Help With Item Forging

Hey all, I’m new to the game (half way through my 3rd game playing through the initial story realms) and I’m having trouble understanding the item forge mechanic. It seems like by the time I’ve unlocked the forge, my 3-4 champions pretty much all already have decent gear and I don’t see much benefit from disenchanting some of the items to get something a little more specifically tailored to me vs what I’ve acquired naturally. Now I haven’t looked into it too deeply yet and o my playing on normal difficulty so maybe it’s just not challenging enough to fully matter at this point. Can someone shed some insight on the best use of this mechanic? Thanks!