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Is learning full ZBLL worth it?

Yuohno

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I've been cubing for three years now. I know full PLL, OLL and almost half of COLL. I average around 12 seconds and I'm seriously considering learning full ZBLL. But is it worth it?
 

GenTheSnail

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If you're going to learn full ZBLL, make it worth it.
I know roughly half but essentially use 4 sided block recognition. Even though it's the harder part of ZBLL, I would definitely suggest that you learn proper recognition techniques. That's part of the reason why I've found learning it so far so easy--because I didn't learn the hard part.

Also, I would 100% recommend reading and watching Jay's newsletters and videos on ZBLL; there's a lot of good content he's got that should make you think about why you want to learn. Make sure that you run the number before you commit, just to see if it's even worth it.
 

Thom S.

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Id say go for it but there are things to consider
Is 3x3 your main event? Do you plan on using other big sets? Learning ZBLL is hard, but maintaining it is a challenge on it's own.
Id say you should finish and get comfortable with COLL first. If you don't learn Sune, that's fine(go big or go home, right) but COLL is essentially the step under ZBLL.
Are you planning on using some sort of edge control? It's not like it's necessary but if I knew more than the 60 ZBLLs I know now, i'd like to use them every solve, not just 1/8 of them.
 
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My personal opinion is that there are other (possibly better) options. For instance, I am currently working on learning as much OLLCP as possible. OLLCP covers every OLL whereas ZBLL only covers seven. In addition ZBLL has 494 algorithms and OLLCP only has 331. I'm not the most experienced cuber in the world and you've had a fair amount of good advice so far, but I would consider all your options and not just ZBLL(i.e. OLLCP, VLS, etc.).
 

xyzzy

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My personal opinion is that there are other (possibly better) options. For instance, I am currently working on learning as much OLLCP as possible. OLLCP covers every OLL whereas ZBLL only covers seven. In addition ZBLL has 494 algorithms and OLLCP only has 331. I'm not the most experienced cuber in the world and you've had a fair amount of good advice so far, but I would consider all your options and not just ZBLL(i.e. OLLCP, VLS, etc.).
As someone who knows a bit over half of ZBLL and a bit under half of OLLCP (I think; it's been a while since I last counted), ZBLL is way more useful imo. EPLL is slightly faster than PLL on average (this is taking skips into account), but OLLCP is also slightly slower than OLL on average, so overall OLLCP+EPLL doesn't have a huge benefit over OLL+PLL, if any at all.

On the other hand, ZBLL is always at least as fast as OLL+PLL or COLL+EPLL (except for recognition time, but that's also a problem with OLLCP anyway). It's simply not possible for a two-look system to beat ZBLL—otherwise the ZBLL alg would just be the two algs chained together, and then ZBLL would at worst be on equal footing.

(This is specific to 2H; the considerations change for OH and for big cubes. EPLL wins significantly over other PLL cases for OH, and for even-order big cubes, OLLCP makes PLL parity really easy.)
 
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As someone who knows a bit over half of ZBLL and a bit under half of OLLCP (I think; it's been a while since I last counted), ZBLL is way more useful imo. EPLL is slightly faster than PLL on average (this is taking skips into account), but OLLCP is also slightly slower than OLL on average, so overall OLLCP+EPLL doesn't have a huge benefit over OLL+PLL, if any at all.

On the other hand, ZBLL is always at least as fast as OLL+PLL or COLL+EPLL (except for recognition time, but that's also a problem with OLLCP anyway). It's simply not possible for a two-look system to beat ZBLL—otherwise the ZBLL alg would just be the two algs chained together, and then ZBLL would at worst be on equal footing.

(This is specific to 2H; the considerations change for OH and for big cubes. EPLL wins significantly over other PLL cases for OH, and for even-order big cubes, OLLCP makes PLL parity really easy.)

First of all, you have a very valid argument, I'm not trying to say that I know more than you or even that I'm right. However, I feel like this is a close enough comparison to warrant a second opinion. If you count M moves as one move (and you use the M-U U-Perms) EPLL is about 4.64286 moves less than PLL (depending on which algorithms you use) . Like you said OLLCP's are typically a little bit longer than most OLL's, so at best you save about 1-2 moves from using OLL-PLL. However you will never get any of the bad PLL's ( i.e. N-Perm, F-Perm, V-Perm, etc.). You also have a 7% better chance of a skip and OLLCP-EPLL transition should be better if you know how to look for stuff like block preservation.

Again, I'm not trying to say that I'm right and you're wrong, I'm just trying to present another opinion.
 
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Zperm is worse than a lot of plls. Also you never get good plls like Tperm, Jperm etc
If you use the M-U EPLL's and count an M move as one move, you will have three 7-move algorithms and one 9 move algorithm (the Z-Perm). The T-Perm is 14 moves and the J-perm is 13 moves, the only PLL that overlaps as far as move count is the A-Perm(9 Moves). Obviously you will never have as high TPS with a M-U algorithm as with a R-U-F algorithm, but if you drill your EPLL's you should be able to perform them just as fast, if not faster, than your good PLL's. I do agree that at first the Z-Perm is worse than a lot of PLL's, but if you drill it I think it's one of the better ones.

Again, just trying to present another opinion.
 

Ronxu

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If you use the M-U EPLL's and count an M move as one move, you will have three 7-move algorithms and one 9 move algorithm (the Z-Perm). The T-Perm is 14 moves and the J-perm is 13 moves, the only PLL that overlaps as far as move count is the A-Perm(9 Moves). Obviously you will never have as high TPS with a M-U algorithm as with a R-U-F algorithm, but if you drill your EPLL's you should be able to perform them just as fast, if not faster, than your good PLL's. I do agree that at first the Z-Perm is worse than a lot of PLL's, but if you drill it I think it's one of the better ones.

Again, just trying to present another opinion.
No one cares about the number of moves. It's about the time spent solving and OLLCP is only useful if your alternate alg is close to as fast as your main alg.
 

WoowyBaby

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Short answer, yes. Start with COLL and learn the easiest to recognize/execute from after that until you've learned them all.
If you don't feel like learning it all, that's fine, the more you know the better, and there's other things to learn/improve so its ok.

The more 1 look last layer you know, the better, so OLLCP is simply not worth it, because its a 2-look system. In OLLCP, your OLL becomes slightly worse and your PLL gets slightly better (EPLL's are only a bit better than average PLL's).
While in ZBLL, your OLL becomes worse and your PLL becomes ZERO. zero. zilch. nada.

@Ronxu I agree

If you do learn ZBLL or even just a big chunk of it, then orient your edges during F2L so you get 1 look last layer, unless you get a case where orienting them is hard (usually its not though).
 
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Very valid arguments all of you. I realize I am putting forth a controversial opinion and(again) I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm definitely not the most experienced cuber on this thread. Is ZBLL worth it? Is OLLCP worth it? The time and effort required to learn either is monstrous and there are plenty of really fast people who don't know either. So are either of the options worth it? You don't need them to become a
world-class solver and you have to put in a lot of effort. So, in answer to the original question, no, the tradeoff is not worth it. But, who cares if ZBLL is worth it, it's cool, OLLCP is cool, VLS is cool, and I think we will find that is the reason we do most of the things we do. So, yes, learn ZBLL, not because it's worth it, but because it's cool.








Maybe my name should be controversial cuber lol.
 
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Learning Full ZBLL can definitely improve your times, but with cfop it will be difficult to keep all the lags memorized because they don't come up very often. Also if you want to make ZBLL very useful then be sure to learn edge control techniques in f2l.

Hope this helps!
 

GenTheSnail

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Oh wait.
What I said
Are you planning on using some sort of edge control?
I completely forgot about that haha.

I use ZZ so I'll get a ZBLL case 100% of the time, and I'll know the case like 54% of the time. If you know half of ZBLL, then you'll get to use them less than half of the time. That's an important disadvantage to consider.

If you count M moves as one move (and you use the M-U U-Perms)
count an M move as one move,
You can just say STM

If you use the M-U EPLL's and count an M move as one move, you will have three 7-move algorithms and one 9 move algorithm (the Z-Perm). The T-Perm is 14 moves and the J-perm is 13 moves, the only PLL that overlaps as far as move count is the A-Perm(9 Moves). Obviously you will never have as high TPS with a M-U algorithm as with a R-U-F algorithm, but if you drill your EPLL's you should be able to perform them just as fast, if not faster, than your good PLL's.
Yeah... most peoples' U-perms are their fastest PLLs, right in front of J-perm.

I do agree that at first the Z-Perm is worse than a lot of PLL's, but if you drill it I think it's one of the better ones.
What no. Z-perm isn't good. If you drill any of your PLLs they'll eventually be one of your faster ones, but only if you don't drill the other ones.

Okay, so Jay's rambles (or newsletters, I forget) really changed my mind on this topic (CP LL methods). EPLL really isn't that much faster than normal PLL. It's nicer for sure, but J perm is almost as fast as the MU U-perms. I think that they (E: Jay's content) are definitely worth looking into.
They're (E: CP LL methods) certainly worth it if you're interested in OH or big cubes, but not really for 2H. Learning to recognize things is always useful, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend learning COLL anymore.


Very valid arguments all of you. I realize I am putting forth a controversial opinion and(again) I'm not saying that I'm right. I'm definitely not the most experienced cuber on this thread.
So it's nice that you're prefacing a lot of your posts with disclaimers and notes on playing devil's advocate. But I wouldn't consider your position controversial, just inexperienced.
And you don't need to keep saying that you're not the most experienced cuber-- you're not acting pretentious enough for any of us to think that (at least I don't, I won't speak for the rest of the thread).

it's cool, OLLCP is cool, VLS is cool, and I think we will find that is the reason we do most of the things we do. So, yes, learn ZBLL, not because it's worth it, but because it's cool.
Right. This was part of the reason that bothered to start learning ZBLL. It's actually useful for me though, as I use ZZ (and my TPS is abysmal, so movecount counts), but It's also pretty cool.

Maybe my name should be controversial cuber lol.
I wouldn't say that. Maybe if you were seriously proposing that the WCA remove 7x7, 6x6, 5BLD, and 4BLD, but even then no one would really care.

E: clarifications
 
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