Dramatic improvement - steel shield and protection spell

I'm not sure what the protection spell does other than raise evade by a couple of points, but I had it cast on me and I seemed to be almost impervious to snake attacks (not mountain snakes, but regular snakes). I was taking on 3 or 4 at a time with barely a scratch. The steel shield has made it possible for me to reasonably attack regular snakes and suffer in the range of 5-10 hits. So hit and run is much easier. This plus a protection spell left me fighting snakes alone and doing well. I picked up about 8 snake eggs and 1 tongue completing the amount of tongues I need from regular snakes in the Auldsbel quest. I still need 2 mountain snake tongues and I'm not yet powerful enough to do snakes plus mountain snakes on my own without the protection spell. Funny enough the protection spell only seemed to raise my evade from 96 to 98... there must be something else at work. Does this mean if I put more in agility or luck that I'm going to dramatically improve my odds? I can't imagine so.

I still need about 11 ore for the best helmet I can get... the only thing left then would be the Setzer (in terms of things to acquire for power). Then it's all fun, buying dyes and changing clothes, completing other quests, and eventually going after the skulls again. I also noticed that the steel shield is good against black scorpions, they seem easier to battle even 2 at a time.