Favorite index shoe?

Im in the market for a new shoe so i am wondering what folks enjoy specifically for harder routes at Index. To me it seems like a good smearing shoe would be preferred given how often you end up with difficult smears/laybacks (narrow arrow), but i could also be convinced that a stiffer more edging focused shoe would be better for the small knobs and edges for power transfer (model worker). 

Currently leaning towards getting either some skwamas, or something like the instinct or katana 

Personally I’m a katana loyalist, I feel like there’s more edgy face climbing at index than smears. But if course  I’d get another shoe for your arsenal too for the smearier stuff 

My favorite Index shoe was a pair of really tight TC Pros resoled with softer rubber. Once well broken in, had the right balance of edging power and smearing. Sized em like my tight sport climbing shoes.

the only rubber that matters at index is your brain :) I have worn all kinds of shoes there over the years and never really felt strong conviction that one was better than others. I generally like stiff shoes, but I’ve also done some things in soft shoes.

If I could get unlimited bootics ogs I probably would never wear anything else. 

I remember at least:

Katana 

Solution 

Boostic (og and new age) 

Genius 

Booster 

Mago 

Vapor 

Evan Atwaterwrote:

But if course  I’d get another shoe for your arsenal too for the smearier stuff 

Haha, the problem is that i already have quite the quiver, i just need to add one more pair in the rotation for when i have shoes out getting resoled. Currently I have a pair of skwamas getting resoled and am using some evolv shamans. Not sure how well i like the shamans for index though. For steep stuff like the exits they are great, but they dont perform as well as i would like for index specifically. 

Muira Lace all day

I use Kataki 90% of the time, but Solution, Futura, and Butora Acro are others that I've enjoyed a lot. I'm under the impression that Skwama is similar to Kataki with the obvious superficial differences so I've been interested in trying those out. 

The commonality to the shoes I prefer are that they get their 'stiffness' through a downturned profile but have a flexible midsole so I can drop my heel and get the side of my foot involved for backsteps and smearing. They also either have good heelhooking or toehooking capabilities. 

I haven't really played around with truly stiff shoes though so maybe I'm missing something. 

Hmm, what's the best shoe for smearing at Index, TC Pro? I feel like there's no edging in Index, only smearing, but that's probably because I trust the edges but I really don't trust smears at all, didn't climb a lot of friction. And Index has lots of "edges" that are still friction dependent.

I like Katana's and Miura laces