When to use Flare?

[Ringabell]

I've seen comments like the one in bold said numerous times. Along with other things like people counting the 2 seconds in their head. Are people guessing or using an internal clock? Are people unaware that you can just use the umbral ice buff timer to see your 2 second wait time? i.e. You get your tick at 8 seconds on your UI buff, you would start your cast at 6 seconds on your UI buff.

Just throwing it out there because i've seen enough people say things that lead me to believe they are kind of guessing at the 2 second window when the game gives you its own timer to use.

I feel like a total n00b now. Where is the timer?