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haste (WoW)
Haste and haste rating are a means of quickening the rate at which a player attacks or casts spells. Note that this is not the same thing as increased Run Speed. There are also two variations on haste -- normal haste (for physical attacks) and spell haste.
Haste increases the rate at which something is accomplished. This does NOT mean that it automatically reduces the time that something is done by the same amount. For example, having 100% extra haste means you are working twice as quickly as you would normally, and thus finish the task in half the time. It is a common misconception that having 100% haste would lead to attacks taking no time at all, however it is not unheard for a player to have over 100% haste for short periods of time.
Also, when multiple haste effects are in effect, the effects multiply.
Overall Speed = (1 + First_Effect_As_A_Decimal) * (1 + Second_Effect_As_A_Decimal) * ...
For example, if a hunter with a 15% quiver activates Rapid Fire for a temporary 40% haste bonus, the result is (1 + .15) * (1 + .40) = 161%, or +61% haste. Adding would have yielded a total of just 55.
There are many abilities and effects in the game which grant fixed percentages of haste. Additionally, many items have "haste rating" on them. Every 15.7 points of haste rating counts as 1% haste. A character's entire haste rating is treated as a single source of haste -- it is not multiplied like in the example above, however it would be multiplied with other effects.
Regardless of how quickly a player is operating, they can only ever perform one action every 1.5 seconds (or 1.0 for rogues) because of the global cooldown, however their basic attacks can be far quicker than this.
As of patch 2.4.0, Spell Haste Rating can reduce the Global Cooldown to a minimum of 1.0 seconds for casting spells. The 1.5 second cooldown remains in effect for all other activities that trigger it, however.