better parry with small shield?

[The Myst]

This is a nice thread..

I often wondered why to use buckler if wall-shield has a mountain of defence. Now I feel speed, distance, defence-reduction, fighting style etc might be playing important roles for sure.

My little experience says buckler works great for theatric while wall-shield for war. My theatric's buckler parried more attacks than a wall-shield did, even while letting the theatric attack often with main hand weapon which was usually a saber, and thus worked like a charm. But on a war the buckler, despite parrying effectively, made many attacks making the war pathetic in offence while a wall-shield let attack reasonably often with main hand weapon which was usually a bastard sword.

Sorry for my inexperience but a weird guess - can gladiator's class (theatric/war) itself be a variable in shield-effectiveness?