Hey, thanks for playing!
No, the punches are indeed 0 damage, quite low on power, I would say.
Papercut is slightly different, enemies take "fatigue damage" every time they hit you, buffed by poison, and papercut lets you chip them between attacks.
As for the attacks...it's a bit of both, but less delay between alert and attack makes trigger-dodge on exclamation mark actually work, so it is easier with just that.