>>527484812
What you said makes sense and made me wonder if I was wrong, but it turns out that the Xu Wu quest actually has your hunter mention the fact that their clothes are deterrents for the guardians. I think the idea is that Xu Wu spawn camps the guardians so they associate the smell of the cocoon itself with food. I assume the clothes work more like camouflage than actual deterrents in the end, and they still have to walk around carefully.