Effects in cues

I need some remedial Effects help.  I have an Absolute Effect that flashes some strobe units at random for a lightning effect.  In the cues, sometimes I need the effect to last for .5 seconds, sometimes for 1 second, etc. depending on the length of the thunder sound cues.  Can I use the same effect for each cue and change a duration setting in the cue, or do I need to autofollow to another cue that stops the effect and use the follow time as the duration time?  Or could I create copies of the Absolute Effect with different duration times so that I don't clutter up the cue list with a lot of follow cues?

Related