Alteration vs Armors

[kanser03]

I'm quite curious about the difference between alteration skills (ex. oakflesh, stoneflesh) and armors, and the way it works. I'm using stoneflesh already and it gives 60 armor rating but when I got hit, it doesn't seem that I had additional armor rating, I'm still a tofu.

 

[Vrael42]

How about using armor together with alteration spells?! lol
Pure mage armor fails, believe me, even if you have all perks you get maximum some crummy 300 or 400 out of the best spells (or dragonhide which takes time to cast) which is still a 4 hit death on hard by draug deathlords or so.