Why E-boats avoided Tribal-class destroyers

Would E-boats have been effective against Tribal-class destroyers?

No; a Schnellboot caught by a Tribal-class destroyer's much heavier gun battery was in a very unfavorable fight.

E-boats were poorly matched against Tribal-class destroyers. The destroyer's larger weapons and fighting capacity imposed a severe penalty once it caught a lightly protected boat. Battle accounts describe German small craft suffering heavily when Tribals brought their batteries to bear. The answer places the E-boat's effectiveness within a target hierarchy rather than treating it as a universal surface combatant.