It has gone down since I first played it.
For getting around no metal on a savage, you have a few options:
Go naked. the class is designed around it so for a piece of armor you can't find a non-metal alternative for (gems/energy/elements/clothing work as long as it's not metal or gold) you can ignore it until you kill for it. Warpaint and to a lesser extent smear mud works for covering these slots.
For weapons, you need to rank up to 30 or 32 as fast as you can. You'll get fashion spear and fashion staff (improvise weapon is not that great) and even if you're not dual wielding the average and tanking on these things is excellent enough not to worry about it.
It is also not wholly necessary to never, ever wear metal. A single piece is fine if you don't mind losing your ambush onslaught bonus. Savage specific skills, creep, camo and ambush will start to suffer the more herbs you pile on.