Instead of having an ugly direct timer on the HUD

Why not work in the timers to the map itself? Instead of having number timers in the UI, have circles in the map itself, where the buffs / epic monsters are, and have the circles represent time left until spawn. This would leave it so buffs you have seen / are seeing have their "time" displayed on the ground where they spawn, and you could check the spawn time on other buffs by going to where the monsters spawn. In this way, you remove the ugly UI timer, and the map will convey the timers.