Well my understanding is that the damage each item does in the game will be fine tuned and damage for some, such as pick axes, will be taken off completely(so builders can't use diamond pick axes to kill). This makes battles last much longer and seem like you have a lot more health.
This makes the monk's eagle fist (stun 2 seconds) quite valuable in a fight because 2 seconds is a lot in pvp even if it doesn't sound like it.
Jumping off high areas is always good like for chasing people quicker, or setting up a good ambush where someone can jump off of a ridiculous spot that the enemy would never expect. It's not easy and won't always be useful, but I can see how it could be an asset to pvp. Especially in the nether where it's all cliffs. Jump off ridiculous height, distract them for a second, stun for 2 more, rest of the party has a bridge built and is now down to finish him.
As I said with weapons and items being fine tuned for damage, I'm sure they will do something about fists, but even if it goes down the same % that other things do, I think it was worked out that they would be punching as strong as iron swords. They get NO weapons usually, so that skill is like giving them an iron sword that is harder to use. It's a healer class, it's not meant to be THAT good at fighting, just decent, because it has a skill you forgot, basic healer healing.
Because of the healing you get at level 1 you can bandage yourself in the middle of a fight and start regenerating health even if you are out of food, and it's a pretty half decent regeneration unless they changed it since I last used it.
So you are a guy in leather armor with an iron sword that regenerates health constantly that can ambush/escape off of any height cliffs and stun them before you pummel them or stun before you run, getting a good head start.
Certainly not a warrior class, but it will be good.
EDIT:: I like the idea of the aura's but I don't see anything being re done unless the classes end up being too unbalanced. It would be a cool class to replace the monk though, since there are an even amount of sub classes per class. Although I like the monk and the plugin should be mostly finished by now.