifying Grass' weaknesses, should the player intend to use it as the main offensive plant:

• A Squash costs only 50 sun and can help Magnifying Grass in these cases:
  • It can instantly kill Buckethead Zombies and their variants, Poncho Zombies, Knight Zombies, and Blockhead Zombies.
  • It deals 1800 damage, meaning it will save you about 125 sun (27.5 x 3 = 82.5 so its cost for three shots is 150 sun, then do the subtraction 150 - 25 = 125 sun) for machined zombies.
  • Its area attack can destroy many weaker zombies at once and allow Magnifying Grass to have a clear shot.
• Area of effect plants such as Laser Bean, Snapdragon, Lightning Reed, and Fume-shroom can quickly deal with swarmers and effectively reduces the shots required to kill other zombies by one. Puff-shroom can also be helpful with this task, as it saves valuable sun for Magnifying Grass.
• Use a Cherry Bomb when there are at least four or more zombies in a 3x3 square or a Jalapeno when there are three or more zombies in a lane. The more zombies there are, the higher amount of sun you can save.
• Sun Bean can be used to aid in sun production when used on high health enemies.
• Gold Bloom can provide a massive power boost combined with Magnifying Grass, as its effect equals 7.5 Magnifying Grass attacks.
• Tile Turnip allows the player to acquire sun more quickly when used with sun producing plants.

Alternatively, it is possible to use Magnifying Grass as the main offensive plant, provided that there is space to plant a large number of sun-producing plants (e.g. 3 columns of Twin Sunflowers) or if you plant Shine Vine on it as it will make it attack instead of producing sun. If attempting this strategy, it is generally best to delay attacking each group of zombies for as long as possible, which will delay the arrival of further groups and allow more time to produce sun.

However, starting with level 2, the Magnifying Grass is capable of killing a Conehead Zombie in one shot for the same amount of sun, allowing the player to use the plant more offensively rather than supportively.

In Endless Zones, Magnifying Grass can be used to neutralize Imps thrown by Gargantuars if placed near the house, as sun production is generally less of a problem in Endless Zone due to the stockpiled Plant Food between levels. In Tiki Torch-er, Magnifying Grass can also be used to clean up surfboards or octopuses thrown by Octo Zombies. In Icebound Battleground, Magnifying Grass can be used to quickly free plants that have been chilled by Hunter Zombie or the freezing wind effect.

Do not use Magnifying Grass against Excavator Zombies and Snorkel Zombies as the former can block her powerful projectiles with his shovel while the latter will avoid all of her projectiles when submerged. If you spam shots at these zombies, they will drain your sun counter very quickly, wasting countless sun against both of them; this is a major weakness of the Magnifying Grass.

Avoid using Magnifying Grass in Frostbite Caves as there are many threats that can render her useless. Hunter Zombies can freeze plants in the front, requiring at least 2 shots from her to get rid of a single frozen block. If they come in groups, they can block the front lines very quickly, which can easily overwhelm her without support from lobber plants, area of effect plants or fire plants.

Also, the freezing wind effect poses a major threat against her as it can freeze multiple plants, which can require tons of sun for Magnifying Grass to free every frozen plant. Troglobite can shield other zombies with frozen blocks, requiring up to 450 sun to destroy all the frozen blocks and every Yeti Imp inside. Weasel Hoarder can summon a pack of Ice Weasels, which can easily overwhelm Magnifying Grass as she can only kill one weasel at a time.

It is inadvisable to use her in "Spend no more than (amount of sun given) sun" levels as a careless player can unnecessarily spend a lot of sun quickly and lose the level easily, so it is recommended to use her wisely or use a different plant instead, like Puff-shroom.

Magnifying Grass is an extremely useful plant in levels with the objective "Don't lose more than x plants" as her high damage output makes her an alternative to instant-use plants. It is recommended to bring Primal Sunflowers and plant a lot of them them to get sun faster, and the player can also optionally shield with Infi-nut's force field. Such kinds of levels can be beaten with ease by just using Magnifying Grass as the main offensive plant. Although she isn't unlocked back in Wild West, the player can use her to beat all levels of that world with this same objective, and support can be provided with Spikerock against very weak enemies such as Zombie Chickens. Overall, it can make extremely hard levels with these objectives very easy, needing a lot less support in some cases.

Related achievement

	Grass Effect Fire off 500 sun through Magnifying Grass

Gallery

Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Magnifying Grass.

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Language	Name	Description
English	Magnifying Grass
Simplified Chinese	棱镜草	lit. "Prism Grass"
French	Loupe végétale
German	Vergrößerungsgras
Italian	Superba
Brazilian Portuguese	Lente de Grama
Spanish	Hierba lupa

Trivia

• She was first shown off in Plants vs. Zombies: Official Guide to Protecting Your Brains, and files were discovered in the game's coding. However, she was confirmed once by an image revealed by EA showing the Far Future seed packet.
  • In that book, she is referred to as male, although in-game, she is referred to as female.
• The concept of this plant is the same as when sunlight passes through a prism. Sunlight seems colorless but when passed into a prism, it breaks, forming six colors which is the visible spectrum. The sun passes into the Magnifying Grass, forming a rainbow.
• Firing 500 sun through her in a level will give the player the Grass Effect achievement.
• When she uses her Plant Food ability, she burns the zombies she kills. This is a reference to when sun rays are focused using a magnifying glass, the ray can burn objects.
• Unlike most other interactive plants, at the end of any level, she can still be tapped on and will use her ray attack. This also happened with the Banana Launcher before the 3.1 update. It is currently still the case with Jack O' Lantern.
• A glitch can occur when the player uses Plant Food on her, the zombie will not get burned, but will fall down normally and she will keep firing at the same spot until the effect ends, instead of firing at another zombie.
• Prior to the 2.4.1 update, Camel Zombies could take up to two shots from her, although each Camel Zombie absorbs only 420 damage per shot.
• Her attack used to only deal about seven damage in the Chinese version of Plants vs. Zombies 2, while it still spent 50 sun to attack. The bug was fixed in 1.2.1 update.
• Aside from projectiles fired upon by her Plant Food upgrade, her sun beam, bombs released from the Dandelion, and pine cones lobbed by Sap-fling when not fed with Plant Food are the only projectiles that cannot be deflected by Jester Zombie.
• She was able to shoot projectiles and kill zombies while under the effect of Boombox Zombie's ballad jam, but as of the 6.6.1 update, she is now vulnerable to the ballad.
• In Plants vs. Zombies: Bully For You, Crazy Dave creates a Magnifying Grass that, if looked through, allows the player to see objects from very far away (such as a space station).
• As of the 6.7.1 update, Magnifying Grass seed packets can be obtained in an Electric Piñata, although she does not seem to use electrical attacks. The same trait was shared with Laser Bean before the 6.7.1 update.
• She belongs in the Fila-mint family, despite not having an electricity-based attack. The same thing happens to Ultomato.

See also

• Grass Effect
• Sun