Yeah pretty much. Everything he does is unsafe or has gaps. Even F34 has a gap in it. 112 has a gap and starts high. B14 is -10. Basically all his strings are either punishable on block or have a gap in them. So yeah, Misery Blade is kinda mandatory unfortunately.
However, if you play footsies and reactionary that’s where Scorpion shines. You can get the life lead and then just keep your distance. They can’t zone you out and meter builds automatically anyway so there’s almost no risk in just playing keep away and/or turtling.
This is how I got most of my hatemail, lol. I would get the lead then just keep my distance. If they jumped in from full screen, I could spear, demon dash, or teleport. If they jumped in from around half screen or so, I could do demon dash or do standing 4 into a spear combo. If they jumped in close, just was using uppercut. So basically you force/condition them to not jump. So now they have to walk you down. Once they’re in range you can start playing footsies. Scorpion has pretty good footsies with his D4, B14, F34, B2, etc. Usually I was doing D4 to poke and B14 to whiff punish in footsies. B14 leads to big combos (with meter of course) so it’s really good as a whiff punish. It starting with the back button also helps since you’ll be walking back a lot out of their ranges in footsies.