Intent is the most vital ingredient to lucid dreaming. So it doesn’t only help, it’s almost essential (but not quite). Setting up your intent before sleeping is at the core of MILD, one of the bread and butter techniques. If you want to know about WILD, I guess that’s less about intent but about keeping a constant minimal level of consciousness as your falling asleep. But I’m not a WILDer so can’t say for sure what role it has.
Besides induction, intent is also vital for getting things done inside the lucid dream. Access to waking life memory can be limited, so having a good plan upfront and swearing to implement it in your next LD can help you accomplish specific goals inside your dreams more easily.