Welcome to Gaia! ::

look, first of all i find it very hard to believe that you will ever know "all the chords"(not only you)
and about tyour question... its just depend on alot of things... look knowing more things can always just make you better. but actually if ypur play rock or metal its less likely to be using all the "special chords" you use it more on jazz and blues....
so my answer to you is "depends on how seriously youre intending to take your guitar career"...

hope i could supply any assistance

First of all, establish the basics before you jump to complicated chord structures, memorize the major chords (by that i mean the open and the barre chords), this will give you a good foothold on chords, and by the way chords and scales are not different by their function in music as you think, they are quite similar, and as what Chibi- Boku wrote it makes things interesting, may it be in dist or clean.

I prefer dist though.

yeah they do. not too much distortion or it sound a little sketchy. but i hear chords in both jazz and rock. oh, have you heard of tenacious d? all chords and is classed as rock.