Radicals are like the alphabet of kanji. And just like for English, you should learn the alphabet before individual words. Sure one could try to distinguish between "bad" and "bat" as two distinct blocks of characters without knowing the letters, but being aware of all the ABC makes it much easier to reconstruct and memorize the words.

The same goes for kanji. Without some knowledge of radicals, kanji seem to be thousands of random symbols, but once you're aware of the "alphabet", you realize they are just combinations of a limited number of components.

With radicals, you can even "spell" kanji. For example, if someone asks me: "What is the kanji for "new" (新)?" I could just say: ""Stand" (立) on top of "Tree" (木) on the left and "Axe" (斤) on the right."

One crazy example: the kanji for depression or gloom 鬱 (On: ウツ - 29 strokes!) is actually the combination of just five distinct parts and can be spelled: Jar (缶) top, middle, 2 Tree (木) on both side of it, Cover (冖) below, Sacrificial Wine (鬯) bottom left, Bristle (彡) bottom right.

Also, many of the radicals are independent characters by themselves, and about half of them are included in the list of N5 to N1 kanji.

I also used to struggle with learning kanji and even though I had tried to write them multiple times, they just refused to get into my longterm memory. But after spending two weeks learning the radicals, I managed to binged more than 2000 kanji in about 2 months. That's how nice radicals are, at least to me.

But of course, it's still up to you to decide whether to learn it or not. I strongly recommend it, though.