Magnifying-Glass Damage

Terry in the magnifying glass in Ultimate, on Temple.

Magnifying-Glass Damage, known as hoop damage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, is the damage that a fighter receives when they are out of the camera's boundaries but not past the blast line. It is present in all games except the original Super Smash Bros., though the magnifying glass does appear.

When a fighter is off-screen but not past the blast line, they are still shown inside a small hoop known as the magnifying glass at the edge of the camera boundary. This hoop is accompanied by an arrow that signals the player to get back on-screen. Magnifying-Glass Damage is damage applied while the fighter is displayed this way, at a rate of 1% per second, but stops occurring when the fighter has accumulated 150% damage. In Ultimate, the size of the magnifying glass is determined by how close a player is to a blast line: the closer to a blast line, the smaller the glass gets. The edges of the glass flash yellow when the player is dangerously close to the blast line.

Magnifying-Glass Damage does not occur in Training Mode nor in the All-Star Rest Area in Melee and Brawl. In The Subspace Emissary, if Player 2 is in a situation that would usually trigger the effect, they instead usually Space Jump. Charizard, Meta Knight, Kirby, and to a lesser extent, King K. Rool, all have up throws that send them above the upper blast line with the accompanying magnifying glass, but they do not take damage as a result, as the time spent isn't enough for them to sustain damage. Joker's Rebellion Gauge does not fill when taking Magnifying-Glass Damage.

The damage sustained by Magnifying-Glass Damage is often inconsequential, having little impact on most games. Its main purpose is to serve as a minor deterrent to camping close to the blast zone with the aim of throwing an opponent for an early KO. It does have situational uses for a player, though, such as Terry using the damage to get access to Super Special Moves if he's extremely close to the threshold without having to get hit, but this is niche and extremely punishable.

Gallery

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  Mario in the magnifying glass in Smash 64 on Mushroom Kingdom.

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  Donkey Kong in the magnifying glass in Melee on Onett.

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  Sonic in the magnifying glass in Brawl on Bridge of Eldin.

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  Bayonetta in the magnifying glass in Smash 4 on Yoshi's Island.

Trivia

• Status effects such as being buried or frozen are not rendered in the magnifying glass.
• In Melee, fighters in the magnifying glass have a blockier, lower-resolution model compared to ordinary gameplay. These models cannot properly emulate some animations, such as blinking, and the use of some moves or attacks can result in unusual visual behaviour. These models are also used to simulate the reflections seen on Fountain of Dreams.
• The English name of "hoop damage" that comes from the Brawl website is believed to be a mistranslation of the original ルーペダメージ, or "loupe damage". All other games (except for SSB64, which provides none) use the translation "magnifying glass".
• Oddly, in Brawl, CPUs on either the blue or green team use the less saturated red team color. This was fixed in the PAL release of the game.
• In Ultimate, the "side arrows" of the magnifying glass for whenever a fighter is on the side of the screen reuse port colors of human players from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. As a result, ports such as Players 2 and 4 will have their arrows a darker color, while Players 7 and 8 will have purple and slate colors instead of pink and purple, respectively.
  • Additionally, CPU players in Team Battles will have their arrows the same as their team colors, but with less saturation.