Steady Shot

Steady Shot is a Hunter ability, learned at level 3 for. It that causes weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.1 + 251] and generates 9 Focus. Note that all shots have a .5 second hidden cast time, so the effective base casting time of this spell in-game is 2 seconds, as it appears in the in-game tooltip (but not necessarily retrieved from db sites).

Tips and tactics
To understand how steady shot is affected by haste ratings it's important to understand how haste is calculated. A haste bonus is multiplied by frequency to achieve post-haste speed. World of Warcraft expresses all speeds as period rather than frequency, so the period must be divided by 1+bonus.

As for example in the above case:

Steady Shot Cast Time = 2 / 1.15 (hunter base ranged haste) / 1.2 (Serpent's Swiftness) = 1.4493 1.4493 + 0.5 + 0.2 = 2.149 2.149 x 1.15 x 1.2 = 2.966

Steady Shot is affected by Haste bonuses including that granted by Auto Shot and Serpent's Swiftness. It is also affected by ranged attack speed bonuses including Rapid Fire and Bloodlust.

Hunters are the only class whose GCD is unaffected by haste. For this reason, hunters who are specializing in the Beast Mastery tree and who have Serpent's Swiftness will find additional haste from gear to be almost worthless. Even if Steady Shot completes in 1.4493 seconds, it still cannot be fired again until 1.5 seconds have passed.