Weapon Bond and Str-replacement Feats

Q: If I take Weapon Bond as a trait and use Int or Dex as my substitute ability score, what benefits do I get from Tactics of the Mind or Weapon Finesse base masteries, respectively?

The 'only' benefit the base masteries of these feats provide a character with Weapon Bond for the same ability score is that they allow the character to access the expanded masteries of the feat. This is an opportunity cost of taking Weapon Bond as a trait.

Weapon Bond and Tactics of the Mind 7 and 8

Refer to Tactics of the Mind for details.

Ranged weapons and weapon bond

Weapon Bond only allows you to use another ability instead of Strength, so you would still use your Dexterity for ranged attack rolls. If you had a composite bow, you would get bonus damage based on your replacement attribute, but you would still need to have a high enough Strength to wield it or suffer the attack penalties.

Essentially weapon bond is a suboptimal trait for ranged weapons. Of those, it works best with slings and thrown weapons (which get Strength bonus to damage automatically), marginally with Composite bows (since you can get damage bonuses, at a penalty to hit) and not at all with other bows and crossbows.

When do the benefits of weapon bond apply?

You gain the advantages of Weapon Bond only for attack rolls. You don't get it for Base Attack Checks (as they are not attack rolls), nor for Strength checks, even if those checks are made as parts of special attacks (such as the Strength check to trip an opponent).